I am a New Host. I have one 5 Star Review but was hoping the last guest would leave one. It was 4 Men that were doing Professional Clean Up for the Camp Fire Houses that did not burn but have smoke damage. They left my house very clean and in good shape. Of course I gave him a great Review. He has been gone a week and no Review yet. Is it inappropriate for me to ask him to leave a short Review?
Thanks
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Itâs not âinappropriateâ. I personally think itâs "pushy to ask for reviews, but thatâs just me.
However Air sends them a message to leave a review, and another message when your review was posted. it has only been a week â and your guests were a working crew who have undoubtedly gone on to work elsewhere and may not have time for frivolities like reviewing Air hosts. And they were a bunch of single guysâŚ
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I think if you are a new host you could leave a note in your guest book information to explain how the review system works and how as a new host you would particularly appreciate them leaving you a short review to help future guests build up a picture of what it is like to stay at your place and be hosted by you.
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Iâm with Ken on this one 100%. I will only add that I had a working professional here at my Airbnb this past fall. He would be in town a few days, fly home, check in again and so on. His first 8 stays or so were on Airbnb and he didnât leave a single review. So itâs not a lack of being reminded, itâs not because he wasnât happy with it, some people just donât do it and I donât think they will either.
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When I was a new host I asked for reviews, but did so in person. âhey Iâm new to this, do you have any feedback or things I can improve?..Iâm trying to build up my good reviews - would you be willing to leave one?â
I donât think itâs helpful to ask after the fact - guests get multiple reminders. At some point it just becomes nagging. I also suspect that some less-happy guests just donât leave a review. You donât want to push them into leaving a lower-star review.
The one thing Iâve found that does help is sending a Thank You message just after checkout. If theyâve been a good guest Iâll message âThanks for leaving the place in such excellent shape! It was a pleasure to host you and Iâve left a 5-star review. I hope to see you again if your travels bring you back toâŚâ
Sometimes just the prompting that âI liked you and left you a great reviewâ triggers some social reciprocity.
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Also if you donât have it, get the Chrome extension called Air Review. It shows you the reviews that guests left for other hosts when you click on their profile. I just had a couple stay last night that have 4 reviews and they only left reviews for two of their hosts and one of those reviews was a smiley face. That can give you some hints about if they will review or not and sometimes tips you off to things that bug them so you can take proactive steps to head off problems.
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After I am able to leave a good review- I msg them and say âI just left you a 5â review! Tha k you for being excellent guests!â Usually I get one back pretty quickly
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Although, as I just learned, it can backfire. A guest who gave no indication of displeasure in person now knows they are good to go so now leave a very bad reviewâŚa two star in my case, yikes!
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I disagree. In the welcome letter when they arrive, I explain the Airbnb review system vs a traditional review system. . In the checkout message I remind them about the importance of both getting and leaving a review. Finally I leave a review the same day they check out so that when they check their inbox they see that Iâve already left a review by the time the get home.
I am a super host with nearly 250 5 star reviews. (Except of course for the dreaded location or value).
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I think it is good if we give good or fair feedback or review on a good service. I think we should always appreciate the good work.
Yep, if you are a new host and you need good reviews it canât hurt to ask. Worst case scenario they donât. Good luck. When youâve had 100s of good reviews it stops mattering.
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Actually, worst case scenario is that they do but it is not a good reviewâŚ
Weâve made a Welcome Guide for our guests with clear info of the property and try to help any questions they may have before they even have to ask! But we also place a note letting the guests know that we strive to provide a â5 starâ experience and to let us know if there is anything we can do to help that! Then I always send a friendly message either the night before or the morning of check out to our guests requesting a review-
It says:
Good evening (GUEST NAME)!
We hope youâve enjoyed your stay! Check out is at 11 AM tomorrow morning. Please refer to the welcome book for all check out instructions and let us know if you have any questions.
Also, one last thing! If you have any time when you get home, weâd greatly appreciate you leaving a review about your stay at the condo. We will gladly return the favor for you!
Best,
Danny & Andrea
I always leave a review for our guests and 9/10 times it gets an immediate review back. The guests also get a few emails from Airbnb about leaving a review so I donât push it any further than the check out message. We have almost a full 5 star rating with 300+ reviews for 6 properties. This has worked like a charm! 
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I ask for a review and most of the time get one. I also have forwarded my review of them in advance. There was one backfire, but overall it has worked very well.
We have been in AirBnB for 15 months and have had 125 bookings and 118 left reviews. 97% were 5 star and the remaining 3% were 4 star. We have never mentioned reviews to anybody. We always review our guests and usually within 24 hours.
Ours is a shared house in a peaceful tropical beach location. I think that the location is VERY important when it comes to getting 5 star reviews. Everybody who stays in our location is here to relax and enjoy the reef and rainforest.
Nobody is here for a court appearance or to visit an ailing relative in hospital or to pitch a business deal or to work on some project or another. So I think that we benefit a lot from that. We donât have someone projecting a bad experience theyâve had elsewhere during their stay into their review of us.
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I am close to one of the main highways through town and I get mostly people passing through so I think that helps. It also helps when people look at reviews and see 100+5 star.
I think the main thing is to actually provide a 5 star experience. Things like a clean tidy yard when the guests approach the rental. Clean windows, touched up paint. Iâve seen people post here complaining about their reviews but then they posted pictures of their space and itâs unattractive or cluttered. No one wants to hear that their place is unappealing but that results in some 4 star reviews, even if itâs exactly as listed.
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I started hosting in December and have wondered about this too. We just got our third review (all 5 stars!) so they now appear on our listing but it seemed to take a lot longer than we had hoped. I did end up requesting two of them after a week or so, since they had provided great feedback in the app. I think most guests donât realize how important ratings and reviews are to hosts, especially brand new ones. I may request a few more from guests I know were really happy but once I am more established I will probably just take what I get. Good luck!
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Just another opinion - Iâve posted elsewhere that I would never ask for reviews. Airbnb pesters the guest with emails or app notifications and the fact that some hosts really want to get reviews just isnât the guestsâ problem.
When they leave they are either going on to the next phase of their trip (with lots of exciting new things to do in a new area) or they are returning to their day-to-day life. Neither situation is very conducive to writing reviews. I even had a guest who, on the last day of his stay here, heard that his mother had died. I imagine that the last thing on his mind when he got home was reviewing me.
I can completely understand that new hosts are impatient but really, itâs better to wait. Reviews will come without bothering the guests.
@KenH thinks itâs pushy and I agree. I also think itâs pretty tacky.
P.S. Beware too of telling guests who have just left that youâre going to give them a 5 star review. Unless youâve spent quite a while in the rental (or your co-host has) then youâve no proper indication of whether they really were 5 star guests. The place being superficially clean isnât enough. You might find that you have to wash every piece of china theyâve used because they did a bad job, they may have stained towels that are hiding in the laundry basket, they might have broken a few glasses and put the evidence in the trash ⌠itâs only after being well into the turnover that youâll discover whether they really were great guests.
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Itâs worrying with your first few; they count for a lot. It might have been a coincidence but the only 3* review I ever had was from someone that I reminded because I was just starting up and needed it. I still wonder why they did it. After 62 reviews now I have 4.9 average. Iâd given them extra time to check out, been friendly and helpful and they gave me 4 or 5 stars for the separate stuff like cleanliness. I can only think they didnât like me ânaggingâ. So I ask for a review at the end of the welcome details (which itâs clear are often not read) but nothing more. That said Iâve only had about 3 people out of 65 who didnât review.
What I came to believe is that Airbnb is not in the accommodation business. Thatâs all on the host.
Airbnb is in the review business.
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