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Our guest left us a wonderful review and 5 stars overall. When I looked in detail I all of a sudden saw a 4-star in the check-in category, with a “difficult to find” underneath it. Totally not the end of the world, but I was still puzzled as to why, so I very nicely asked the guest what exactly we did wrong.
ANSWER: Hi, the only issue was that the taxi driver could not find your apartment block. So he dropped us on the road but we could not easily locate where we were. A really kind lady helped us find (hidden) and there was no problem after this.
Our street is at max. 150m long. Our building number is clearly indicated. There are several buildings where it’s obvious that we can’t be located. The address that we give out is very correctly shown on google maps and similar. It was a very expensive airport taxi that should have taken 5 minutes to just locate the correct building. I really don’t know how we were at fault in this one. Thanks Airbnb for giving guests prefabricated options to complain about .
Yes and what about a beautiful rural property which might genuinely be difficult to find? That’s life. It’s high time we got rid of duff categories like location and check in and as you say fabricated guests dissatisfactions.
I don’t get what the guests are meant to be assessing with check in. Mind you there are a few guests I would like to assess for check in, for being clueless, non communicative, mega late and not listening!
The same thing has happened here several times. In each and every case the taxi has just dropped them off wherever they felt like, despite the accurate map, directions and photo of the front of the property. It’s not even hard to find without all that!
Of course when it comes to the review, we get 4 stars for location or check in. Argh.
Just be glad that air doesn’t have a review category for “pre-arrival experience” to rate the airline, taxi ride or squeegee kid at the traffic light…
You’ve described our location. Our road doesn’t have a name, isn’t big enough to be on Google maps and St Lucia has very few street signs. We encourage all our guests to use our driver to pick them up at the airport so they don’t get lost!
And then there was the AirBnB we stayed at in Rome where the driver THEY sent couldn’t find the apartment! I didn’t downgrade them for that, but did suggest they get a new driver.
Funny @GutHend did we host the same guest? Exactly the same with “difficult to find”. I didnt even bother asking why. Bare in mind my apartment is in a famous street in the city centre, lots of street signs and in my instructions I mention two VERY obvious bars next to it that are impossible to miss. Literally the one has a big pink sign
Same happened to me when a guest decided to get on the wrong bus from the airport. She had almost no English. When I started to worry and made contact through the app she gave her phone to a stranger and I worked out where she was and went and picked her up. She gave me 3 for check in. Call me stunned.
Seriously though, there are just some things that you can’t defend against. If the taxis are so eager to dump passengers so they can get another fare, there is little I can do about that. What’s odd though is that in the guests’ mind, it is somehow our fault.
And not string along, “We’ll be there right at 3”, at about 3:30 I get, “We stopped for a bite, be there around 4:30”, at 4:30 I get, “We’re at a friend’s so probably around 7:00”. Same guests left the heat set to about 80 when they left.
Yes just oblivious to others. I tend to suggest they collect their keys first then they don’t have to worry what time they will be in, not that they were worried originally lol.
House number is clearly marked on road by a reflective post w/numbers plus a mailbox with numbers but GPS services send guests to my onion field down a horrible dusty dead end road, what we call a “field road” which is traveled by tractors, harvesting equipment and 4w drive vehicles. There is no lighting and nowhere for a car to turn around without driving in a plowed field or over crops. Someday a car is going to get stuck in those deep soft rutted fields and I’m going to have to use the tractor to pull them out.
Why can’t people just use their eyes and look for the house number along the road? It’s like we’ve abdicated thinking to computers and forgotten how to do for ourselves.
So true. And it’s not just the thinking. So many people seem to have forgotten how to converse face-to-face and text instead, even when they are in the same house.
Well in her defense you do indeed check her in later than expected @Jacqueline!
So how could your chauffeuring of her change that untimely check in ? Maybe unless you drove a time machine and set the timer wrong? That would def have given you 5*
If taxi driver couldn’t find you then you are not that easy to locate. May be additional directions should be given.
Once in Rwanda we couldn’t find address for 3 hours. Noone knew where that street is. And Google.map was not big help also. But… apparently everyone knew Junior academy which was exactly opposite the house. Host never mentioned it and when we arrived there exhausted he told us: noone before you had any problems finding us. I showed him 3 reviews that said it was difficult to find. Not o ly that based on these reviews I even asked him if there are any other indications we should know about it to find him and he never mentioned Junior academy.
I once had a complaint because I didn’t provide a large enough pot for making pasta. I had two big pots, just not b i g enough… turns out their 15 yr old son was just so tired of eating hamburgers and his mama desperately needed to make him some homemade pasta. Lol! So I bought them this giant cauldron and humored them with my bedazzling empathy and concern. I got 5 stars. Lesson learned, don’t be an obstacle to Mama expressing her love for her son.
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