Keeping up your ratings

[Kath9]

Hi fellow hosts!

Well, after seeing my overall star ratings start to slip recently due to the ridiculous changes to the review system, my ratings have just gone back up from near to the point of losing Superhost status (4.8* overall) to 4.9*! I think my strategy may be working and just want to share it with you (I have done so before on other posts but that was the 'trial' stage - I am now seeing results!). Thanks to those other hosts who have shared similar ideas to this.

Firstly, I have put the following blurb on the first page of my guest manual - it is just underneath the house guidelines and Wifi password and I ask all my guests to spend a moment reading this page when they arrive (I'm hoping that the Wifi password prompts them to actually do so!)

Secondly, I now send the following message to all my guests once I have reviewed them:

Dear xxx, thank you so much for booking with me - you were wonderful guests and I hope you enjoyed your stay as much as I enjoyed hosting you. I have left you a 5-star review and hope you can find the time to write a review for me so I can continue to offer my home as a budget-friendly, safe and comfortable place for other guests. Thanks again - it was really lovely meeting you both! Best wishes, Kath 🙂

This message hopefully prompts them to leave a review (in order to keep up the minimum 50% review rate) as well as letting them know I have given them 5 stars in the hope they reciprocate. (Of course, this is only for guests who I have actually left a 5-star review for - I won't be sending this message to guests who have received less than 5 stars). While it does feel a bit like emotional blackmail, I think we do need to educate our guests as most of them don't realise that the overall star rating is based on the 'expectations' question and many guests will just say 'as expected', which only gives you 3 stars overall (even if they have given you 5 stars for everything else). 

Please feel free to do something similar with your guests in order to keep up your ratings. Happy hosting 2019!

[Cor3]

Hi @Andrea9,

Good to know! But obviously very odd and definitely not in our favor (Which does not entirely surprise me, knowing ABB)!

As I didn’t use the Thumbs on 1 of my guest, about 1 and a half year ago (But back then, I had not yet switched on IB. So, I can't check the result).

So, ABB is regarding the non-usage of the Thumbs by a host as a recommendation?

I.e.: No news equals Good news.

[Andrea9]

Hi @Cor3

I don't use IB either, so punished by Airbnb withholding guest stars. 

However, when I look at my guests' profiles (those with at reviews)  on the message page it says 'recommended by x hosts'. If they have more reviews than hosts recommending them the question is did they get thumbs down from some of the hosts. Good question to ask such guests before accepting.

[Cor3]

Hi @Andrea9,

Ah, Okay. I see what you mean (I'm so used to look at this via the IB provided information, I simply forgot about that option).

My guest (that didn't got any Thumb by me), doesn't show any recommendation info (The guest still has only 1  review - by me).

The 'funny' thing about this guest: When they booked, they said a hotel was not suitable to them. In fact, when they left: They were more suited to a hotel!

The place was a mess and very dirty. The main guest: A mother to a 3 month old baby!

In-cre-di-ble!

Edit: Unfortunately (I just noticed), it also works the other way around 😞

Last year we had a very pleasant guest.

And when I look up this guest now: 5 reviews, 4 recommendations.

All hosts said in text: Would love to welcome back the guest (5-star reviews across the board).

So, it seems not all hosts know, how to use the Thumbs too!

Which does make it all, more confusing.

[Andrea9]

@Cor3

maybe those guests got kicked out of a hotel once or don't like the fact that with daily room service they can't dirty it up as much... 

What an awful experience. 

And yes, understanding the Airbnb program can be challenging... no extremely challenging and confusing for the newbie host.

[Robin4]

@Kath9

Kath, I really like that, you have thought that out well. I would like to do the same as you and I have just reworked and reworded it a bit to better suit me. What do you think, do you have any objection to me using it?

If you want to incorporate any of this I can put your name and 'home' back in place of mine and include it as a photo so you can save it, print it and use it.

Cheers......Rob

[Susie111]

@Robin4@Kath9

I would really apprieciate to copy yours Robin as well, because its great.

Thanks for a great post @Kath9

[Robin4]

@Susie111

Each time I look at it, I refine it a bit more.

I just put a couple of your details into it and saved it as a photo. It is all centrally set out on the page and if you want to use it (with @Kath9's permission) all you have to do is right click and save this picture to your computer and just print it from there.

It is a bit silly that we have to resort to measures like this Susie but we have a duty to protect our investment in any way we can. 

So as long as Airbnb are not going to explain to guests how their rating system works....we have to!

All the best Susie!

Cheers......Rob

[Susie111]

@Robin4 Thank you so much!

