How can a service write a review for someone if they havent even experienced that person?
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I think the review process helps everyone.
I would agree with you if hosts actually wrote honest reviewsâŚbut so many donât. How many times do we hear advice on this forum to write in code? Saying XXXX was pleasant but might be better suited for a hotel" doesnât really tell me anything.
It tells me that the host and XXXX didnât hit it off too well, and for mysterious reasons the host was likely irritated by XXXXâs actions. But it doesnât give me enough info to determine that I would absolutely not rent to this guest ever. Maybe the host was part of the issue? And then you have the guests who have great reviews, yet another hostâs experience is that the guest left late, was a pig, inconsiderate, etc. I think a lot of guests start to think the rules donât apply to them once they receive a few good reviews under their belt.
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It depends of the hostâs practice towards review. I am at peace with the fact that is not for everyone, but for some hosts that complain that it is too much work, so they either donât do anything (although the guest was probably okay), or copy-paste (which is impersonal). Thatâs when automation can come to the rescue, because the human is failing anyway.
An automated service can prepare a review on the basis the hostâs templates (with a bit of randomisation to make sure that the host doesnât always send the same review), and wait for the host feedback (anywhere between 1 day to 14 days after check-out). I am a host too, so let me be clear that I want it to work 100% of the time, not just when things are okay, so there are also special options to protect the listingâs reputation in case of a bad review (received or given), and during those few days, the host can edit every aspect (comments, grades, reviews). Then after some time the review is published (or not).
It is not so much automation as it is, in fact, assistance. If the host had some feedback, they can edit, if not, everything is deemed to have happened alright and the machine can do a better work at adapting a review than a review that would not have been sent, or a review that would have just said âGreat guest.â
i think itâs been like that for a while. as long as Iâve been hosting, anyway. but the question is whether HOST review percentages matter. I donât think so but I agree that itâs easier to get reviews when you write them yourself.
âAs long as half the guests have left you a reviewâ seems to be the pertinent point here? Iâve known some hosts say that they donât bother too much about getting reviews after a certain number of reviews have been received. And itâs true that when you have fifty or so you donât really need more.
It does seem sometimes that Airbnb is collecting a lot of data for use in the future. They might not have exact plans about how to use this data as yet but itâs interesting to know from @smartbnb.ioâs post that the percentage of views received is being logged.
Not everyone agrees with me (
) but I suspect that getting the â[host] has written you a reviewâ message does encourage guests to write one too. So this is what makes it worth doing. If we know that Airbnb is logging the percentage of guests who leave reviews (for whatever reason - possibly down the line) then for the couple of minutes it takes to write one, it makes sense to do so surely?
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Half the guests in the current year. So letâs say loads of guests left you a review in 2015, but barely anyone bothered to review you in 2016 you couldnât qualify for superhost status.
All my amazing reviews were a year ago and no longer count; conversely my period of crappy reviews are making my listing look worse than it really is .
My overall is currently 4.8 and yet my percentage is 68%? Havenât looked in a while but the reason for those differences is because one only takes that years reviews into account âŚ
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Good to know. Thank you 
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Sorry if someone else already mentioned this, I havenât read through every reply yet. But, if it matters to you, in order to be a Super Host you have to get reviews from at least 50% of your guests. So if youâre close to or under that, you might want to write a few more to prompt guest to do so.
Weâre at 64% right now according to Air, and we only initiate the writing of a review for guests who we feel almost certain will leave us 5 stars.
Although now that Air is showing how many stars each guest leaves, weâre realizing you really just never know!
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And that is 50% of the guests in the year (Jan-Dec) . All goes back to zero again from Jan 2017
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Whenever we have excellent guests who are new to Air, I want to give them a review to help them on their way to future stays and IB. Iâm sure theyâre appreciative.
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Reviews are for the future host. I believe itâs part of our job and if itâs too much work then:
- Create templates: I answer basically the same way unless theyâre not great guests or they were AMAZING. Basically⌠they communicated well, they were clean, quiet and follow my house rules. I recommend them. Thatâs it.
- Batch your reviews: Once a week or before the oldest review request is about to go away, I just sit and write a bunch of reviews.
This is the reason why you have a person who has been a guest for a while and has no review. And as a host, we wonder if they werenât good guests.
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Good point about the guests with old profiles and no reviews. Never thought of that
@JonYork How do you find your percentage reviewed?? Amazing. I think I know everything about the ins and outs of airbnb settings & numbers, and yet Iâm still finding out new thingsâŚ
Itâs actually every year for each assessment period. For March 2017, for example, what will matter is if at least 50% of the guests hosted between March 2016 and March 2017 have left a review.
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Evelyn,
Many of us who have chosen to only write a review if a guest does so firstâŚdonât think it is too much work. My goodnessâŚif writing a review is too much work for any host, I would hate to see what âworkâ means. Many guests can get their earned review, but many will not get one when they are too lazy to write one for the host.
I used to write reviews for great guests and after the third reminder from Air, some never bothered to leave me a review. It made me feel kind of bad because in text they said all kinds of nice things, and they werenât even the least curious to know what I wrote.
Now I donât feel bad. Itâs not my job to beef up guestsâ profiles. If the guest is so bad then I will warn my fellow hosts. But other than thatâŚI donât think itâs so helpful to encourage guests to receive glowing reviews while they do nothing in return. Really this is for Air. They want everyone on instant book and now they can make a setting that says if another host recommened then you can instant book. Thatâs the big picture.
Another thingâŚI donât trust host reviews anyway.
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Thatâs great news! Thank you! I was thinking it would be zero hahaha. We started hosting in April so it will be our first new year with Air.
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I donât write reviews too anymore unless guests are really bad. I donât need more reviews myself, I have 85 of them already
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I donât trust hosts reviews either. I have a guest now who originally booked with Air and now going on his 3rd months with me.
He had about 6 very good reviews.
The guy is incredible slob. He is very sweet but his messiness is borderline with insanity.
I train him like a puppy. He listens and became better.
But still sometimes he gets scolded 
His reviews were glorious. Not one out of 6 hosts mentioned his terrible behavior. Hi himself told me s story how he was kicked out of one Airbnb because of his messiness.
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Yana you crack me up!!
I can see you pulling him by his shirt collar and rubbing his nose in the mess just like a puppyâŚhaha!!
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