Do you ask for extra feedback after reviews?

[Huma0]

Many of us strive for the perfect 5* ratings across the board, and can get a bit sensitive when a guest rates down in a category. Now, it's not necessarily a big deal, and some guests are difficult to please regardless of what you do, but when you have a guest who seemed happy with their stay and provides no written feedback to explain a lower rating, do you wonder if there was something you could have done better? Perhaps it's nonsensical, perhaps it's valid and there is room for improvement. How are we to know though, when no feedback is given?

Here's an example. The guest leaves a short but positive review with no private feedback (also no note in the guest book, nor response to my message after check out asking if her journey went okay - neither of which bother me, but could potentially be relevant here). She gives me 5* overall and 5* in each category, except for cleanliness, which she leaves 4* for. That's fine. It's not a bad rating and not detrimental to Superhost status, but I now have no idea what made her rate down in that particular category. There must have been something...

Just a general question here. Would you be tempted to ask the guest (who was all smiles, never complained about anything and commented on how lovely and clean her room was and also had a shower to herself the whole stay even though bathrooms are listed as shared) what the cleanliness issue was? I don't mean in an accusatory way, just to get some feedback to improve and help avoid that issue in future, or would you just leave it alone?

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

Yes, I agree, there is probably no point in contacting this guest. If she was so unresponsive during her stay, why would she be less so now?

Sorry this happened. The first time I got a 3* review I wasn't happy, but it also didn't surprise me due to the way the guest had acted. Even though she had confirmed she read the listing and house rules, it was obvious from the minute her and her friend arrived that she had done no such thing. They were astonished that I had three cats and even more astonished that I lived in the listing.

This was back in the days when you could still have a review removed for inaccuracy (hers was a bunch of BS) and, I didn't even ask for it to be removed. CS suggested that because it was such an outlier and so obviously in retaliation because the guest caused damages and was brought up on a couple of issues. Correspondence showed that the guest was happy with the stay until I asked her to stop flooding the bathrooms, try to leave them reasonably clean and stop messaging me with non-urgent stuff at 2 am (this was a series of messages by the way).

Anyway, it all came as a bit of a shock to me, as I had not anticipated guests behaving in this way. After that, I got much tighter about checking and double checking that they understand certain points and I have it necessary to do so BEFORE I accept their booking, hence why I no longer use IB.

[Gillian166]

@Huma0  I know she didn't read the House Rules because we have an easter egg in there. I don't think she even read any of the messages either. And i'm assuming she ignored the guest book which has an explanation of the review system and why 3* means something is very wrong. luckily it won't effect superhost, and I have other reviews lined up to go on top of hers, so it will be buried within a few weeks. 

I used to give guests 5* for communication even if they didn't respond to a single message, and everything was left clean and tidy, but that has stopped. 

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

What do you normally do when a guest doesn't respond to the Easter egg? Personally, I won't accept their booking until they do. I mean, that's the reason I have it there, because otherwise people say they have read the full rules when they haven't. Some think they have because they just saw those few points that are on the landing page and others just lie. 

I only ever had one guest leave early because she was unhappy with something. It was a two night booking and, after the first night, she said she couldn't stay because she was a very sensitive to noise and the room faced the road. She wanted a refund for the second night. I told her, sorry, no, because that's stated on the listing. She insisted it was not.

So, I showed her. It was under 'guests must acknowledge', which at the time was under house rules, and she had confirmed she had read those. Her reply was, "Oh, I never read rules because I'm not a rule breaker."

[Gillian166]

@Huma0  I don't turn them down, they are only stay 1-2 nights so it's not a big deal really. They agree they've read the rules, so that should be enough for me to get any review overturned, etc. well..... in theory!!   It's challenging to try to gently remind guests who ask dumb/lazy questions that the info has already been provided. Arrivals are the worst, I tell them 2 times to install the app on their phone to access the arrival instructions, and I think <10% do that cos we get so many people who contact us "lost" and there's just no reason for it.

[Lorna170]

@Huma0   I have been fortunate enough to have good reviews about the cabin -- barring the one guest who did not like the couch in the living room because she could not lie on it like a bed with her significant other.  

I did have one guest mark me with 3* for communication and ease of entry.  When I inquired about the review, she called CS and complained that I was stalking her and sent a crazy diatribe to my email. She evidently expected to be greeted and have her luggage brought in by a staff member.  As stated in our Ad and welcome package, we offer contactless arrival and departure with coded keyless locks.  It is 20 footsteps to the door on a level, lighted pathway.  

No, I do not ask for extra feedback.  

[Huma0]

@Lorna170 

Wow, that guest who wanted a porter sounds super entitled. Funny how it's almost always something that was clearly mentioned on the listing. 

Yes, there is always the risk of the guest taking exception to being asked.

It wasn't a case of asking for feedback, but I did contact a guest who had written in her review that she hadn't been told something important, which was not true. It was mentioned on the listing twice and in three messages before she booked. When I contacted her about it, she admitted she hadn't read that and said she would change the review. At this point, it was all cordial.

However, when I explained to her that you can't change a review, only ask to have it removed, she became irate. She said, who was I to question the accuracy of her review (even though she admitted before that she made a mistake) and that I was ruining her holiday. Well, there was no point in taking that any further.

I wouldn't have contacted her at all had she not seemed like a very happy guest during her stay and I had no reason to suspect she would react that way. And, it was a 4* review, so not the end of the world. It just irked me that she had written something so blatantly untrue, but she revealed herself as a bit of a lazy person, i.e. couldn't be bothered to read anything, couldn't be bothered to fix her mistake, didn't pick up after herself while she was here (in a way that was unusual, i.e. it seemed like she was expecting maid service).