Dissapointed about 4* reviews (and can't change anything)

[Len15216]

Hello fellow hosts,

I am writing this post from disappointment - something I had better not do, probably. But I don't know what else to do for now. I have been an Airbnb host for almost a year now.

Today I received two 4-star reviews of my flat, while guests are quite satisfied. Both in the little text they write and in the rating of the different categories, it appears that everything was very good. And yet they then give an overall rating of 4 stars and I receive an email from Airbnb saying there are areas for improvement. I find it hard to understand and I feel very disempowered. Because actually, guests might be 95%, 97% or 99% satisfied and end up giving me 80%. While it might have consequences for me. I am a superhost (and proud of it), but if I get two more such reviews I might lose that status...

Does this happen to you guys a lot? And how do you handle such situations?

Thanks!

[Daniel8717]

My wife and I have been hosting Airbnb for a few years ago. We have held superhost for a year and a half now. We have had many situations of guests giving lower ratings than I believe reflects their experience. Once we received a 4 star rating and in the private feedback they said our place was great except it was too bright. Some dimmable lamps would improve their experience. We wrote her a message informing her that the light switches on the wall are all dimmable. She just said "okay". Of course it was too late for her to change her rating.

In another scenario we had advertised that we don't have air-conditioning. A woman and her friends booked our place and we just happened to hit a heat wave during their stay. They left us a 3 star rating!! There was nothing that we could do though. We got a letter from Airbnb informing us that our overall rating had dropped down in to the bottom 10% of all hosts and if we keep getting ratings like this we will be suspended. We had two options. They are the same two options that you have. We had to either accept that we are going to get some unfair ratings from time to time and work hard to earn our reputation back. The other option was to duplicate our add and delete the original. This would allow us a fresh start without any ratings. The down side to this is of course we would have lost all of our 5 star ratings too. We decided to do our best to earn 5 star ratings and bring our average back up. It took so many bookings to do this but we did it! Now we have an average of 4.9.

Always remember, the more ratings you have the less a single rating will change your overall. You can't control people's perceived experience or the ratings they choose as much as we sometimes wish we could.

God bless

[Quyen25]

Do you bother to respond to a 1 star review?

my guest review said “terrible place! Broken amenities! Stay away”.

[Daniel8717]

If the review in any way violates Airbnb's review content terms you can request them to take it down. If this is all the review said then it will be tough to convince Airbnb to remove the review. I would strongly agree that it is best to respond to the 1 star review. The reason I say this is because others considering your place will see this review and your response to it. My suggestion is to respond to any negative review as humbly as you can. Perhaps vaguely tell a little of the story and how you did everything in your power to make things right for the guest. They won't be able to respond to what you say. Just be honest and show potential guests that you take the satisfaction of your guests very seriously and you are eager to resolve any issues immediately.

God bless

[Fred13]

Hosting in Airbnb is best approached with a long-term attitude because is like the game 'Wheel of Fortune', by chance every once in a while you will get a 'bad number'. Who you are as a host will be determined, fortunately, by what the great majority have to say about your offering, not by the rare inexplicable review of the confused, misanthrope, malcontent or outright lunatic.

@Daniel8717  You know how I would have taken what that guest said being too bright; it would cause me to think of the benefit of 'indirect lightning', a great concept. Her A/C comment  of - 'Am I making the point I don't have A/C obvious enough?' . You can get something out of every review, especially the annoying critical ones.

@Len15216  It is unusual for very satisfied guests to rate everything 5* and then overall 4*, the fact people post here this phenomena even often is not necessary because is really common or natural.  You got two in a row which is a heck of a coincidence, the chance of happening again is probably minuscule, till further notice. I don't think potential visitors are hung up on the star * ratings anyway, more on what past guest have to say.

Good luck to both of you.

[Vasilijs0]

Yes, i have been a "superhost" for about... well, several years, and now loose this title because of the similar "outright lunatics" (congrats for the bright word!). We all depend on them, and depend too much, unfortunately! 

[Huma0 · Accepted solution]

@Len15216 

I hear you and I feel it also. I will be losing my Superhost status a the next assessment. Why? Well, because:

A.) One guest said she loved her stay but the house was too cold. Okay, fair enough. She stayed in a particularly bad cold spell. However, I did ask her about it and she told me she "did not feel the cold". I offered to check her radiators and a bunch of other stuff to make sure she was warm enough and she basically told me not to bother. Yet she rated me down for it.

B.) Another guest seemed incapable of operating the front door, which is very simple. I explained it to her her and over and demonstrated it to heroes and over and offered her different keys, but she still could not open the front door. Eventually, it got so frustrating that I offered to let her leave with a full refund. She was initially surprised by the suggestion but, after finding somewhere else to stay, accepted. Funnily enough, after that, she never had a problem with the door. Still, she rated me down even though she had no over complaints.

I am over this to be honest. Superhost status be dammed. I am not going to be her hostage to iditiotic guests.  I make it very clear in my listing what they are getting and reiterate this in my pre-booking messages. I work my backside off to make sure they get everything promised. If they are still not happy. Well, that's not my problem.

[Huma0]

Sorry for the typos. Typing too fast because I was ranting!