What do you think about changing the review process so it's inherently fair?

[Jan653]

I have repeatedly suggested that Airbnb change the paradigm of Host/Guest reviews. Recently, I was encouraged by an Airbnb supervisor to suggest this to the Airbnb community. I seek your constructive feedback.

Here goes...

PREMISE: I believe it's best to have the review process free from bias related to extra service fees/damage/reimbursements.

BACKGROUND: I have hosted since 2014 and own a large, very high-end, Airbnb in a major metropolitan city. It almost goes without saying that guests are not always willing to pay for damage or extra service fees. Over the years I felt compelled to absorb a large sum of extra service charges, repairs, etc. because I wanted to keep my Airbnb Host rating high. I have also, albeit rarely, been asked to reimburse money to guests (e.g., they paid for two dogs and only brought one dog).

FIRST STEP (no change): Host must submit all evidence (photos, estimates of repair, receipts, narrative, etc.) to Airbnb within the review period (14 days) or before their next Guest arrives, whichever comes first.

SUGGESTED CHANGE:  However, the host's submission of evidence is "PRIVATE" until after the Host/Guest's deadline to submit a review (i.e., 14 days). During the review period, only the appointed Airbnb staff and Host can view the evidence.

After Host & Guest have completed the review process (or not) the Host may, if they choose to, continue with the online process of seeking additional money from the former Guest.

Note, affording the Guest equal opportunity to protect their interest by is achieved by ensuring they too may file a "PRIVATE" claim within the above-stated parameters.

IMO, this keeps the review process "clean" and free from bias related to asking for additional money from Guests (or reimbursements from Hosts).

What do you think?

[Amy-and-Brian0]

I think this is a great idea. There have been several cases in our condo where we've thought twice before asking for a resolution. However, there have been several times where the tenants broke lamps or tables and picture frames, etc. where we had to ask for the money as it was significant enough. Even in those cases we worried our reviews would be less or negative because of it. And in a couple of those cases, the tenants refused to give us any money, where we had to escalate to AirBnB. Those were the most worrisome - review wise.

I guess we've been lucky as those people who broke things either never left a review at all or still gave us 5 stars. 

One thing to note, almost every booking we have ends and another starts within a couple of hours of each other. It's not always possible to get a request for cash in during that 4 hour period. We always try to send photos in the chat to the guests to inform them of the damage, but the formal request for money is hard to do on a phone properly imo. That part of the process has always been a sticking point for us frankly.

[Sarah977]

@Jan653  I'm not sure what the point was of an Airbnb supervisor encouraging you to take this to the community, except to fob off your suggestion where it won't have any impact.  Hosts have been suggesting all kinds of ways to make the review process more fair, threads with suggestions that pages and pages of hosts are in agreement with, and Airbnb has completely ignored all of it. They have promised to "look at" these issues, blah blah about "we hear you and we're working on it", yet nothing whatsoever changes.

I do support your idea, but even if 100 hosts agree, I doubt Airbnb will follow suit.

[Jan653]

@Sara0! It is good to know that I am not the only person that has been routinely ignored when it comes to the subject of Hosting and problematic Guests. A professed squeaky wheel, I promise that I will continue to review this thread until I am satisfied that I have enough data from this, and other, platforms, and then take it up a level again and again until we are heard. p.s. your home is on my bucket list  🙂

[Sarah977]

@Jan653  Thanks, would love to have you as a guest. And I love squeaky wheels- I've gotten things changed throughout the course of my life that people said "good luck" on, by being just that. Airbnb's quite the behemoth to battle, though. Go for it, you'll get plenty of support here.

[Jan653]

@Sarah0 thank you... I will take all the support I can get. ARBNB is a big corporation ... I am stubborn when it comes to fair play.

[Sarah977]

@Jan653  In truth, Airbnb's direction seems to be to placate guests at the host's expense, and is getting more so. They want Joe the Party Boy, with his 15 unregistered buddies, who vomited all over the house and disturbed the neighbors to the point that the police had to be called, to be able to continue booking and trashing homes and leave a nasty review because he was asked to pay for the damage, while systematically removing all the tools that guests use to vet prospective guests.

[Jan653]

AND that is precisely what I am talking about ... Although, I have had the occasional doctor, mid aged wealthy folks, and other various and sundry guests who have trashed, broken, and stained stuff then lied about it to my face. Your note above echoes my sentiment around the corporate perspective and agenda.  This is not acceptable. The corporation demands fairness on all levels with regard to wages, resisting hate, bigotry, etc. (a good thing) so why not when it comes to their bottom line? 

[Bj24]

First off, your idea is one of those that make you say "Duh! How could we have been so blind! Thats the only way it should be." but I agree with who ever it was that mentioned it being a calculated decision by AirBnB - however! take solace in the reality that they dont care about any of the reviews for either party - Host, Guest, prospective Guest, Problem Guests, Problem Host* yet apparently Rasicm is the only thing that will actually get you the Boot. But even then you probably have to get the media involved. Their pure and final bottom line is the transaction fee - if your not wearing a pointy white hat, its a free for all. 

Lets step away from the Host abuse, and take a look at the Guest Abuse in my Recent post (link below) if you care for the process read the manual, if you care to see the other side of the grass; simply click through the Host Profiles provided and take a wee gander at the 1000+ Guests who for lack of a better word, were at the wrong place... booking with the wrong person... and most importantly writing a meaningless review.

