I am about to write my first negative review and wanted some advice first. My guest checked out and has written a review of me already. Is there a reason to wait to submit mine now? I’ve heard of people waiting until the last minute to write a review, but does that only apply if the guest hasn’t already written theirs? If I say negative things in my review, can the guest reply publicly or add anything to his review that will show up on my listing?
There is little reason to wait. Some people argue that if you think the review of you is going to be negative you should wait so that the negative review is not the first one showing. If you can book in a few more folks over the next two weeks and they review right away this negative review will be buried sooner. However, is the guest is a foreigner it will be at the bottom of the reviews anyway.
Confused yet?
The guest can reply to your negative review but that only shows on his profile not yours. If you reply to his negative review it shows on your profile.
So, should she ignore his negative review?
Definitely. Hosts are happier and (mentally) healthier if they ignore reviews and stop worrying about getting bad ones. If a bad review is true, then it tells the host that they need to improve. If it’s not true, then why worry? Potential guests will be able to make up their own minds.
Often, when hosts are concerned about a bad review, there’s a story behind it. It may be six of one and half a dozen of the other or it may be the fault of one party in particular. But other reviews outweigh one bad one. The time to worry is when you have loads of bad reviews.
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I would in most cases.
I would reply if there was a blatant misstatement of fact. For example if the guest said, “we were disappointed that the hot tub wasn’t available” and that’s not an amenity that’s listed then I might say “the hot tub is for owner use only as stated in the listing.” If it’s “he said, he said” or just overly picky “This basment apartment in Edinburgh is dark in winter” I’d ignore it. In no case would I reply in a defensive, snarky way as I’ve seen some hosts do.
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Thank you! I have no reason to think the guest will give me a bad review, so I’ll just go ahead and post the guest’s review.
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See all advice above, especially burying problem feedback / reviews which @KKC explained the advantage.
Also, a review can be altered and amended for 48 hours, so i would wait a safe 96 hours at least before making a move and submitting anything. Safe is better.
Since I respond to each and every review, and that is something I am comfortable doing, then I would not ignore a negative review. If a host does not usually respond, the a response will stick out and draw attention to negativity and problems and issues.
Any response I give is still professional, and ( hopefully ) not defensive. i sit on it for a few days before posting and I fine tune the writing and let my thoughts settle. Never post or respond when angry or upset.
And when I do respond, all my responses are geared towards future guests, and not to the person who wrote the review. The person who wrote the review is gone. …In the rear view window. That person is not coming back. ( I am not a repeat property / I am a bucket list property ).
Every response i write is meant to clarify amenities and features, and intended to sell the property to the next guest who is trying to decide whether or not to book.
If they mention the kayaks, I thank them for enjoying the kayaks, and reiterate that we also have a hot tub. etc.
Larger houses with big groups that stay a week, might be more appropriate for continual owner responses, rather than those with an apartment or room in a shared house where one guest passes through briefly for a night or two.
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No. The advice is to wait until the end of the 14 days and ignore any snark negative review they may leave.
If you’re going to respond to a negative review, respond to a few positive ones that happened around the same time so it doesn’t stick out.
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Many hosts get great advice sharing their draft negative reviews for feedback in this forum, as well as the actual guest review once they’ve posted and there’s a question of whether to reply or not. The advice to not leave a defensive, snarky response is spot-on…I didn’t book a place several times because the host was too emotional about a negative review.
If there’s any validity to the negative comment, and you think it could impact a future guest, then you might consider leaving a comment but something along the lines of Thank you for your comment, we are committed to ensuring all guests have a 5-star stay.
Talk about what you DO have/do, not a situation you can’t fix anymore.
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Thanks for all the advice. I wrote an objective review about the guest’s violations of the house rules and his review of me was positive but brief, with 5 stars for everything except 4 stars for value (even though it’s the most affordable place in the neighborhood and he said it looked exactly like the pictures in the listing, so he knew what he was getting). He hasn’t responded to my review, but it doesn’t matter at this point since it won’t show up on my page, so everything seems to have turned out well.
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