Guest rates all criteria 5 Stars but give overall rating of 4 Stars.. I inquired and the reply is eye-opening.

[Elizabeth610]

My email to guest after getting 5 Stars in every criteria.. but an Overall 4 Stars.. I inquired:

Hello Micheal. I was glad to host your family. I think that they were happy with the townhouse. I appreciated all the cleaning your wife did. I gave you 5 Stars and wrote a brief recommendation for your family with a positive comment. But please help me out. I am confused with your rating of my Airbnb. And the comment you put... the symbol "." . I don't know what that means and it is troubling I guess. You also rated everything 5 Stars but your overall rating was 4 Stars - this did not seem like a fair assessment if you gave 5 stars for all . I hope you know that to be a SuperHost depends on guests' ratings. I work very hard at it and with you, I thought I did everything and more of what you asked and needed. I hope you will please make a change to put the overall at 5 Stars and please explain the "." - it is not normal to ever see this in guest comments about the house. Please let me know if you have any problems. Thanks for your understanding but this is a serious matter , my only business that I work very hard to do my best. Thanks, Liz

Reply Received from Guest: 

Elizabeth, For your information, I completed the review on behalf of Catalina and Sebastian. Catalina is not going to log onto AirBNB and write a review, but I took the information from her and responded accordingly. The challenge with doing the reviews on AirBNB is that the survey is very "restrictive" and does not allow you to simply put in a rating. If the rating is anything less than a 5 star for any of the specific questions, then you are required to put in a note as to what was "below standard" or "substandard" (I don't remember what wording they actually use) even if you don't believe anything was "substandard". In terms of the "." The system also does permit you to submit a survey response without providing a public statement. Hence, the only way I have figured out to complete a survey without providing a public comment is to include some character (e.g., a "."). I like to provide you feedback on our stay, but I am not interested in providing public comments on websites. It is just not our custom or preference. It is not intended as a negative reflection on you or your property.

I also don't generally provide the highest rating on any survey (not just AirBNB) unless what we experienced was well beyond our expectations. I thought the townhome was very accurately represented in the description and pictures and Catalina and Sebastian encountered exactly what they were expecting and paid for. Therefore, an overall 4 star rating was provided which, when I am searching for properties, I take a positive.

I hope you don't take any of our review as negative because it was not intended as such. Thank you again for providing the accommodation.

[Elena87]

@Elizabeth610 

If you look back at previous reviews left by your guest Michael, you can see he has a history of leaving simply a ''.'' or a ''__''

I suggest you to download the AirReview extension with which you can see easily what guests have written about on past stays.

I've read on a forum that a host contacted airbnb to ask them to remove a single dot left as a review under the 'not relevant' part of the policy. The outcome was that the review was left up as airbnb decided something along the lines that because stars were given, overall the review was relevant.

It's illogical, but a monolithic airbnb taboo is to avoid accusations of manipulations of reviews.

You can leave a public response to the dot if you wish, personally I would leave it, you have over 100 reviews a potential guest can peruse.

Your guest explained clearly his rational on reviews in his reply.

As an aside, don't get too hooked on stars and superhost attainment, it matters a lot less than you think.

[Sarah977]

@Elizabeth610  Honestly, it would never cross my mind to send a message to a guest like you did. As a guest, I would find it somewhat offensive. I have a home-share and I do at some point bring up the subject of reviews with a lot of them, but in a very casual and general way. Most have no awareness that Airbnb considers less than 5*s for a host to be not good enough. Airbnb tells guests that 4*s means "Good" and what's wrong with good, anywhere but Airbnb?

As Elena mentioned, it's a good idea to look at the reviews a guest normally leaves for their hosts- I usually do.

If you are inclined to persue this, the review might be able to be removed, based upon the fact that someone else wrote the review for the guests who stayed. Why did you accept a third-party booking? Why is this guy booking for other people and leaving reviews for places he didn't stay?

[Cormac0]

@Elizabeth610 

I don't understand your Guests logic, five stars in every category and then an over all four star review.

To my way of thinking, less then five star in each category and an over all five star review would make more sense.

After all in exam marks each level is cover by a range.

The review system in Airbnb is a dog's dinner and not fit for purpose, well at least not for the purpose of identifying five star hosts.