[Kath9]

@Robin0, I'm more than happy for you and any other host to use the same or similar. This is what the host forum is all about isn't it, for us to support and help each other out. I might incorporate a couple of your ideas but all good, I can do it my end. Cheers 🙂

[Robin4]

@Kath9,

Thanks Kath, it is already in the house rules book as page 2 (the inside of the front cover) and this is how it looks......

Thanks Kath, this is a really handy initiative. I feel more comfortable with this than actually talking with guests about reviews....Having to bring it up seems like we are begging for good reviews....and in a way perhaps we are. But this gets around that problem.

If you read my reviews, I am a detail person. I like ironed creases in the sheets and pillowcases, I like a selection of soaps, moisturisers and face wipes. I like supplying 100% filtered air for the alergy sufferers, I like everything to look special, and guests do appreciate that. The bed out of Vogue, the cheeses and nibbles, it all means something to me!

Some will classify this as hysteria and be happy with mediocre.....I prefer to think it as just doing a job properly, I just like to attend to details!

And Kath, you have just helped me out with another of those! 

Thanks  mate!

Cheers........Rob

[Kath9]

@Robin0, you are more than welcome. I like your use of the Superhost icon in your blurb and the photo of you and Ade at the end. Nice personal touch.

[Huma0]

@Kath9 @Robin4

I think this is really useful and I might also borrow this plan of action!

However, isn't it worse than that? If less than a 4.7 means the threat of being delisted, then I would say 3 stars is already terrible/unacceptable/suspended, or am I wrong?

[Suzanne302]

@Kath9

This is a great idea to encourage reviews, however...I believe this is just a rumor run amok that these questions equate to star ratings.

As @Cor3 mentioned we have no proof ABB is implementing this system. When they added these questions either it became a rumor in the forum that they equated to star ratings, or this is only being implemented in certain areas.

I can confirm, with 100% certainty that is is NOT the system I've encountered. I've had 4 ABB stays in the last 3 months (2 being just last week) and the FIRST review question asks you to rate your stay overall by stars. THEN, the questions about meeting/exceeding expectations come up. The answers to that question in no way whatsoever have any bearing on the host's overall star rating and do not correlate to stars.

I gave one host 5 stars overall, and answered that the host "met expectations." Again, that question did not affect star rating whatsoever. The host still received 5 stars overall. 

I can also confim this from a couple of my own guests.

And to be honest, the review system is not that long for the guest. It takes 2 minutes tops. I don't understand where the hysteria is coming from...

[Sarah977]

@Suzanne302  I do think it appears differently in different places. I first became aware of it when I sat with a friend in Canada, a host who had also been a guest and was filling out the form. There was nowhere to give an overall star rating, just those boxes to check.

Some of us are probably lucky that we get guests who are prone to leave reviews and don't find the few minutes it takes to fill it out to be onerous. But many hosts get the type of guests who can't even be bothered to read the listing info before they book- they don't bother to read anything beyond a 5 word text message or a 2 line tweet, so those guests would likely look at a form which had pages to fill out and just go "forget it".

[Robin4]

@Suzanne302

What you are saying is correct as far as what the guest is being faced with but, what the guest is faced with and how Airbnb choose to interpret that are two entirely different things!

If guests are going to asked to select a star rating, they need to know what Airbnb attaches to that star rating. 

@Kath9 started off this thread quite correctly stating that her review stats had fallen dangerously close to her loosing her Superhost status....not because of anything she was doing wrong! Her hosting standard has not slipped! Airbnb chose to alter the way guests review hosts and the very first statement the guest comes across in the review process is ..'Now is the time to tell the host how to improve the experience for future guests'! The guest is, from the top, being asked to find fault with what the host offers.

I too have been a guest, although not in the past 6 months but, I had an experience here a month or so ago where a guest who had booked for two nights found his employment duties had been extended on the day he was to leave and wished to extend to another night. Without wanting to complicate matters he just paid me for the additional night. Both he and I had, by that time, been offered the opportunity to leave a review so, together we sat down and went through the process with each other and both he and I were quite shocked to see the difference in emphasis between the guests side of the process and the hosts!

So Suzanne I am totally aware of how the review process runs!

@Sarah977 is right in that the format of the process for some reason does seem to alter from one part of the world to another, and I don't quite understand why that should be. You would think the same programming would be involved regardless of location but that appears not to be the case.

Suzanne, I do consider what Kath has brought up here and what I am adopting is silly.....but it is nesseccary. I don't want to see the years of hard work I have put into this eroded because Airbnb choose to tell guests one thing and rate host on something else, and when you get up around a couple of hundred reviews you will feel the same.....we need to be on the same page!

And frankly, I don't call that hysteria!

Cheers.....Rob