Unable to Respond to a Guest's Private Review

[Gina3]

Hi,

I'm new to Airbnb although I have been hosting my house for five years. I love the concept of Airbnb and the idea that hosts can review as well as guests.  I'm disappointed that I have received a bad private review from a guest.  There were two guests staying in the two bedrooms of my 3 bed house for one week, I dropped the price by approx £75 so that it was within their budget, academics visiting a colleague at the local uni campus. They then allowed another colleague to stay in the third bedroom and never told me about it, I found out when I went to clean, they even made the bed up again to look like no one had stayed.  At the end I charged an extra £50 for the extra guest (over the whole week).  The guest said I was unfair, should only have charged £35 as they forgot to tell me and he only stayed one night. I stuck to £50 which was paid as whether the bed has been slept in one night or 7 nights the result is the same and the guest abused my hospitality and my generousity. I also pointed out that it was a children's bedroom with childrens beds only suitable up to the age of 16 and that this was in the house rules and the contract the guest had signed.  Although they wrote a basic polite public review they were pretty unkind in the private review stating 

"I was slightly disappointed with the way the dispute was 'resolved'. The £50 amount charged by the owner was not unjustified, but the amount seemed arbitrary (and a bit high!): it would have been nice to have been given a more detailed idea of what the charge was covering (extra cleaning expenses incurred, for example). Without this, the it seemed more like a 'penalty fine' for breaking a rule, which, in the context of a friendly host-guest dynamic, felt like a bit of a shame. I'd recommend that in the future, if a contractual stipulation is broken, any associated charges be better explained."

But in the emails during the dispute resolution all of the above was covered so the guest is complaining that I charged his extra guest £50 for staying the week.  The bedroom they used was clearly off limits and was a childrens bedroom which I made clear and reminded him of. 

Maybe I should have written something scathing as well, but being polite I just said it was a shame that there was a dispute at the end but I was grateful of his understanding of the situation.

It seems a shame to me that he can write this private review that I have no ability to respond to and Airbnb are unable to remove it as inappropriate and unfair.

[Clare0]

I suppose you could answer her in a message which will be private between you and the guest.  What a nerve to "allow" an extra guest! it wasn't her option to "allow"..it was yours. I have no sympathy for her since she obviously was trying to get another person in your place without paying at all.  It's like getting caught stealing and then complaining you have to pay for it, albeit a bit more.  What arrogance!

[Nancy2]

Private reviews are just that, private.  No one sees it but you so there is no need to respond at all!  It was good of him not to go into all that on the Public review that potential guests would see.

It sounds like he was giving you some advice about the next time something happens and you need to charge extra.  The advice I saw:  To better explain how you came up with the amount you charged.  I think that's good feedback and might make someone more apt to pay without a grudge. 

So nothing to worry about or fret over 🙂

[Charity1]

I really wish hosts would stop trying so hard to be polite. I am on a streak right now of guests who just suck. I sincerely doubt that their behaviour suddenly became this way, especially when I keep seeing posts from hosts about trying to be nice. Be honest! That saves the rest of us from them!

[Robin4]

@Charity1 @Alice-and-Jeff0 @Dee9

Charity, the bulk of us who have been doing this for a while have something to protect. We have a string of nice reviews, possibly superhost status, and as we build we want to make sure we don't upset the 'apple cart'. And you are right we do pussyfoot around issues where guests are involved.

I have had a few guests over the past 6 months that I probably would not want to see again. I have tried my heart out for them, they have told me what I could have done better, and two of them have not even had the courtesy of spending a couple of minutes to write a review when I have made some glowing statement about them. Their page looks ok....mine.....zippo!

I will now only ever write very brief generic reviews of guests, and if there were issues that other hosts need to know about I will point them out, and in my review response, that's where I will make my glowing statements if they have treated me kindly, but I always look at the star rating they have given me before I write my review response. I will always be diplomatic but, I will also always get my point across.....Two faced! maybe, but Charity, I have something to protect.

Cheers.....Rob

[Rachael26]

@Robin4

Rob I am curious about what you said at the end of your response here - that you always look at the star rating that your guest gave you BEFORE you write a review for them? Is this possible? As I thought ABB doesn't reveal the reviews until both parties have responded.....

or is that how they do it down under?

Cheers!

[Rachael26]

@Robin4

Got it! Understood now - - you are talking about the 2nd response.... OK.

Shame you feel it necessary to withhold on the first one until you see what they wrote. Be brave- open, honest and genuine wins out in the long run. 🙂

[Robin4]

@Rachael26

Yes, that's the ace we have up our sleeve...the review response. It's not really a matter of 'holding back' in the review. We all have a good idea of how 90% of reviews are going to go, and of course we need to be honest, so, that 90% don't pose a problem, they are going to be complimentary, or they are not. If I feel the experience was great I will just say they were wonderful to host have no hesitation in recommending to other hosts! And that is all other hosts want to see....They don't want some great epistle to wade through. If rules were broken, the guest was difficult, did not read the house rules or was not in any way a good fit I would state it in the review...."Unfortunately time did not permit us to engage a builder to tack on that additional bedroom the guest though they they were going to get"!

