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I’ve just received the email from Airbnb setting out the new host rules - we can now be temporarily delisted for not being up to scratch in certain areas. OK fine. But has anyone seen any rules or criteria for guests? Which I keep bugging Airbnb for.
As an example, I had a guest recently. He rated me 5 stars for all the categories but 4 stars overall (Overall is where it counts). And I know the reason. I was away for one night so there was space in the garage for his car (I advertise I don’t provide off-street parking). He rang me and asked if he could put his car in however I had to say no, as our parking is one car behind the other. That would mean my son would have to come and get the keys and move his car out and do the juggle each time one of them wanted to use the car. He was so insistent and said he’d go and speak to my son who was embarassed and put on the spot so said yes. I told him he also needed to move his car by 10am as I would be returning. He sounded very put out and thought it was not good having no parking. There is lots of parking in our street - he just didn’t want to pay for it and go through the hassle of putting coins in the meter every 3 hours. So, he told me the room was lovely, perfect, blah blah blah but he found it annoying having to pay for parking (like 95% of the area in the city where I live.)
How does Airbnb ameliorate low star ratings for guests who are clueless and still comparing it to a hotel experience?
Where is the guidance on leaving reviews for guests? Guests know our reviews are important and they often hold it over you.
Reviews on Airbnb are skewed so positively that they are practically unreliable. Case in point would be that you think a 4 star review is bad. I look at reviews in aggregate - if I am meeting my goals on a monthly basis and working on issues that come up regularly then I’m satisfied. That works for me since I have lots of short bookings - I imagine that it would be different if I only had 4 long ones per month. It’s certainly an imperfect system designed for lots of data rather than for just a little.
When I get a ding, I try to remember that there is a ton of data that shows that people trust merchants/vendors/etc who can demonstrate responsiveness to poor reviews more than they trust those with nothing but perfect reviews.
I take your point, but it doesn’t address the fact that Airbnb allows guests to rate us unfairly. I have 58 reviews (out of 80 guests). All except one have been 5 stars for cleanliness. A Japanese guest who left her breakfast plate by the bed and the windows open rang me at 9pm to tell me there was a roach in her room. I got out of bed, went and killed and removed it and put a bait under the fridge to mollify her. I live in Sydney near the water - cockroaches are par for the course. She gave me a 2 star rating for cleanliness. We have no comeback. Someone who stays in your place and who you won’t let them pay cash for a couple of extra nights because they’re offering you $20 per night less than you’d get for booking through Airbnb, give you 3 stars overall. They loved the experience and wanted to stay but when you tell them ‘no’ they take it out in the review. The comments are lovely but they think we don’t see what they give us for star ratings (Airbnb tells them this).
There needs to be some recourse for these kind of vendetta star ratings.
Yes, or maybe they should tell the guests that hosts will be informed of the rating they were given. Seeing nobody can see anyone else’s until both are done, it prevents any retaliatory ratings.
i just read through it and think they are definitely cracking down. It will mainly apply to the uncaring, unprofessional hosts–the majority of whom would not be posting on a forum like this. It’s probably grown to the point where they have to start laying down the law.
I’ve read a few incidences here of people trying to get reviews removed and it sounds lengthy with lots of back and forths and ‘they said’ ‘I said’. Yes it can happen, but that’s not the answer and probably not the way the system should work. I’m talking about a more general approach to guests expectations and the fairness shown to hosts who are not misrepresenting their places, or generally providing a shoddy experience.
Hosts now have so many rules and restrictions and criteria placed on them. I just want to know what does Airbnb communicate to guests that is expected of them.
When I used Airbnb as a guest I got nothing from Airbnb - no guidance at all. I don’t feel I need it, BUT I certainly feel some of my guests do - and from all the forums here you’ll see plenty of other hosts feel the same.
