Understanding reviews...

[Oad0]

We believe that to become a successful host - one needs to be a super duper guest screener. We cant say enough about the harm Bad guests bring on hosts. And one of the screening tools reviews of other hosts. But are all reviews the same? The very best and the very worst are straight forward, and easy to understand. But we noticed lately that some short reviews like: “John stayed for two weeks at our home” are actually negative, So we cannot trust reviews that don’t mention cleanliness, communication etc. Another type is the cut-n-paste, some hosts would just give the very same review to any guest, that was lukewarm ok. If you have any other insight - we’d love to hear from you

[Kath9]

@Oad0, my oft-used phrase 'we hosts are all we have for each other' is relevant here. I 100% agree that it's frustrating when hosts don't provide an accurate and honest review because how else are we supposed to know what a prospective guest will be like? Airbnb does little to nothing to protect us so it is imperative that hosts support each other by taking the time to review guests properly. It can be difficult to leave a negative review, which is maybe why some hosts don't, but the rise in entitled and badly behaved guests definitely warrants it when necessary. Likewise, it's important to leave glowing reviews for great guests to promote them to other hosts. 

[Carmen-and-Ben0]

We have done the cut and paste portion reviews only because in some we did not get a chance to meet the guest in person. It’s hard to rely on the verbiage the host uses to assess a guest, since we are dealing with translations from many different languages. However, the most reliable tool is ‘Not Recommend’ feature of the review. 

We go out of our way to be fair to the guests, using this term We did not have a good experience with this guest, then go on to describe our experience. 

The worst part is that Airbnb sticks to their review policy regardless of local law violation by a guest. When a host calls Airbnb with an issue the host has to get ready for a fight with Airbnb. 

Some case managers are plain useless. Some are super stars. To be considered a super star they don’t need to agree with us, in some cases they just need to know and explain the policy or fairly look at the issue, gather facts and respond in a manner which demonstrates they understood our concern and have an appropriate response for us. Again, doe not mean being in agreement with us. 

The only reason we continue to host here is because MOST guests are really decent.

It is that 1 to 2 percent of the guest who create hell for us.

We had two bad guests in one quarter.

One guest who was unreasonably demanding gave us a one star review, combined in the same qtr with another guest whom we ejected from our property, cancelled his reservation before he took possession or even entered the unit.

This is “supposedly” allowed under Airbnb policy when a guest does not make you feel comfortable. 

We opted to give him a full refund. AirBnB still allowed him to review us.

One star and complete lies which cost us Superhost status.

So we received aggravations, angst, time on the phone and frustration with Airbnb.

We did not get paid and got a bad review on top of that. A complete loss all around for us and Airbnb does not care. 

We are on our own as host and need to do as you suggest give more detailed reviews. Which we will do. 

One suggestion, on the desktop version of Airbnb, you can see how your guests have reviewed past hosts, if they reviewed them at all or had past stays. 

You can get an idea of how they tend to review the hosts. 

Compare their reviews to other guests’ reviews and you a better picture of what to expect. 

[Kelly149]

I've hosted plenty of guests who had good reviews but were truly lousy guests, consequently I don't trust the ABB review system at all.

It's unfortunate, but since ABB has set up the review system they way they have we're just stuck with what we've got.

And btw, I had a CS tell me recently that the only thing that would block a guest from IB is 1* review, that "not recommend" "thumbs up/down" doesn't actually count for anything. Who knows???