How do you rate guests on communication when there is no communication?

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Two recent examples. I’m taking stars off the first one because her lack of communication made my life more difficult. The second one, though…Is this just par for the course on Airbnb now? :woman_shrugging:

Background: I list a suite attached to my home. While it’s a separate space, it’s clear I live in the house and guests should expect to see me (not a pro-host with 100 apartments). City regs require I keep a guest list, so I ask for this in my booking confirmation message. Per house rules, it’s required before arrival.

Group #1
They book 4 weeks out. No reply to the ask for guest names.
3 weeks later and 4 days before arrival, I say “Please reply to my earlier request…once I have guest names I’ll send self check-in instructions”. No reply.

The day before arrival, I’m feeling antsy. Do I cancel this booking for lack of communication?
I send one more message saying I’m still waiting on this info and she’d need to plan on an in-person check in. (I cancel my dinner plans to accommodate this)

She finally replies late that night with names. Fine. I set up the door code and send arrival info.
In person she apologized “I didn’t mean to blow you off.” Perhaps not her intent, but exactly what she’d done.

Group #2
Guests IB’d, sending guest names at the same time. No reply to my confirmation message at booking. No reply to my welcome message a couple days before arrival. If I hadn’t run into them in the yard, it would have been a totally anonymous booking.

I’m curious how other hosts would review these stays.

On one hand, so long as I have the guest list, I can set the door code and move on with life. MANY stays are like #2 – they send names at booking or on the first request, arrive and stay without much else. Most send a quick “Thanks for info! See you soon!” reply to my message; some don’t reply at all. I review them as 5* because I had what I needed. While I think the non-responsive ones are low-key rude, they’re also not paying to be my best friend.

On the other hand, is the basic decency of a reply too much to ask?

In my 20’s I lived or stayed in a few home-sharing situations, both in the US and overseas. Those experiences were a lot like the early days of Airbnb, as my sister first described it to me: “it’s like staying in a distant relative’s home”. I get that Air is more hotel-like than this original concept, but when did it cross over to “If I’m paying you, you’re not entitled to the politeness of a reply”?

Maybe it’s a slow letting go of the “Airbnb community” feeling. If I engage with a member of my community and they turn on their heel, ignoring me, that says a lot about the state of our “community”. :speak_no_evil: I also can’t help but feel that Air’s push for things like IB and self check-in has reduced the importance of host/guest relations and these transactional interactions are the natural outcome.

Obviously, compared to party-houses and pop-up brothels, this isn’t a big issue, just my little feelings. We’re one stay away from going into winter hibernation. Maybe I’ll feel better or care less in the spring. :rofl:

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@Allison_H I know that sometimes guests don’t know that you’ve sent them a message because they don’t set-up their notifications. I often need a response soon because I pre-approve dogs and have questions about the dogs to do that. A couple of things have helped me.

I added the note “Please consider setting up “Notifications” for easier communication” in my booking Welcome Message/Questions. I think some people have taken note and done it because I noticed a lot of difference after adding that.

Also, I have had good luck sending them an email to their ABB email address and saying, “hey, please check your Airbnb messages”. I put in the signature that ‘I don’t monitor this email address so all replies should go through the ABB message stream’ (to avoid having more communication on there). I set-up a gmail account solely for this purpose. I’ve always gotten a fast response and an apology saying they didn’t realize I’d sent a message when I send the email.

As far as ratings, I do think it’s fair to take stars off for crap communication. Afterall, it is something we are rating. If you think about your guest with the best communication, that’s 5 stars and so anyone lesser loses a star or two. I would never decline a guest because they had less than 5-stars for communication but I do appreciate, as a host, having the warning that they may need a little extra attention for me to get communication from them.

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I think you’re right: if you get enough information from the guest to satisfy what you require, then that should be a five-star communication rating.

If you don’t get what you need communication-wise, then fewer stars.

