Why you should ALWAYS review guests 5-stars (Because the system is flawed)

[Wesley58]

Here's the dilemma, 

You run an AirBnB in a city that is either small or might see some of the same travelers. A guest arrives at your property, leaves the room a mess or steals a towel and you rate them 3 stars, while the guest rates you 5-stars. Later on the guest returns, but this time knowing that you gave him 3 stars in the past, decides to slam you with a 1 star review. What's worse is that in almost all circumstances you won't be able to get Airbnb to overturn that review (because they never do).

When I sit down and think of the reasons to give guests anything less than 5-stars, the only thing that I come up with is: "It's good for the community"

But here's what I think might happen if I do that:

-Retaliatory action
-Harassment
-Claims/Calls from AirBnB from the Guest

-Having them book with me in the future only to slam me with a negative review (this has happened)

I personally feel as though the system for reviews only works ideally in a world where we will never see each other again, but many of my guests come from the same city that I host in! 

Here's a real-world example: I have a guest who is staying with me over-and-over again over a one month period. They book several one-night stays (5-10 of them). During one of their stays they got drunk and starting harassing my other guests, as well as left their room a mess on check-out. I rated them 3 stars for the poor behavior. This guest, having seen the 3 star review, suddenly changes their tone and begins rating me low for every single future stay that they have with me. I couldn't cancel the reservations at risk of a "host cancellation" and immediate revocation of Superhost status. In this case, I'm stuck with this guests retaliation, simply because I wanted to help the community.

Sometimes this makes me feel pretty powerless to help the community. It's as though I have the incentive to never give less than 5-star reviews. Thoughts?

___________
I Co-Host in New York and New Jersey (and trying to grow to other states)
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[Kimberly54]

Hi @Wesley58,

You're only at Level 2 because you're not on the community forum a lot...if you were, you'd know how often this subject comes up.  A LOT.  And your observations are spot-on CORRECT.  It's a big deal, and on so many levels.

What would you do to correct the problem? 

Here's a little ditty to whet your appetite:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_rating

You can see... it's a bit of a mess across the board, then you get the occasional (or frequent) idiot who is in a bad mood and thinks that one piece of lint = less than perfect.  It's nuts.  Compound that with every little thing in the current system is that there are terrible/related flaws that pop up like land-mines... and as fast as it has grown, these land-mines are mobile!  Yes, you have it right.  Nuts.

Most hotels don't go through anywhere near the scrutiny that Airbnb hosts do.

So back to my question:  What would you propose to fix this?

Real question.  Looking forward to your answer!

Best,

[MaryAnne40]

My answer (indeed, even moreso after readng the first few paragraphs of the wikipedia link you gave) is this : USE WORDS.  When a host takes the time to write some thoughtful words about their experience of a guest, and words that they are willing to stand behind, then we have some meaningful reivews.  If we are afraid to use words, then we don't have much of a community.  Anonymity is perfect for the motel and hotel experience. I prefer the former and it does take a different kind of work and personal investment.

[Sarah977]

@Wesley58  P.s. Most hosts don't accept locals because they are often problematic. If they're from your city, why do they need to rent an Airbnb? They're homeless?

[Wesley58]

Hey Sarah,

That's really interesting, but I was under the impression that with instant book I have less control of being able to cancel the guest's reservation. You're absolutely right though - whenever I get reservations from people in the same town it's trouble right away! 

Thanks for the response! 

Wes

[Sarah977]

@Wesley58  If you rate a guest 3*s or below they can't Instant Book with you again. So there would be no need to cancel their reservation, and if they send a Request to Book, you simply decline, explaining that they are not welcome back because of the poor state they left the place in the last time. Or just decline with no explanation. If you've given them an honest review after they stayed, it should be evident to them why you wouldn't want them back. Although some people can be dense.

[Veronica227]

this has happened to me......they had ZERO reason to need a room for one night, as they lived 5 miles away.

[Paul154]

@Wesley58 

You have asked for our opinion, so I will be blunt. 

As I understand you post, you accepted many future reservations from the guest. During one of these stays, guest acted poorly. Even though  you had future reservations with this guest, you published a poor review about this guest.

???

