Bad review

[Myell0]

Hi

We just had an incident where guests arrived early to our cottage without organising it with us, we had guests leave that morning and she arrived soon after earlier then our cleaner arriving who was booked in for cleaning  the cottage that day.

We consistently get 5 star reviews as we work hard to keep our kiwi 1950s cottage super clean for our guests, on her leaving she gave us a low review for value and cleanliness.

I've contact the super host team to ask them how can she be allowed to review our house on cleanliness if they stopped us cleaning and making beds resetting it before they arrived ?

They are siding with the guests, I'm just asked what other super hosts think. Are we in the wrong to ask this review to be removed?

Would love to hear your thought as this seems unfair to us.

Thank you

[Basha0 · Accepted solution]

It may not be worth fighting to have the review removed but better to respond to the review as that is what future guests may take notice of. Comment that it is odd that the guest who arrived way too early and kicked the cleaners out, would even comment on cleanliness. 

[Fred13]

@Myell0  Here is the mistake, it is twofold:

1. You counted on the guest to be understanding and to use her imagination by allowing them to enter an unprepared place. An understandable mistake, we done it ourselves and learn that never shall we allow guests to enter our place in the first place and then hope they will be fair.

2. In case all of the above occurs and the guest is not fair, then the hope (round #2) would be that a CS person would correct an 'injustice'. As you can now see that is way too chancy also. 

Solution: never allow a guess to change your program and secondly maybe now add in either your description, 'Things to Note' or house rules the policy that "Check in is at X' and not earlier without coordinating with you first.

Good luck.

P.S. If you want to 'kill' that review and turn it into an advertisement ( 🙂 ), response by saying: "We thought we were being kind by accommodating 'X' to check in well before our policy, who arrived unexpectedly before our cleaners even showed up. Obviously the gesture backfired, especially disappointing since we pride ourselves on absolute cleanliness."

[Mark116]

@Myell0  As they say, hindsight is 20/20.  You should not have let them enter the space before it was fully cleaned, especially if they showed up early and hadn't gotten permission from you for that.  Never depend on guests being fair or overlooking something that they themselves caused or created.  I would do what @Fred13  suggests in response to the review.  Airbnb will never take it down so forget that idea.

[Huma0]

@Myell0 

Yep, it's happened to me too. You are trying to be accommodating and help the guest out, but it backfires.

I used to let guests drop off their luggage early, making it clear that they needed to come back later for the actual check in. The guests would happily agree to this in writing, but some of them then take advantage of the situation, e.g. arrive in the morning and demand access to the room, bathrooms etc. and the key, even though I was still in the middle of cleaning and turning over the place. They would leave me low ratings on cleanliness if I said yes and low cleanings on check in if I said no (likewise with guests who just show up early and are denied access). When this happened with two sets of guests on the same day, I had had enough. 

Now I never let guests come early (unless I know the cleaning will already be done, i.e. I have a gap between bookings) and make it very clear on my listing that they will not be granted access if they just show up. It seems to work.

I don't know exactly what this review says, but yes, I'd agree that you have little chance of getting Airbnb to remove it and a short, factual and unemotional response is the best way forward.

[Jenny]

Hi @Myell0 

I've asked the team to have another look at this for you, and explained about the guest turning up unexpectedly early.

Hopefully someone will be in touch soon.

Jenny