Can Airbnb just get off their high horse and allow AT LEAST star review alteration when ...

[Monika64]

... the guest CLEARLY makes a mistake????

I completely get it that they don't wanna allow review chages BUT when the guest leaves a great review and wants to come back but makes a mistake with the star rating WHY is it impossible to change it? It ruins our reputation, pulls down our search position, lowers our revenue ...

Also, they DO NOT educate guests on the fact that a 3 star review is NOT A GOOD rating!!!!!

I know I'm one of the hundreds of posts complaining about it but I just think it HAS TO BE a way to fix this problem.

[Daria20]

I've had a bad experience this year: the guest's husband booked her stay and then left a random review without even asking her how her stay was: giving 3 and 4 stars for most categories. I contacted her shortly after that to ask what I could improve on, she said she had no idea about the reviewand was very sorry as her stay was great. We both contacted Airbnb to change the review but unfortunately support told us that nothing could be done here 😞

[Lizzie]

Hello @Daria20, @Roberta2 and @Naty3,

Great to see you here in the Community Center. 

I am sorry to hear your frustration here with the review system. In particular regards to the original post here, you may have seen a few posts above yours where we talking about suggestions on improving the review timeframe with @Monika64 and @Michelle400. It would be great to hear your thoughts on this too. 🙂

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Naty3]

Thank you Lizzie for your message.

Im going  to add the note shared by the hosts in this conversation to the set of emails I sent to guests. But I don't understand if so many of us are unhappy or request changes, why airbnb is not listening. I'm not sayin not to have a rate system, but work on something more flexible and accurate that reflect the diverse world we live in.

Im feeling very very discouraged with all this make no sense reviews and Airbnb sending accounts warnings if something is not 5 stars.

Thank you.

[Roberta2]

Thank @Lizzie.

another suggestion would be to show, next to the guest, the length of the stay. And also for Airbnb to take that in consideration when awarding the superhost status. I lost my status because I did not have 10 guests - but 2 guests gave me full 5* after staying 2 and 3 months respectively!so I was fully booked for half of the year, the guests were super happy, but the extended stay counts for nothing, and other guests can't see that. 

[Clare0]

@Monika64 Yep, it certainly can be fixed, but at a cost.  According to this link, there are 500,000 nightly stays per day on Airbnb: 

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/airbnb-statistics/

Let's say 1% of these guests don't leave a star review, or misunderstood what the star ratings meant.  That would mean 5,000 daily requests to edit reviews and / or star ratings per day.  Let's say it would take a customer service rep about 3 minutes (which would be record time) to contact guest / host to determine what change is requested / analyze the request validity, etc. , that would mean 15,000 minutes or 250 man hours per day.  Assuming an 8 hour work day, that would mean a staff of 31 employees per day totally dedicated to review edits.  

If these employee earn $44,000 each per year, that would mean Airbnb would spend $1,364,000 per year (not including benefits) just to do review edits. 

And, just to play devil's advocate, what if a guest leaves a 5* review and then sees a negative host review and wants to downgrade the review left for the host?  Now we are in an endless cycle of review edits with both sides complaining, not to mention that Airbnb's review system would be totally corrupted. 

From an individual host's point of view, editing a review seems like an easy thing, but multiply requests across the entire platform, now we are talking about a massive scale of requests, some valid, some not (and how could a service rep know the difference? Could anyone just call up and ask that the star rating be changed?).

While I realize that low star ratings, whether by intent by the reviewer or by mistake, is painful, I would rather see Airbnb apply these dollars to adding more employees to answer phone calls and respond to what, in my opinion, are more important requests for service.  

I am not surprised that Airbnb sticks to it's guns about not editing reviews other than those which violate the review guidelines. 

Just my 2 cents.  

[James413]

I have been hosting on Airbnb since 2012.  All reviews this year have been 5 star.  I use to host on our motor yacht.  I would receive 4 stars.  Each state room had a private bathroom with only a shower.  They would complain the shower was to small.   Hey they were on a boat.  I had another

guest that stayed the first night and  at 12:00 am on check out day they left because they said their was two dead bugs in their bed and wanted a refund.  Two days before they

came I sprayed the room and then shampooed the carpet.  I had made they bed  after

their first night and no bugs.  They did bring in a bag of Chinees food and the red sauce

stained my rug.  Airbnb did refund them one night but after much argument Airbnb paid me.

This review was during Covid and after having a Super Host Rating from the beginning I lost

it because of less guests.  This guest had been on Airbnb for 3 years without a review.

I think Airbnb should had looked at all my  great reviews and discarded this one.  I don't

suggest any guest leave me a review.  I let them decide how they felt about their stay on their own.  I  work real hard  to  achieve that 5 star review and usually it pays off.