This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
I had a first time Airbnb user stay with a group of 10.
During his stay he messaged me to tell me they would be leaving 2 hours past check out. I told him that was not possible as a guest was arriving later that day and I needed that time to prepare (which he already knew).
He literally haggled times with me through several messages.
I did give him 30 extra minutes and that is all he took.
He wrote a good review (good in words though it was 4- star) and I believe it wasn’t 5 because he couldn’t stay late.
I want to respond to his review so that other potential guests get an inkling in to why it was a 4-star stay but don’t know how much/little to say.
I could mention that I understand this was his first airbnb stay so I can see how he may not know that he couldn’t tell me he was checking out late…?
thoughts appreciated.
As an adult, he should understand what it means “no late check-out”. You gave him a generous additional 30 minutes that you didn’t plan on losing for the cleaning - technically this should justify a 5 star review from his end as YOU were going out of your way to make him happy. Don’t write that in the review
Thank you XXX for your stay with us and the feedback you provided. In our ongoing effort to improve guest satisfaction one of our priorities is transparent communication. As we have explained to you during your stay (or whenever it happened) that a requested late check-out of 2 hours could not be facilitated due to a same day check-in we arranged a 30 minute late check-out for your convenience. Kindly note that stated check-in and check-out times are required in order to maintain an efficient cleaning schedule and to provide safe and clean facilities for every guest.
Sadly, guests who suck at communication, or rude, are much more common than one realizes until they start Hosting. The Internet is full of advice, telling people to stand their ground, push for what they want, etc. and for those of us who respond well to kindness and logic this means that we have to deal with a percentage of guests who feel we are simply their servants.
@Hosterer Your suggested review is one I would never use and think is not at all productive.
For starters, hosts should not address the reviewer- a response is meant to clarify misleading info or lies for the benefit of future guests. Or if the guest has written a bad review (like with a 1* rating, not a 4*) full of lies, the host can just write “This is a retaliation review given in response to not giving the guest a 2 hr. check-out extension. Please refer to our other reviews for an accurate picture of what to expect when booking with us.”
Secondly, a response should not mention things which the reviewer did not mention in their review. And your suggested review would do nothing to explain to future guests why a 4 star was given.
The place to mention that the guest didn’t follow rules or was demanding is in the review the host leaves, not in a response, unless the guest has complained about it in the review they left. A good written review does not require any response.
And a guest leaving 4* overall is not an indication that they are being retaliatory or mean. A retaliatory review is almost always going to be 3 stars or less. It is much more likely that 4 stars is a result of Airbnb telling guests 4 stars means “Good”, or guests thinking 5 stars should only be given for something over-the-top fantastic and luxurious.
The reviewer (guest) never is informed that a response has been published, so I would agree with muddy not to address the reviewer in your response. Your response if for the benefit of future guests.
My husband messed up early on in our Airbnb experience, when we were renting rooms in our home. The guest mentioned something in a message about not knowing where the extra toilet paper rolls were located and my husband (who was writing the review) responded to the guest the location of the extra toilet paper. So, it really looked out of place and the guest (who was already gone by then) didn’t even see the response. But I guess that would help future guests…just looked weird since it wasn’t mentioned in the guest’s review.
I respond to reviews if they are not even “bad” - I see many hosts in our area responding to every single review good or bad.
I think it also differs greatly how each hosts wants to handle this practice and if a guest is not fully satisfied (despite receiving exactly what was described) I take the liberty to respond and set things straight.
And this is exactly the point.
We had guest who didn’t bother to read our description, look at our photos or the listed amenities only to find out upon arrival that we don’t have a kitchen - and left a negative review.
They didn’t flat out lie, which forced me to respond to their review but the fact that we want that potential future guests who investigate negative reviews can also read our side of the story.
We’re aiming to do this in a respectful and friendly manner by thanking the guest who stayed with us and providing their feedback - as every host can only improve by getting feedback from their guests, right? I then proceed to inform the general public what the guest expected or wanted and that we take great care in providing all necessary information in a transparent way so that misunderstandings or disappointments can be avoided. By explicitly confirming to future guests that our description and photos are accurate we invite them to read our description carefully, review our photos that show the entire accommodation and to please reach out to us in advance in case they have specific needs, requests or any other questions as we want to provide the best possible guest experience.
Many of my 4-star reviews only have positive written feedback in the public review. If the guest didn’t say anything negative, I don’t think there is anything to respond to. Guests know even the best hosts will sometimes get 4-star reviews.
I only publicly reply to correct something factually incorrect in the review or to state I’ve addressed the issue of complaint.
Yes, I know some hosts respond to all reviews, thanking good guests who left good reviews for booking with them. But what I have noticed is that many long-time hosts did that for the first year or two after they started hosting, but then didn’t bother with that afterwards.
