Guests who never say anything

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Every time i get a new booking w airbnb or VRBO i try to quickly send a welcome message. The day before check-in I always send them another message with a unique code for the door locks. Then the night before check-out I send a quick message wishing them well, and reminding them about check-out time.

I would say 1/4 to 1/3 of people never reply to me, never say anything. They just check in, stay, and leave. Usually there is no issue at all and they leave the house clean. I just think its weird that they don’t say anything at all.

Curious to know what other hosts “review” these type of guests. Do you mark off for communication? I find myself giving people 5 stars in most cases, unless for some reason there is an issue with check-out or the house is left a mess, or damage to the property (all extremely rare occurrences)…

It does sorta cause me a bit of stress, because it makes me wonder if everything is ok, and would generally just feel better if the person/people sleeping in my house had the courtesy to reply to my message, even if it was just to acknowledge any aspect of anything i say.

Anyhow, just curious to know what y’all think?

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As is stated here a lot, some guests just don’t read- either the listing info, or messages. :woman_shrugging:

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Blockquote
As is stated here a lot, some guests just don’t read- either the listing info, or messages.

Yea but if they didn’t read my messages, then they wouldn’t be able to get into the house, as i send them the code to the door in a message lol

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Apparently there are a lot of guests who perceive booking an Airbnb like booking a room at a hotel (although they would actually have more interaction in a hotel- they at least have to check-in at the front desk), a faceless self-check in and out, with zero interest in communicating with the host. And to be fair, many Airbnbs are like that- remote hosts, never-seen property managers, IB, scheduled, impersonal messages.

So unless a host specifically asks a guest to respond, I guess they feel there’s no need to.

Also basic manners and friendliness seem often to have gone the way of the dodo.

As a homeshare host, I don’t really deal with this- my guests are communicative and always thank me for providing them with info on how to catch the bus from the airport, etc. And I’ve usually exchanged a couple or more messages with them before they arrive.

If I had a self-check-in, self-contained listing, I would also find it disconcerting and a bit rude if guests never communicated at all, never thanked me for sending them information, couldn’t be bothered to take 3 minutes to say, “We checked in no problem, we find it nice and comfortable” or “We’ll be checking out in 15 minutes. Place was great, we had a good time, thank you.”

But I don’t know that I’d mark the non-communicators down, since, as I said, unless you specifically ask them for a response and they don’t respond, they really haven’t done anything wrong.

I wouldn’t stress out about wondering if everything is okay, though. Most guests will let you know if something is wrong, so just assume that no news is good news.

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I’ve had just a few guests like this and have found it off-putting.

But I didn’t think I had a justifiable rationale to mark them down for anything, so I have not held it against them. I agree with @muddy that some guests feel like the listing is like a hotel even though I feel it is definitely intended not to feel like that.

Oh well.

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I know what you mean, I find it really disconcerting when people don’t respond! When it’s just one or two people, then you’d think, okay, maybe that person is just neurodivergent and doesn’t get that I’m waiting for a reply. (I’ve had that before, a guest who was great, left the please extremely clean, but just didn’t seem to grasp the concept of communicating.) But when it happens regularly it makes you realise that it’s a bigger phenomenon, as @muddy says.

One thing I realised, back when it was bugging me, was that people don’t feel like they need to reply if you’re just telling them something. But if you ask them something, you’re more likely to get a response.

So, instead of sending them the unique door code, you could ask them what they want the door code to be. Instead of reminding them of the check out time, you could tell them, “My check out time is normally 10am, but I could do up to an hour later if you’d like a later check out time? If so, let me know and I can schedule the cleaning to start at 11am instead of 10.” (Also, then they’d feel like they’re getting a bonus hour, even if your standard is actually 11am.)

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I use text.
After checkin in about 8:45 pm .“Everything ok at the hideaway?”
The next morning >" Comfortable last night? Hope so!"

These may fall into the easily answerable question category. They are almost always answered in the affirmative or better ( We hope for “it’s perfect”:: and get that often) and these text replies could be used if there were ever a complaint against us.

I do feel that most guests prefer anominity and autonomousness, it is a feeling and part of traveling that gives mystique. Not necessarily anything against the host who’s near or far.

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Yes if I’ve asked a question to them specifically and didn’t get an answer.

However I will often give 5 stars if I’d really be happy to host them again. That is, good behavior on one area will tip the scale in another. Also, most of my guests are traveling and may not have notifications enabled or be checking their email several times a day. And they are paying me so expectations are different than for a host.

I gave 3 stars to the host who didn’t send a single message, not even an automated one, on a recent trip. If I’d gotten automated replies that didn’t indicated they read might messages, I might have given 4 stars.

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thank you for the thoughtful reply. i don’t mark down and i think ill continue handing out 5 stars as long as the house is left in decent condition.

