No, she (or he?) doesn’t need to say they’ll look into it. They said it’s new and they purchased it “medium firm”. So that’s what they need to say. “It’s new and we bought a medium-firm.” That’s a perfectly legitimate mattress firmness to buy and people will understand they haven’t done anything wrong. And they can add that other people have loved it. It will also prevent anyone who might hate medium firm mattresses from staying with them - and that will keep future complaints to a minimum.
I would probably leave a tougher response than most people - except maybe Kona! I leave firm, but verifiable and professional responses. By verifiable, I mean things people can see that we’ve written in our listing. Mountainclimber could refer to their listing and say, “Our listing is clear that the cleaning fee is a one-time fee and we never say anywhere that we clean the place every day.” That’s something people can verify by looking at your listing.
We had a person recently who said we could have been more clear that there were a lot of stairs at our place. I knew we had mentioned that in our listing so I went to remind myself what we had said. It turns out we mentioned it 3 times. And the second time we said, “we’re on the third-floor of a walk-up building. Yes, that means you have to walk up three flights of stairs.”
So, I quoted this in my response and said, ‘We could not have made it any more clear that there are stairs. This person is alleging something that a brief look at our listing will show is simply not true.’
I know some people say don’t bother responding, but it can go both ways. If you don’t respond to these false accusations, people will believe they’re true. If you do respond, it might turn some people off - but on the other hand it might make others warm to you.
We have a guest from Italy staying with us right now - for a week. They were with us on Thanksgiving and we invited them to join us for Thanksgiving dinner - along with our other guests who were from India! (It was an awesome time)! The Italians told me later on Thanksgiving day that the reason they chose us was because they loved my responses to our negative reviews! They said I made them laugh so hard when I responded in a professional tone, but also in a firm way that showed so clearly that the guests were simply wrong. And they said if they were in the same situation they would have responded in the same way. So, that made them feel a connection to us and they said it’s what made them choose our place over a couple of others they were looking at nearby.
I know other people might be just as turned off by my responses… but in the end it doesn’t seem to hurt as we stay booked pretty much all the time.
Anyway, the bottom line is - if you don’t write a response - people will believe your guest. In fact, when I first read what the guest said here, I was thinking, “what kind of stupid host is this mountainclimber!” Then, when I read your response - I could see clearly that the guest was wrong. So, I think you have to respond in a clear, firm and factual way. You have the facts on your side and some of them are verifiable - so just use them and let people decide.
A few people might not book your place because you dared to respond! But NOBODY is going to say, “We chose you because we LOVED how you rolled over and played dead when someone criticized you!” NO ONE will ever say that!
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here on this forum, I was able to craft a response I was happy with.