You are now suprised that this guest is unhappy and has now not enjoyed his stay with you!

Dude, your loyalty was to the guest and trying to negotiate a good outcome with him OR cancel his future reservations.  (Because he broke your rules, I'm hopeful Airbnb would cancel his future stays.)

You muddied the water by accepting his money for future stays. 

This has nothing to do with the review system. It has more to do with reasonable expectations and human behaviour. You are a superhost, so I hope this passes well for you and leaves your record intact.

[Suzanne302]

I'd like to see how a guest can know his/her star rating without asking a host? They can read the review, certainly, but they have no idea what their star rating is. If this is not true, please correct me. But as far as I know, the stars are only seen by hosts, and only when a guest wants to book.

I've been a guest several times and I can't see my star rating.

And regardless of all that, as those above have said, other hosts DEPEND on your reviews so why screw them over?

This post is wrong on so many levels....Not to mention you jumping in here like you have the answer to all the world's problems when you haven't contributed to the community very much yet. It's very off-putting. I know that's harsh. I can't help myself sometimes. 🙂

[Kimberly54]

@Suzanne302, and all, we KNOW this rating-thing is a problem.

How would you suggest this be fixed?

Sure, he did this, they did that... whatever.  Different scene if your guest isn't sleeping in your house.

I DO WISH that someone would separate us...but that's a different issue.

I had the most AMAZING guests... and I couldn't give them five stars.  (My guests!)  "Sorry... something didn't work..."

Really, and truly tried to work this out.  Nope. "Sorry... really sorry"  That was the reply from HQ.

Best,

[Emilia42]

@Wesley58, have you ever stayed as a guest? It looks like you have. Have you ever seen what star ratings those hosts have given you? I don’t think so because as a guest you can only read the written review. There are obviously some issues between you and your guest that is causing him to down rate your scores. Maybe you should discuss that with him. Maybe you should also ask Airbnb to cancel all your future bookings with this guest because he is not a good fit for your space and makes you feel uncomfortable. Yes, as an instant book host you CAN do this. I suggest you read some of the valuable posts on this forum and try to learn from them. This post is not very good advice to people entering the world of hosting.

[Tom712]

I'm new to AirBnb, and just learned of this community today.  There are some very good reads here.  As for providing positive reviews for horrible guests just so you do not get a bad rating is just ethically bankrupt.  If the rating system is corrupted with false reviews, it then becomes worthless to our community. 

So flipping this question around.  What if you are a Guest at an AirBnB and you find some issues.  For example, I recently stayed at a Taiwan AirBnB and found many issues with the place.  It was not very clean and it looked like it had some minor water damage.  To be clear, not very clean means that the shower glass had a soap build-up and there was some pink stuff growing around the glass mounts at the bottom of the shower.  There was a heavy dust layer around the window frames and the inside of the microwave was not clean.  The celing above the air conditioning system had black mold on it which only makes you wonder when it was last serviced. The wall between the bathroom entry way had traces of black mold at the baseboard and the laminate flooring was damaged in this area.  You could actually feel the laminate floor move under foot as it was warped do to water damage.  I will add that this condo unit had absolutely glowing reviews.  The condo owner proudly told us  the building was 5 years old.  This was an upscale building and the photos looked great.

My wife tells me not to write a critical review or write no review at all as other people who stayed there were happy with the condo and cleanleness is somewhat subjective and cultural.  99% of the reviews were from neighboring countires.  I on the other hand I feel it is unethical not to point out these issues.  Perhaps this should be in another conversation catagory.  It's the same issue but from the guest perspective.  And being a Host and Guest, I can see the concequences of how we utilize AirBnB's rating system.  

[Ben551]

@Tom712  I'm a believer that the truth comes easily, whereas finding logical reasons to avoid it is harder.  

In the sitaution you describe, I would first speak to the host privately about my concerns.  From that interaction, if I got the impression that the host was actively working on improving their listing, valued my feedback, and would address the issues promptly... then I wouldn't feel compelled to permanently damage their business.  I would likely make a brief mention in words to say that they were very receptive to my suggestions for improving and repairing things... but I wouldn't reflect it in the overall star rating. 