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This drives me crazy! My place is remote and guests have gotten lost in the past and I’m kind of over-the-top in terms of making sure they’re having a wonderful time. Ha ha. It’s really strange when there’s no reply, but I try to be very careful not to annoy guests too. I figure sometimes a family is coming to visit and it’s a lot to get the kids settled, unpack the car, go to the river and throw some sticks, check out the snowy peaks, etc. There was only one time I actually had my housekeeper drive to the cabin because I was worried about the guests and not getting any replies. I can’t remember what the scenario was exactly. I did knock off a point on communication, but my housekeeper mentioned other weird things she saw (giant tent set up next to the cabin, etc.) It was all kind of strange, but the cabin was in perfect shape and very clean after check out.

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I understand your frustration. We’ve had a few that didn’t say anything, even when I ask them to provide me with their arriving flight information.

One or two didn’t respond until after I sent them “You won’t be able to show up at the airport and just grab a taxi to our home. We don’t have an address and almost no one knows how to get to our home. I can schedule the driver that works with us to meet you at the airport [two days from now], or send you driving instructions. Which do you prefer?” Then suddenly the lightbulb goes off that St Lucia isn’t the United States, and they start communicating.

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It’s so telling that these types, who you wonder if maybe they don’t have their notifications turned on, so perhaps they haven’t seen your messages (trying to give them the benefit of the doubt), suddenly become communicative when they realize that something might negatively affect or inconvenience them.
Such self-absorption. So many people like that these days.

I was just visiting with a friend of mine who has run a small hostel for about 15-20 years. She said she’s shocked by the attitude of entitlement of some of the young people who knock on the door these days, looking for a room.

She always engages them in conversation for awhile before saying whether she has vacancies and tells them what the house rules are. When she says they can’t have visitors, they ask why, and she patiently explains that it’s for the safety of all of her guests- they can’t have strangers who aren’t staying walking in and out- she has had thefts in the past, people partying and disturbing the other guests, and even a rape, before instituting that policy.

Instead of saying, “Oh, that makes sense, we understand now”, they push back, saying “But they aren’t strangers, we know them”, that’s so unfair, all their friends are trustworthy, blah, blah.

At which point she says, “You know, it’s kind of a moot point to argue about, because I’m all booked up right now, anyway”. (Even if she isn’t)

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New review today. Here’s a guest who didn’t say anything. Beth “says” my listing isn’t perfectly accurate, thus the 4-stars instead of 5, but she ticked off all of the boxes about all of the accuracy things just to confuse me and then didn’t tell me what super special highly unique thing she found to be inaccurate :rofl:

Bad Beth. Bad. Don’t come back Beth. You’re too mysterious for me :joy:

Screenshot 2023-04-20 at 6.27.12 PM
Screenshot 2023-04-20 at 6.27.12 PM725×446 11.6 KB

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My guests have to say something and I make it easy by texting. If they don’t they won’t get here. If they try, using the home address, they wind up down in an impassable gully with no turn around. Gps does not know our location…“no one will find you”

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I like this a lot. Good old-fashioned tough love! Communicate or be left for dead in a gulley. :grin:

That’s how I was brought up and I do know how to communicate.

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I mean once they get here no one will find them! Like if some famous personality wanted some privacy they couldn’t get this anywhere else except their own digs…

With all the killings of innocent people being in the wrong place…

Yes it is safer for us and for guests to write back as requested!

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Same here- I do have an address, but no one would ever find it using the address. So I ask guests for their email address so I can send them a map. I also ask them to confirm that they got it.

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so in the past I gave 5* so long as the place was left clean and there were no issues, then I started to get some weird reviews, along the lines of what @JJD described, plus I had a few stupid reviews from guests who’d never once contacted me, and then I learned that the way guests’ scores are displayed is very different to ours (and unfair) so now I give them 4* if they don’t find the easter egg I have in my house rules (which means they didn’t read them, even though my post-booking message reminds them to read it, AND i even now tell them there’s an easter egg, still only get a 40% hit rate). I suppose I was happy, naive and generous as a host before, but have, through experience learned to set the bar higher for guest behaviour. If they don’t respond to any of my messages why would I give them 5* for communication?

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If I ask a guest a specific question and they don’t reply then that could be a problem - except that I don’t ask.

The post-booking message is simply a ‘thank you for booking and let me know if you have any questions’ message.

Because guests don’t get the keycode until they arrive, it’s up to them to contact me if they want to get into their accommodation. :slight_smile:

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I agree… I do wonder if they didn’t like something and whether they will leave me a five star review.
I will give them five stars on everything if the place was left clean.

If they leave me five stars, then they are the ideal type of guests. But if they leave me less than five stars because they had an issue I could have fixed if they bothered to communicate, then I contact Airbnb to remove the review I left for them.

This should definitely put doubt in the minds of future hosts, whether to host them.