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You mention it to the guest during the meet & greet and house tour.
ask them what the problem was and give them a chance to explain.
Once they have, say ‘that’s great to hear because we’re really strict here about noise after 10 [or whatever the perceived misdemeanor was] so I’m sure you’ll remember to be thoughtful here’.
Remember too that there are some really picky hosts who’ll mark guests down for a bit of mascara on a pillowcase, or not being talkative or a broken teacup or not taking the trash out…
At the other end of the scale there are hosts whose reviews are always nice. Guests were always lovely, never a problem at all.
The review system would be great if only hosts were more honest.
One thing that would make the review system better is if they showed the number of each star reviews instead of just averaging them, like they do on other sites, like Amazon.
If you see that a guest or host has 10 reviews and 9 of them are 5 star and one is 1 star, you might chalk it up to the reviewer who left 1 star either being one of those hosts who mark guests down for minor things that most hosts would consider no big deal, or a guest who left low star ratings as revenge.
Whereas just seeing what would be a 4.6 rating over 10 reviews doesn’t give you any insight like that.
Vrbo doesn’t quite do what Amazon does, but at least you can sort by number of stars high-low or low-high and the review words go with the review stars. So it’s easy to see who was unhappy/disappointed and why, and when a 3 or 4 star review reads more like a 5-star review.
Yes, not being able to match up written reviews to the ratings makes Airbnb’s system flawed, IMO.
The other day I was looking for replacement beakers for French presses and it was helpful to see that the 1 star reviews were mostly because the reviewer was clueless. Like they complained that the beaker shattered when they stuck a metal spoon in it, or knocked it against something. Well, duh, what did they expect- those glass beakers are fragile.
Yeah, for the 4-star we got last week, I really wanted to post a reply on their review, that read something to the effect of:
“This lovely person was our 124th review. As you can see, her words are very positive. You can therefore imagine our surprise when she gave us 4 stars overall, our first-ever, less-than-5-stars review, even though she had no complaints and no communications with us during her stay and wrote a really lovely note in our coffee-table guest book. So she is the reason our overall rating is now 4.99. It’ll take 78 5-star reviews in a row to get our average back to 5.0. Even though our review of her was positive, and we said we’d be happy to have her back, we no longer feel that way. Oh, yeah, almost forgot: this was her first Airbnb stay! Yay!”
Well, the fact that Airbnb tells guests that 4 stars means Good makes me not fault guests who do this too much. If Airbnb explained 5 stars as “Lived up to the advertising” or something like that, it would be easier to fault the guests.
I have never had less than a 5 star review, but I’m sure I would have gotten a 4 star from a lovely guest I had, who I just happened to get into an Airbnb review discussion with one day over coffee. We were talking about Airbnb in general, and I mentioned that hosts are expected to maintain at least a 4.7 average and lose Superhost status below 4.8 and she was shocked.
She said she had been leaving 4 stars overall for past stays she was happy with and where she would book again. She had no idea that hosts wouldn’t be pleased with a 4, because she was just following Airbnb’s designation of it meaning Good, thinking that 5 stars would mean it was something really exceptional.
It’s so good that you didn’t post that as a response to her review. It would have made you sound like a grasping host who was more concerned with your ratings rather than the comfort, convenience and pleasure of your guests.
It would have put potential guests off staying with you.
It always comes across as quite tacky and defensive when hosts leave responses which complain about the star rating a guest left. And when it’s left as a response to a lovely written review, it makes the host seem deranged.
Especially if they are complaining about having a 4.99 average.
But I can understand why a host would feel like responding like that, as long as they don’t actually do it.
Reach out to the guest and ask what happened at the last 3* review and say that you aren’t comfortable with the low ratings she received as a guest (start with “not comfortable” so you can cancel penalty-free if you contact ABB CS).
Depending upon the answer, you can cancel. With our without a penalty.
How do you reach out to prior hosts? I’ve wanted to do that once or twice and haven’t been able to figure out how to do so. I only have one property and tend to get longer term stays so indont have a ton of turnover. Consequently I don’t know the app inside and out. Forgive me if there’s an obvious way to do this which I just have t picked up on before. Thanks in advance.
All hosts differ. I would be annoyed if hosts started contacting me. That ping on my phone means that someone has booked with me and I prefer it to stay that way.
I totally get that and it shouldn’t be a common thing. But thereve been times when there was something suspect in the review which made me want to understand a bit more before making a call on a new request.
In terms of “how”, I meant technically, not language. I never can tell who the prior host was and how to contact them (again, technically). I’m probably being daft, but could you indulge me? Thanks.
Of course you can tell who the prior host was- their profile photo is on the review. Click on that photo and it will take you to their profile page and listings.
If it happened with any regularity, or even more than once or twice, it would annoy me, too. Mostly because I’d have to make sure to respond within 24 hrs.
But it isn’t likely that you or I or any host who leaves clear, honest, unambiguous reviews would be contacted for clarification. I doubt you’d give a guest 1 star for cleanliness, 3 for house rules, and then leave a gushing “delightful guest” written review.
So maybe the host the OP was wondering about contacting for clarification deserves to be annoyed by inquiries from other hosts, if they are going to rate and review in such a confusing and seemingly dishonest manner.