"I welcome and look forward to each new guest, but this is my house that I am inviting them into and I do expect that guests will treat my property with respect, just as I would theirs. It was unfortunate that an accident impacted on this guests stay and even more unfortunate that the guest saw fit to not only ignore my house rules, but inform me of the damage. Accidents happen, and that's a fact of life. I wish the guest all the best for the future, but would decline the invitation to host them again"!

Rachael you have fulfilled your duty to inform the community, and you have 'shamed' the guest rather than 'bad mouthed' them.

And keep it short. Great long responses draw peoples attention to what might have been a minor issue and slipped off the radar in no time. A lengthy antagonistic response just makes you look the difficult one! 

Look I have been lucky Rachael, I have never had a 'difficult' guest, but by God I have worked hard to make it that way and as I just said in another thread it's possibly because I am a Virgo...I attend to details.

I do take it personally if I get less than a 5, I know that's stupid, but it's me! So, that review response is where I tell them how wonderful they were, and how the earth moved for me! And before I write that review 'response' I go to my 'Stats' and see how they rated me.

And on the hospitality note, yes I did totally misunderstand what you were getting at on the food thread. It's not that you didn't explain it well, you did, and I will respond with something more appropriate instead of blowing my own bags.....ok. 

Cheers.....Rob

[Huma0]

@Robin4

Don't start writing generic reviews for your guests!

What I do is this:

1. I very rarely write a review for a guest until they leave one for me. Like you, I got disappointed when guests didn't take the time to write one, especially when they have raved about their stay to me and told me they would leave me a glowing review! However, sometimes, getting the notification that a host has left a review prompts the guest to leave one too, so maybe this isn't the best tactic for everyone. Enough of my guests leave reviews though so I don't need to worry about that.

2. If a guest has been problematic, I approach it in two different ways. If I feel they were terrible (rarely happens) and I need to warn other hosts about it, I will leave a review. If they just got on my nerves, but I think they would be fine in a whole unit where they can't bother other people staying there, again, I wait for them to leave a review before I leave mine.

PS I also always look at the star rating as well as the review before writing a response, but I woudn't say anything negative if the guest had left a positive review. I don't think future guests can see who left you four stars as apposed to five, only your overall star ratings, so I don't think it helps the host to leave a less than positive response to their review.

You know more about all this than me anyway, but it sounds like you have been discouraged lately by ungrateful guests, and I think that's a shame. Don't let it change your lovely way of hosting which most of your guests seem to love!

[Dee9]

i dont think it was all that bad really....and nice of them not to say in public

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Sorry to say something unpleasant, but you lowered your price to accept a reservation and then, quite unfairly, they complained about the price.  This is valuable information to NEVER LOWER YOUR PRICE.  Because even the lowest is not good enough for some.  

We also live close to a University, and will never bow down to the "I'm a lowly academic" scenario.  Why?  There are cheaper places to stay nearby and, inevitably, the guests are, weirdly, sociopaths who feel entitled to your space at whatever price they think is reasonable. Which is why they "invited" an extra guest and tried to cover it up.  

[David126]

As @Robin4 can probably guess my reviews tend to be both short and follow the same format, I have no interest in private messages etc.

Currently in a minor state of shock, a guest checked in, did my normal spiel mentioned the wifi to login to and she knew! Sort of surprised and she said well it is on your confirmation. Well yes it is, nobody else has noticed it or mentioned it so had completley forgotten.

So there is hope out there.

PS Also agree never discount, always seems to end in tears.

[Wendy-and-Frank0]

Your listing isn't showing up.  Do you charge more for the third guest?  If so, that's all you had to do.

Fully agree:  never lower the price.  It was at that precise moment that you lost total control of the situation.

[Andrea9]

@Gina3

joining in on the good advice you got from all other hosts, I agree that budging on the price is not a good idea, because it easily gets you guests who, while they can't afford more and should be thankful, more times than not tend to think they need to wring the bottle to squeeze out the last drop.

If your maximum amount of guests for the listing was 2, then that would already have been their breaking of House Rules.

Also, to quote a very successful businessman: You get what you inspect, not what you expect. This may sound out of context but to me means that if you don't implement controls, such as locking the door of a seductively empty 3rd bedroom, you're going to get extra overnight guests. That's why it's better for longer periods to not give a refund, but to rather pay that amount to somebody to come in weekly with fresh linens and clean the place while rolling an eyeball over all to see if anything untowards is happening. Guests may not want that, but hey, it's your property and not their's. Will give you much more peace of mind knowing what's going on (or not going on!).

I do feel for you that you had this unpleasant experience, but I'm sure that from now on you'll be better equipped for renting out your place to absolute strangers you have no way of knowing whether they can be trusted. 

[Huma0]

@Andrea9

Very valid points! I think locking the areas that are out of bounds to the guests makes sense.

I often hear hosts saying that if you agree to lower your price, you will get problematic guests, so I also won't give an additional discount unless there's a good reason, e.g. I have when the room a guest wanted to book wasn't available, but another, slightly more expensive one was. She didn't ask for a discount. I offered it and she was very grateful.

It's funny though because I was having a conversation about this earlier in the week with someone. I said that my friends were always telling me I charge too little, but that I wasn't going to put up my prices right now. The person I was speaking to said, well you probably get nicer people staying by keeping the prices low!

No. My actual reason is because the market in London is really flooded so I have to keep my prices reasonable to compete (I'm not going to give the rooms away at stupidly low rates though). It's funny though how different perceptions are...