I disagree. I don’t think we should be encouraging a culture of in person assistance 24/7 for a £100 a night room.
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You didn’t offer me a solution to the issue I asked for - approaching AirBnb for the removal of the review.
You instead decided to attack me about my business model. And yes, I do find your messages attacking.
I’ve seen that you do it on here quite a lot, to a lot of people.
Some people come on here looking for support and positivity, not a debate.
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I haven’t seen any attacks.
We don’t know you, we don’t know your hosting style.
Some of us are as blunt as a brick.
We often try to break it down so we have a complete understanding of your issue.
Yep - looks like the guest lied.
Yep- looks like the guest could follow simple instructions.
Many guests don’t get that they need to talk to the host and not the giant mess that Airbnb can be pending what CSR you get.
Me - I am the full service style of host.
I grew up in the hotel industry.
I meet and greet, Netflix not working - I am there in 5 minutes. Run out of TP(8 rolls…?) it is delivered……
Reach out at 2 in the morning- I answer.
This is my business and I am on duty 24 /7.
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As you continue along the hosting road, you’ll find that it’s quite frequent that non-normal behaviour will happen.
Just because ‘most guests’ behave in a certain way, it doesn’t mean that all guests will. Having a guest who can’t operate the keypad is surely a basic problem that your co-host is able to deal with? Maybe a little more training is in order.
The person who is co-hosting for you could have dealt with the matter in minutes, but they didn’t. Why is that? Did the guest know that you were thousands of miles away? Did they know to contact your co-host?
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You keep coming up with false equivalencies. Having someone close by available to assist in person in situations where messaging isn’t adequate isn’t the same as “encouraging a culture”. What happens if the plumbing bursts in the middle of the night and you are “off duty”, thousands of miles away and you haven’t given guests the phone number of your 24/7 emergency contact?
Obviously no one is suggesting that you have a co-host to run over and help a guest locate the hair dryer at 11PM.
Many hosts have guest messaging that indicates what hours they can be reached for non-emergencies and how to get in touch after-hours in case of a true emergency. You can even give a few examples of what constitutes a true emergency and what doesn’t, for the benefit of those guests who seem to require constant hand-holding and attention. (I once read an in-home host saying her guest knocked on her bedroom door, waking her up at 1AM, to say she couldn’t find the hair dryer)
I guess this should be #5a…
Again, love how you’ve assumed I don’t have this messaging in place and I haven’t given guests a 24/7 emergency number. I have a plumber that works for me full time who I could call, wherever I am in the world, to attend.
I never mentioned anything about being ‘off duty’ ever, I never am and it’s bloody hard. I thought that people on a forum such as this might be understanding or even sympathetic about those feelings but it seems you all relish in working around the clock and being available at all times. Good for you, honestly. It’s not how I want to live my life, but I don’t think that should mean that I can’t be a host and a good one (I have over 600 5* reviews and this is the first 1* in 12 years).
I’m not storming off but I do realise now that this forum was the wrong place for me.
Thank you for your advice.
Have a good evening.
…And again glad that my ‘competition’ thinks along these lines…
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I dealt with the matter in minutes, but the guest ignored my help and cancelled without reason.
Thanks but I asked for advice on how to dispute / have the review removed, not how to be a better host.
… #7…
20202020202w0
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You’re right, you don’t know me yet some of you have made some pretty big assumptions considering that.
Good for you, if that makes you happy. Genuinely.
It helps me have a greater understanding of why some guests have such huge expectations that I just can’t, or rather, don’t want to live up to because of the way I want to live my life.
I don’t think that makes me a bad host (my reviews prove that also) just a different hosting style from you. I just find that hard to convey to guests and don’t find that airbnb gives enough clarity on what hosts have to offer vs what they can choose to.
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The better your hosting, the easier your job will be and the happier your guests will be which equals greater profits.
You are in business after all.
Although I’ve been in the STR business seemingly forever, I would never say that there’s nothing I can learn or that I can’t better the services
I offer to my clients.
You obviously didn’t deal with the matter or this wouldn’t have become an issue.
I think that you didn’t see my questions?
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I don’t work around the clock. Nor am I available at all times, except in case of emergency.
You accuse others of making assumptions, but are making them yourself.
I can’t quite understand, if you give guests your local emergency contact number, as you claim to, that you didn’t suggest to the guest that she call that number if she was unable to get into the unit and someone would attend to assist her. (I understand this guest was to all indications scamming, but another guest might not be, just inept.)
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I’d say maybe you are taking hosting too seriously 
An occasional bad review means you are running a profitable operation. I don’t mind a bad review once in a while. I will bury ith with other good reviews. When you have a few hundred reviews, prospective guests will look the other way when you get a bad review once in a while. Getting all 5* reviews means you have to bend over backward for the minority of bad guests. It kills profitability.
The cost of perfection is too high. I believe it’s one of the reasons why there aren’t as many affordable listings on Airbnb anymore compared to early 2010s.
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LOL.
Point made about making assumptions. This forum is just a corner of the internet. Compared to some parts of the internet we are worse, to some we are better. But it’s a public forum (not in the US legal sense, just meaning a forum the public can access) and anyone can join and say whatever they want.
I have over 600 5 star reviews too. 674 reviews with one 1 star, one 3 star and about a dozen 4 stars. My average is 4.98. Something isn’t adding up here. I guess you’ve sulked off or gone to sleep but given that you think honesty is important maybe you’d like to clarify what you mean rather than have people assume (as we do) that you are a liar.
I had to scroll back quite a bit to find the question. It seems to be this:
My advice would be to drop it. You’ve already spent considerable time here and on the phone with Airbnb. You’re wasting your valuable time.
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From Airbnb’s review policy (part in italics mine):
" While we expect all community members to post reviews that represent their genuine experience and contain accurate information, we do not generally mediate disputes concerning the truth of reviews. Instead, we allow individuals to post responses to reviews within 30 days."
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Assuming that she may not return, lol, my take was that it was a singular listing that dropped from 4.86 to 4.64 and that she manages 20 properties and thus also has "over 600 5* reviews.
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“Over 600 5* reviews and this is the first 1*” doesn’t mean there weren’t another 20 or 50 4*s.
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I think the numbers don’t add up for a listing to drop from 4.86 to 4.64.
4.86 * x + 1 = 4.64 * (x+1).
x is the number of reviews before the 1* review. Solving the equation gives you x = 16.54. I expect the answer to be closer to an integer than what you get by solving what this person has provided.
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You can’t do the math unless you know how many reviews a host has in total, and how many of those are 5s, 4s, 3s, etc.