If they're not taking action on active fraud, they certainly wont prioritize any changes to the review policy.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/The-Super-Hoax-Paradox-Tips-and-Tricks-unofficially-vali...

[Huma0]

@Jan653While I agree with your suggestion wholeheartedly, @Sarah977  makes a good point, i.e. that this particular issue has been posted about countless times already on the forums and countless hosts have supported the exact same suggestion.

I am not sure what will get these kinds of changes implemented. I have heard that sending direct feedback to Airbnb is more effective, i.e. if lots of hosts send feedback of the same nature, someone will pay attention, but I don't know if that is true or not.

I have also heard that posting on Airbnb's Twitter can be effective for getting problems resolved that the CS reps have failed to help with. What if you were to get 100 responses of support on this thread and at least half of those Tweeted about it within a short space of time? Would that get Airbnb to address the issue? Has anyone tried similar with another issue? Would be interesting to know.

[Jan653]

@Huma0 you just nailed it! that is exactly the plan. Twitter, as much as I do not care for it, is IMO the most efficient means of pricking reluctant corporate, ears.  AND I am new to this issue within our Airbnb community.   it's important to hear what the people who are affected by this issue want, look for new approaches, etc. before garnering the support of our Responders and launching a campaign ... Thank you for adding to this process. J.

[Huma0]

@Jan653 

I think you will find a lot of hosts agree with you. Maybe try doing a search here for keywords that might relate to it, because I have seen a lot of posts relating to this and there must be many more I have not seen.

I have found there are generally two completely different types of guests when it comes to damages. The first will tell you they have broken something and offer to pay for it. The second will not say a word and then not only act surprised when you mention it, but become defensive and then rude. They might accuse of you trying to rip them off, even if you have not asked them to pay a penny.

I have only filed one resolution case for damages because it was not something small. The guest didn't want to pay, but didn't fall into either of the two categories above. He was a host himself, and was polite about it and still left me a very nice review before the case was resolved. I think that's pretty ususual though.

More likely, the guest is going to be retalitory. They are expecting a bad review from you so are going to leave a less than perfect one for you even if everything else was perfect with their stay. It's funny how quickly a happy guest can turn nasty when you mention that they broke something! 

This really puts undue pressure on hosts. There is supposed to be a security deposit (I know it's not collected in advance, but it's supposed to be an accessible resource) and a host guarantee, so the host is entitled to claim the costs of something a guest damages. However, I am very reluctant to do so knowing the guest can then knock me in the reviews and effect my business. 

When I say that I have only claimed once, it's not because guests don't frequently damage things, it's because I usually let it slide and swallow the costs myself. It just seems too stressful to go through the whole resolution process (not knowing if Airbnb are going to support you) at the same time as risking a negative review and ratings. That's not fair. It makes a nonsense out of the whole "We've got your back," statement.

And yes, having to file everything before the next guest checks in is really difficult for hosts that have back to back bookings (the kinds of hosts I suspect Airbnb wants). If I were to start filing a claim right after a guest checked out, I would not have enough time to get the listing ready for the next guest!

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  I can understand documenting damage before the next guest checks in, so it's clear which guest caused the damage, but time and date stamped photos should be adequate. Having to report and start the claim process when a host is madly trying to prepare for the next guest is so unfair, but I suspect it's a calculated requirement to discourage claims.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

I suspect that, like with so many things, it depends on the CS rep you get and how logical they are.

So, the claim I did make (which was successful) was a bit complicated in this respect, because I have three guest rooms and one guest broke the front door lock, which everyone uses. Not only were other guests staying (but already out) when it happened, but I also had new guests arriving for another room within minutes and I was trapped inside the house with no way of letting them in!

However, I knew 100% that it was him for a number of reasons. I heard him abusing the door and he was the only one that was here at the time. I called Airbnb and explained the situation as soon as I could, but it was impossible to do this before the new guests arrived. I was too busy trying to alert my neighbour to get some help and also calling around to get a locksmith here ASAP.

Luckily, I got a very reasonable rep who told me he would look into it, then that I first had to request the money from the guest, then to send photos of the lock and the quote from the locksmith.

I think what really helped me in this situation was that as soon as I realised the lock was broken, I had messaged the guest on Airbnb to tell him what he had done. I had also messaged him later summarising the conversation we had both had with the locksmith and the reasons why it could only have been him who broke the lock. His arguments weren't very logical and mine were, but the most important thing was it was all there on the messaging system BEFORE another guest checked into his room.

So, I think even if you can't send the evidence, if you can notify both Airbnb and the guest of the damage before the next guest checks in, that really helps.

[Kelly149]

@Huma0@Jan0 

i mentioned this on a thread on this subject years ago...

in regard to back to back guests: I had guests lock themselves out of a bathroom. They figured they’d kick the door in. Great. They got the door unlocked but also broke the door. 

They confessed but I had new (abb) guests coming that same day. No way I could get an official repair estimate before new guests arrived. So I told CS: either you’re allowing this claim to be filed incomplete OR you’re canceling this afternoon’s guests. 

They chose to adjust the claim parameters (& then later charged the guest for repairs). So, not exactly Jan’s question but just saying that abb is perfectly willing to bend the rules when it suits them (they didn’t want to have to rehome the second group), but if it’s just a matter of doing the reasonable, sensible thing (ie a review shouldn’t be retaliation) then they aren’t really interested