However, if upon speaking to the host about my concerns, I got a response that fobbed me off and didn't leave me with an impression of 'improvements on the horizon'... then I would feel compelled to put my concerns into the review to warn other guests.

[Sarah977]

@Tom712  I see it like this- as a host, you are aware of what bad ratings can do to hosts. So I understand why your wife feels you shouldn't leave a bad review, but I don't agree that just because it was highly rated by others means that you shouldn't be honest. There have been so many reports here from hosts who had a really bad guest who had good reviews, or guests who, like you, booked a place that certainly wasn't what they were expecting based on the glowing reviews. As you said, it's unethical to not be honest about your experience.

Living in the tropics myself means that I am familiar with some of the issues you mention- mold forms quickly and easily, for instance, and there is an art to building a home here that doesn't develop some of these issues. And what might have looked like soap scum to you may not have been- the water is really hard where I live and leaves calcium spots all over the shower tiles- I actually have to get in there every so often and scrub it down with muriatic acid to remove the spots. A simple cleaning doesn't do it. But there is no excuse for an obvious lack of attention to cleaning- that mold can be cleaned off on a regular basis if the basic construction allows moisture to build up and there's no remedy for it short of re-constructing. There is nothing moldy inside my house, as I keep on top of it.

I think you already know what is worth mentioning in a review and what things would be petty to mention. As a host yourself, you also know how the star ratings affect hosts. If I were in your position, if all else but the genral cleanliness of the place was fine, and the host was nice and seemed to care about your stay, I'd talk about the positive aspects of the place in the written review as well as the poor cleaning standards. No need to go into detail, just something like "Could definitely have used more attention in the cleaning department-seemed pretty grubby to me." If all else was fine, I'd give a 5* star rating Overall, but definitely low stars, maybe 3*s on the cleanliness rating. And I'd probably private message the host, saying you didn't want to tank his overall rating, but that if you weren't a host also and knew how harshly Airbnb rates hosts, you might have given a lower Overall because of the poor cleaning. There I would go into detail about all the places that could use attention, as the host may be one of those people who just doesn't see detail, and may not realize his cleaner isn't doing a good job. 

[Anonymous]

@Tom712  Knowing that less than 5* Overall reviews have a punitive impact on hosts out of all proportion to the guest's intentions, as a guest I will always give 5* unless the experience was genuinely dreadful and not recommendable to anyone. 

However, I do believe in providing useful private feedback to the host and an honest depiction of the experience in the text review. 

@Wesley58 it simply boggles the mind that you would ever allow a guest back onto your property after they harrassed other guests of yours. It's bad enough if they were disrespectful to you as the host, but you have an additional responsibility to protect your other guests. There are many tools at your disposal to prevent a bad guest from returning; this situation is not a dilemma, it's a no-brainer.

[Cormac0]

@Wesley58  et al

Airbnb's terms and condition and customer support are the constraining factors in all this mess, its human nature that a guest that gets marked down will do likewise.

Where the problem arise is the effect the star ratings have on your listing and the penalties that Airbnb adopt in such cases, putting you down the list on potential properties to rent, losing super host status etc

How would you feel if the star-rating system was just that, no penalties, it would change the game dramatically, do you know what? it would even make the system more accurate in my opinion.

What we have now is a bureaucratic mess not fit for purpose and to an intelligent person complete nonsense. 

If one’s listing is a complete dump the review will say that as human nature being what it is, people are more likely to complain about bad service then good and those people that are motivated to write good and fare reviews will give one’s listing enhanced value to a potential customer.

I have made the case before that all hosts should start at five stars and let the review process decide where they sit on the measurement scale. While I had super host status, I had a 4.9 average but there’s no way my apartment was a five-star offering in the conventional sense, BUT it was priced accordingly.

The well-known feature of star ratings, is the price charged so for example while traveling on business one stays in a five-star hotel, not so much going on family holidays unless of course you’ve got very deep pockets.

So, the consequences of Airbnb’s nonsensical star review set up is guest are expecting one experience at the price of another.

In conclusion,

Remove the penalties and let the system become self-regulating, what I would expect to see is considerably more granulation and a matching of guests to what there prepared to pay for, and those listings that get consistently bad review fall out of the system.