One thing I’ve found, especially with guests who are new to Airbnb, is that they often don’t realize they can’t answer on the regular phone text app. Some have told me that they did reply, but it didn’t go through Airbnb, and therefore I never saw it.

I also think you’re right that, in general, a lot of people tend to do less communicating than they might’ve done in the past. It’s the same issue people have when they ask for an RSVP for a planned event and never hear back from the person they’ve invited.

I have also had guests who were slow to respond, but, ultimately, every guest has given us the information we needed. Sometimes it just takes being persistent, as you have been.

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Absolutely not! And anyone who doesn’t respond doesn’t have 5-star communication and I’d like to know that when I book them so I can be prepared.

As a side-note, I offered a guy a really awesome Special Offer recently. I responded to him in 3 minutes after his inquiry and sent the Special Offer right away. Nine hours later, about 12:30 am, I had no response whatsoever from him so I withdrew the offer. He obviously wasn’t going to be the easy-booking easy-guest I was offering such a great deal to! Of course the next day, he was, like, “hey what happened?” And I told him, “Because I didn’t receive any response from you, I withdrew the offer”. I expected he’d at least say, “thanks, let me think about it” or something.

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Yes, less communication is becoming more common. As you know, I have a high volume each year and although I’m not keeping a spreadsheet or anything, I’m definitely getting less communication. (yes, just like hotels) I don’t hesitate to take off a star on communication if they don’t communicate. It doesn’t have to be much. Just a simple thank you, or see you soon. I have people who don’t acknowledge my check in message and then call me on the phone or text me asking for the door code. Some don’t even bother to tell me who they are. One guy “what’s the door code?” The caller ID showed the same last name as the guest so I sent the code, but really?

That said, I have to walk a mile in their shoes. I was reminded with this year’s travels that getting into a hotel is very simple. Reserve and show up. The location is probably on google maps. You don’t have to read a bunch of policies and look up the directions and walk to the back and enter the code and take off your shoes and…you get the drift. Some hosts are so needy I just don’t even bother to book their place.

I’m going to PM you something about community. :wink:

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That is exactly the way I treat it. If I get the information I need by the time I need it, then 5 stars. I don’t really need much, though. I only ask if the guests need the sofa bed setup as a bed and I ask for a check-in ETA, but neither are a hard requirement, so I don’t really need anything at all (and this is intentional). I’m more concerned simply with knowing the guest has received the information from me so that I know things will go smoothly for them. If a guest complains that the sofa bed isn’t set up for them or that they didn’t receive the lock-box code, then I’ll ding them on communication, but that hasn’t happened, yet.

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Guest arriving today has a reservation that says check in at 4-6 pm. In the booking message she said she is driving from Baja, CA and doesn’t know when they will arrive due to traffic, etc. Google estimates 11:30, will that be a problem?

I replied to her yesterday within 30 minutes asking for clarification or arrival time. 11:30 pm I presume? No reply to this morning’s booking messages. 15 minutes ago I get a text telling me arrival would be in 2-3 hours.

This is why I’ve set up for self check in because most folks don’t communicate and when they do a good part of the time what them tell me doesn’t match up with what they do.

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@Allison_H I just went into “hibernation “ last week. First time I’ve ever done it in 3-1/2 years. This summer burned me out and I could not wait to see the last guest out seven days ago!

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100% of my guests get 5 stars for communication. Instant book is all the communication I need, I send them check in instructions the day of reservation and they show up and let themselves in.

RR

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Not all guest have the phone app and not all guests have notifications set up. I have also found that not all guests check email anymore. What I do is in my house rules when you book you need to provide info within 48 hours. If I have not received said info within 48 hours (after cancellation grace period/Strict) I then contact them via text to tell them they need to check their Airbnb account for info that is required per rules when they booked. I also tell them that they need to respond via their Airbnb account and not via text per Airbnb rules about committing via their account.

