Inaccurate but great review

Hi
I got a lovely review from a guest who left this week. However, in his review he says what great value I offer with my continental breakfast and the toiletries I provide. :slight_smile: Umm my breakfast is not continental it is simply bread for toast and cereals and the only toiletries are the ones I use that I left in the bathroom. So no complaints about my review but when someone make inaccurate statements in the review how do you handle it. I do not want future guests thinking they are going to get a lovely continental breakfast and toiletries when I do not actually provide that.

This is a tough one. Just be clear about what you offer in your listing. How many reviews do you have? Four to five more reviews and this one will tick off the main page.

Some time ago we had guests arrive on motorcycles in a rain storm, so I let them park in the garage. It was a unique occurrence. Unfortunately, they posted about how nice it was to have garage parking… Fortunately, at this point that review is a number of pages in, so it isn’t an issue any longer.

Hi felixcat I have 25 reviews so that is great advice. I will give it a month then and it won’t be noticed.

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Post a response to the affect of: … " Aren’t you the luckiest traveler / guests! We get the nicest people passing through our location! We encourage all guests to leave unneeded toiletries to by used by the next arrivals…since we don’t provide them…and you certainly hit the Jackpot! And I am so pleased that our simple bread offering has now been labeled a ‘continental breakfast’ - wow that is a lot of pressure and I hope the next group understands that we simply provide bread and toast to fill empty bellies, and not any kind of Continental Spread. Thank you for enjoying yourselves and for the positive review"

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Or go to the dollar store and buy a 32 oz pump bottle of shampoo for $2.99.

Stereotyping here, so apologies in advance. But do some people simply call a cold breakfast a ‘continental breakfast’?

If so, you’re good to go :slight_smile:

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I hear you. There have been times when I invited weekend guests to join us for breakfast since we were making some anyway, and we just find it polite to offer. Then i cringe when they go on about the amazing breakfast we served in the review, because I am afraid future guests – especially the super annoying ones I want to keep out of the house as much as possible – will expect to be served breakfast. Over time I have done less of the inviting-guests-to-eat-with-us thing.

I also wouldn’t worry about it. Many people in the US do toest and/or cereal and milk “continental breakfast”. We shared a breakfast with guests (normally no breakfast) on Christmas. They mentioned it in the review “they even made us breakfast one day” which made us a little worried. But one one else expected it, and the review scrolled off the page soon enough. We do list all amenities and everything that we provide in bullet point in the listing (longer description) so there should be no surprises.

We do provide toiletries – we found nice brand of shampoo/conditioner that costs about $3/bottle, bar of soap, fruity body wash. Most folks don’t use the soap, the most popular thing is the body wash, but it’s by the bottle so we only need to replace it about once a month or less. Cheap for us and guest don’t have to worry about bringing it on the plane. Many guest leave behind their sunscreen, lotion, etc, so we have a nice collection lol.

If I make a concession that I don’t normally do, I will ask the guest to please not mention it in their review as I would like the option to bend on an issue at my choice in the future, but that I don’t want future guests expecting such and such.
Won’t work in this example of glorifying what actually was their experience, but for times like letting them park in the driveway due to bad weather when normally that is my house rule that they shouldn’t.

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I never thought about this before but you know how we can reply to a guest’s review? Can a guest reply to our review of them?

You should definitely manage expectations of future guests by posting something like this:

Thanks! We try our best to provide a clean, comfortable stay. To clarify for future guests, because there are different conceptions across the globe of what a “continental breakfast” means, we provide a nibble of bread and cereal for our guests, but we don’t fully stock more than that. Hope to see you again soon!

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