I guess they figured doing that makes them look like caring, appreciative hosts to future guests, but I don’t think prospective guests seeing “Thank you for staying with us, you were a pleasure to host” over and over again a hundred times really accomplishes much. Once a host has a bunch of great reviews on their profile, they speak for themselves.
Given the guest was a first time Airbnber, I think it unsurprisingly actually that he left a 4 star review with a positive comment. The one occasion I used airbnb as a guest and so did the review process from the other side highlighted just how strongly airbnb pushes the ‘what can they improve’ slant. It makes it seem as though giving 4 stars is actually pretty good and 5 stars only really for something truly fabulous…
I have never resonded to reviews, even when ‘information’ was erroneous.
Often as a guest I have received standard “great guests” review and known that it’s either a bot, or a very busy person ( or their intern) who hosts 60 other properties.
Often I’ve found that negative reviews are counteracted by subsequent reviews.
For example, I had:
“You need a car to stay here as nothing is nearby”
The very next review said:
“Very walkable. Walk to the beach, restaurants, cafes and shops”.
“Nothing” is a pretty loose term and only refers to places that THESE guests found to be far away.
If guests explicitly criticise in their review that a non-advertised amenity is missing, I do call them out on that - respectfully and gently in a way that other guests can understand that our description is accurate and those guests simply failed to read it.
There is an artist named Amber Share, who has a series of “travel” posters, calendars, t-shirts, etc., of national parks in the US and Canada. She does a painting of the park, with the name of it, and a sentence that is taken straight from real 1 star Yelp reviews people have left after visiting the park.
They say things like “Nothing to do here”, “It’s just a bunch of grey rocks”.
Exactly. And the very next review said it was walkable to the beach, the restaurants etc. This shows that one guest differs so much to the next one so review can be deceptive.
We stayed at a place earlier this year and one of the reviews mentioned the loud street noise during the night. We were there for three or four nights and never heard any street noise at all.
I’m not saying that the reviewer who complained didn’t hear the street noise and had invented it - just as we hadn’t invented the silence. It’s just everyone’s opinion differening.
I’ve had a couple of reviews over the years where the guest mentioned finding the 20 minute walk into town and the beach arduous. (It’s not like there’s no alternative- a taxi costs $6) All the rest, if they referred to the walk distance at all, said they actually enjoyed it, and found it easy.
That demonstrates very well why it’s a good idea to show distances in km or miles or yards, rather than 10 minutes, half an hour etc.
I’ve seen many listings that say ‘ten minutes to the beach’ but it doesn’t explain if that’s by car, by foot or by spaceship. So I’ve no idea how long it’s actually going to take.
I remember once telling a guest that it takes half an hour to walk to the beach. The next day she said ‘nonsense, it took me half that’. She was a brisk walker - I’m an ambler who stops to look at stuff every few hundred yards.
Well, distance can also be relative depending on the terrain and how used to walking a guest is. One can say it’s 2 km, but how long it takes to walk it might differ greatly depending on on whether there are steep hills to trudge up, or it’s fairly flat.
What I say in my listing is that it’s an average 20 minute walk.
One of those reviews that mentioned it being arduous wasn’t regarding the time it took- the guest told me she just wasn’t used to walking very far and her feet were hurting. The other review did put it in the context of his having mobility issues.
I don’t think either of those guests would have been able to anticipate how they would experience the walk if it said 2 km, as they had no experience walking that far.
I would be more inclined to use distance if I had guests who drove here and into town, but only 3 guests out of about 100 rented a car during their stay and no guest has ever driven here in their own vehicle.
But it certainly wouldn’t hurt for me to also mention the distance, so I’ll add that.
The names of my three private rooms, unfortunately, contain the words, “walk to train 10 minutes”. I would love to add the word average in there. Will changing my title change anything from searching to finding? I’m assuming that on the main search area since it is listed like all the others as a generic "private room’ that it wouldn’t matter, but does anybody have any insight as to what changing the name would happen? It’s been this name for 11 years.
Or, simply taking off the description of the amount of walking in the title?
I don’t imagine it would change your search ranking, or if it does, would likely boost it for a bit, considering that tweaking wording in the listing is seen by the algorithm as being an “active” listing said to boost placement.
Or you could just mention in the description text that the walking time is average, depending on whether someone is a brisk or slow walker and whether they are encumbered by a heavy suitcase. (Although it seems you get short stays from mostly business-type travelers who aren’t likely to show up with much luggage)
Got it. I say the distance (1/2 a mile) n my description in my listing. I’m just thinking about the title of the listing. I have many visitors who do repeats and I would hate to think that they suddenly were not able to find me.
Yes, that’s a consideration. I’ve also thought about possible repeat guests not being able to find my listing again if I change the cover photo, so while I did replace my cover photo with a better one last year, it’s basically the same as the original, just a better shot and clearer.
I’ve only had one repeat guest and she just booked directly with me after the first Airbnb booking, which both she and I prefer.
