First bad review after 6 straight 5* scores in all categories and overall.

[Delwyn3]

I am new to hosting and I have been thrilled with my first 6 reviews, they have all been 5*, in all categories and overall.   Sadly today I was floored with a 3* overall and 5 for all categories except 3 for cleanliness and 4 for value (with the comment cleanliness).

The guest states in the private comments that there were cockroaches in the bathroom and the kitchen needed to be cleaned before use.

If this is true then I deserve the 3* but I am surprised as I have had 4 previous "Compliments" of "Sparkling Clean".   I would like to find out exactly what was wrong with the kitchen so I can address it with my cleaner but am not sure how to go about asking him.

The guests communication had been amazing before arrival, but went very quiet after letting me know he had arrived.  I was not worried as it was only a 2 night stay and just assumed they were enjoying themselves.
At no point did he let me know things were not up to scratch so I had no opportunity to correct.   What is also very upsetting is he claims the broadband only worked for 2 hours.   Well now my next guest has no broadband and this is very annoying as if the guest who has given me this bad review had let me know it might have been fixed by now for my current guest!

So I have lost my lovely all 5 ratings, and have been reduced to 4.71.    

I have read about the concept of outlier reviews but am I right in thinking I have too few reviews for this to be considered an outlier?

I gave this guest a glowing review and complimented his communication.  He had no previous reviews. Well I now regret that as not telling me something was not working is very poor communication.   

Now what is also odd is that he gave me 5 for accuracy yet made this comment in the public review.  "at the beach‘ is a bit misleading. To reach the beach you have to walk 450 m with 20 meters altitude."
In my listing I mention very early that the bay is 400 metres away and I feel my photos clearly show how far the beach and the water is from the house.
I would really appreciate it if any of the helpful hosts here could check my listing and see if it has been misleading in any way.

[Delwyn3]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 Yes my pictures make things really obvious too.  This person is simply not kind.   Why would he not let me know the wifi was not working?   This resulted in another bad review as the next guest obviously had no wifi either as I had not been given the chance to fix it.  Once I knew, it was fixed in 24 hours.  (Sorry if I am repeating myself).   I wonder if the language barrier has been part of this.  This has left me feeling quite helpless/hopeless and I wonder if I need to find other ways besides AirBNB to get bookings.  I now have the "you need to improve" message in my progress page.  

[Helen350]

@Delwyn3 Don't feel helpless... Your review score is because of the wifi issue - now it's fixed, guests should have nothing to complain about & your score should improve with every guest. The "need to improve" messages should not be taken too personally; they are computer generated. - A host near me also has a score of 4.63.... But she has 305 reviews! - She has not been kicked off the platform! And sitting on this number of reviews, it takes a lot to put her score up or down, (so she's going to stay around 4.63), unlike yours which will yo-yo at the start of your hosting career.

[Delwyn3]

Thanks @Helen350, @Sarah977 , @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 I appreciate all your efforts to help me deal with all this.  I really need to make an effort to not take it so much to heart. There are some kind hosts on this forum.  Cheers guys.  

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Delwyn3 , First, I think your place is beautiful and you should be able to do very well with it.  Its not misrepresented by your listing but it leaves out visual details that may be important to some people like how are the two things that are most important, the home and the ocean connected?  The accessibility area of the listing is a great place to show and tell, that way anyone with mobility challenges or walk out onto the beach dreams knows this isnt the place for that.  We show pics of our staircase in our 3 bedroom suite to make sure nobody is confused about the abilities needed to get to the bedrooms.

Remotely overseeing a place takes a bit more challenging than having your finger on the pulse of it at all times like we do at Bearpath Lodging, If there is a problem, we know it and can deal with it quickly.  There are techniques and tools you can employ to make sure you can be successful at this, calling each guest somewhere near their check in time to see if things are as they hoped can put a friendly voice to the listing and get positive feedback to your prompt attention to issues before it hits the reviews as a surprise for you in the form of a bad review.  Providing contact info for Emergencies, Cable TV, Internet, a plumber or electrician and exterminator could give them self service abilities if something isn't going well (set these up ahead of time with trustworthy contractors)A local co-host might help, someone to contact that has local access to your space and resources to intercede when needed.  

In the end, this is a business and the customer is the one that can hurt your success like nobody else.  You can't fix what has happened but you can try to eliminate it from the future.  You can do it, best of luck, John

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sharon1014 

I get the impression that @Delwyn3 ‘s property is owned right up to the shoreline which makes the property ‘beachfront’. Do you own the land up to the shoreline at your listing or not? That makes a factual difference.

[Delwyn3]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 your impression is correct.  My immediate neighbour is also on AirBNB her property is exactly the same as mine in this respect and she has listed hers as 'beachfront' too.  

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Delwyn3  "Why would he not let me know the wifi was not working?"

 You'll drive yourself crazy if you try to to understand why people do or don't do things. Hosts have found things like a missing lamp after check-out, only to find it some time later, undamaged, inexplicably stuffed in the back of a closet under some blankets. Much of what people do is illogical and has no explanation which would make sense to us. Maybe he didn't need to use the Wifi anymore, so didn't really care. Maybe he didn't want to be seen as a complainer- there are people like this, yet once they sit down to write a review, they have no qualms about voicing complaints they never mentioned during the stay. There's another recent thread here about all the ridiculous reasons guests said they left 4*s instead of 5*s. One host's guests explained that it was because they expected her town to be more like Portland. There's just nothing you can do about the way people's brains function or don't.

I think most hosts tend to be practical people to whom most things have a rhyme or reason, so we just expect that there would be a logical reason for something, but that's not necessarily true.