In regards to communication once they are there (i.e. - I send a welcome message and ask if everything is as expected, I send a check out message asking them to send a message when they leave) I don’t really worry if I don’t hear from them and I don’t mark them down for communication.

The only time I mark them down for communication is when I have to contact Airbnb to contact the guest because I need info and they haven’t responded.

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True, but you pay for that simplicity. That’s what the “new generation” of guests is forgetting.

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You can’t forget something you never knew. :wink:

We can debate the merits of how the sharing economy is impacting relationships, etc like medieval monks debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But the reality is that if I want to compete on Airbnb for the market I serve (which is not VR rentals) I have to let go of the “my house” concept and embrace the “your Airbnb room” concept.

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Exatcly this, they may not be aware they need to. On more than one occasion I have had guests not respond to my messages & request for a ball park checkin time. Then when I re-send the request via SMS they get back to me straight away. I just put it down to another thing, passing messages on, that we can’t rely on AirBNB for as the messages are probably sitting in their AirBNB inbox without their knowledge.

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I changed my greeting message a couple months ago to include a couple sentences recommending guest install the Airbnb app on her/his phone and enable notifications.

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Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I’ll keep giving 5* to people who don’t make me chase them down for info, even if they’re low-key rude by not responding. :wink:

Many of you mentioned that guests don’t have their notifications set up correctly. I agree this is a big cause of non-responsive guests, so I might try adding something to my HR. I’m not going to make my rating of them more “gentle”, though. If they made my job more difficult they’re going to get that feedback. It’s on them to figure out why.

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Once we have a booking we get their phone number. If I can’t get what I need in the app, I either text them to check their Airbnb messages, or just do the old fashioned way, call them, haha. I haven’t had to do this often, but I have and usually the guest response is “what?” “I didn’t know there was something.” Remember we are on the app every day, most people are not so they don’t think to look at ONE MORE APP for a message.

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Airhost forum jinx. I had a guest book yesterday at 9:15am for last night. His very brief booking message was “Hi XX, I will arrive at 3 pm today. Thanks, XX.” He still hadn’t arrived when I went to sleep. At 4:38 am a request to alter his reservation to include tonight came through. I ignored it until I woke up 1.5 hours later. I was happy to see he wasn’t trying to just change it to tonight and not pay for last night. And tonight wasn’t even available until yesterday afternoon when I had a cancellation. So it’s worked out very well for me and I have no real complaint but I am curious as to what is going on.

Edit: He just arrived by taxi. I guess his flight from Germany was delayed. I stepped out to talk to him and the first thing he asked about was mold. He says he’s very sensitive to mold. I assured him there is no mold. Then he asked if he could sleep outside on the front porch if he had any trouble sleeping inside! But he has no equipment/sleeping bag. I hope he doesn’t want to sleep outside with my linens. (I only thought I’d heard everything).

He didn’t have access to the code which I sent in a message because he doesn’t have a US SIM card yet. Thank goodness I was home and awake when he arrived. He also has no luggage, only some bottled water and some plastic shopping bags so I’m going to assume his luggage is delayed. So I showed him how to get in and he asked about opening a window to “air it out.” It’s 45 degrees this morning. It’s going to be an interesting stay. He is definitely the kind of oddball I used to see more often in my early Airbnb days.

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He sounds like a tired, discouraged, worried traveler to me.

May his stay be comfortable and uneventful for all.

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I would imagine. Given the time changes I’d guess he’s be up and traveling for 36-48 hours. And it’s a good reminder that people traveling from foreign countries don’t always have access to messaging, the internet or phone service. And if you are arriving in a airport in the middle of the night or hurrying to make a connection you might not have a chance to get a SIM card right away.

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It’s a bit stressful for me because as I state in my listing, it’s not a good place for day sleeping. I have a guest dog being dropped off this morning and I sure hope this dude isn’t sleeping on my front porch when my client arrives with her dog. Even him having the door open (there’s a secure screen door) is going to stress me out.

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