Winter Release: New process for reviewing guests

[Huma0]

I know that other hosts have posted a few screenshots or information about the updated procedure for reviewing guests, but I thought I would upload screenshots of the whole process for hosts who have yet to experience it or those who did not view all the options when they left recent reviews.

So, first up is cleanliness. If you select 5 or 4*, the following additional feedback comments appear. As you can see from the 'next' button, selecting these is optional. You can choose to simply leave the star rating and move on.

However, if you select anything from 1-3*, these are the comments that come up and you can see that the comments are no longer optional. You have to select at least one reason.

With house rules, it's basically the same thing, except that the comments are positive/optional for 5*, but anything 1-4* prompts the negative comments, and you have to select one.

With communication, we go back to 4 and 5* being. positive/optional and 1-3* being negative/comment required.

What you will also note, and this I think is VERY important, is that it states on every rating page "Well share this with (name of guest) and other hosts". I took this to mean that Airbnb is now sharing star ratings with guests. However, I then wondered if this means they will share the comments only, or is it the comments AND the star ratings? Does anyone know? Has anyone been reviewed recently as a guest? Can you see the stars?

@Jenny @Quincy @Bhumika @Emilie @Stephanie Is this something you could clarify for us?

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

Bland surroundings??!

I'd love to talk to the genius who came up with that one.

[Fred13]

This new review system approaches the thoroughness of a survey; it is fastidiously long and may  influence the past star system in ways that are unpredictable, so why go there.

[Huma0]

@Fred13 

Why go there? Well, according to the article from Airbnb, it's supposed to improve things for hosts:

" Detailed reviews of guests: You’ll be able to leave more details when someone stays with you and read more guest info left by other Hosts. Your feedback will help enforce ground rules."

So, I suppose the theory is that when a guest sees they got a lower rating (we still don't know if the guests now actually see their star ratings - waiting for an update on that), they will now see the reason why, e.g. didn't take out trash, slow responses etc. and supposedly deter them from repeating that behaviour.

[Fred13]

It is an invitation for minutiae. Reminds me of a high-school report card.

[Gillian166]

@Fred13  haha,  I likened it to a Primary School report card. I used to have this in my guest manual, but I've since taken it out as I don't need constant reviews anymore (we host 1-2 nights, so we could get 3 + reviews per week), we have a good amount and I'm happy to only prompt the truly good guests to leave a review. 

[Fred13]

I got 226 reviews over 7 years (2-3 each month), which is 226/753 guests, more than enough. If someone doesn't get the flic with 220+ reviews they will never get it.

[Huma0]

@Fred13 

Yes, I agree with you. I'm not saying I believe that these additional comments will encourage better guest behaviour, I'm just citing the reasoning that Airbnb has given for introducing them. 

I honestly feel that most guests who are a bit rubbish are completely oblivious but remain just as clueless even when they do get feedback. I've hosted many guests who told me about issues they had with previous hosts and they just could never understand the negative feedback. "But I don't know why the host was upset with us. We DID clean up after ourselves..." "We only took this or that because we thought it was for us..." And, lo and behold, they repeat the same behaviour here. 

There is only so much we can do to 'educate' guests. If someone has been brought up to be messy, clueless and irresponsible, it's not my job to fix them. I'm not their mum.

[Gillian166]

@Huma0  So we got a review recently and you'll see the extra notes are included, in the email, not on my profile anywhere that i can see. I'm concerned they would also include the notes for negative reviews. I don't see the star ratings anywhere, which was the case before. 

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

Thanks. That's useful to know. I am assuming you mean you cannot see the star ratings anywhere on your profile either?

[Helen0]

I stayed at an Airbnb place in Madrid just last week and completed the new style review. It didn't take long to do, I actually thought it was an improvement. However no star rating was visible at the time or afterwards. I'm confident it was a 5* rating because everything went well and the host's comment was very enthusiastic but no, guests still can't see star ratings as far as I can see.  

[Scott57]

My issue is that they seem to have changed the question "Would you host XX again?" to "Would you recommend XX to other hosts?" I don't like this change because it takes away my choice. 

For example, a recent guest left a lot of hair in the bathroom sink, floor, tub and shower walls. They also left a small stain on my wood floors that does not come out. Other than that, they were friendly and left the place clean. I don't want to slam them for this and destroy their rating by NOT recommending them to other hosts, but I would rather they don't stay with me. My calendar is usually full so I don't need to host guests whom I find less than ideal. I was told before that if I responded "No" to "Would you host xx again?" they could not instant book with me, but could still request, at which point I could turn them down. For me there is a huge gap between these two questions. Anyone else notice this change? 

[Huma0]

@Scott57 

Yes, that is an interesting point. I kind of remember at some point before, the question was "Would you recommend XX to other hosts?" and then Airbnb changed it, and now they seem to have changed it back again.

So, what does that mean? Does it mean the we say no, we would not recommend, that guest cannot IB with us again, or does it mean they can? A lot of the issues I have with these changes is that the wording is so infuriatingly vague that we have no idea...

[Huma0]

One thing I did not mention, because I did not notice it until I had to submit reviews under this system until recently, is that it does not allow you to leave both positive and negative comments. So, they have to be one or the other.

Let's say that a guest was good in communication in some ways, and you want to feed that back, but they were not so great with communication in other ways, you cannot do that. They have to be good or bad...

Which is not ideal.