Making a correction to a factual error in review?

52

Here’s a draft version of a message to Airbnb about this review. Comments welcome. It’s very wordy, but I want to cover the ground.

###########

Hi,

I’m writing to complain about Thomas xxx’s review. This corresponds to
reservation code xxxxxx. The publicly visible text is as follows:

Host is quite friendly in person. The room in itself is perfect,
clean and aircond really cold, which is good for Mumbai can get
very hot. Wifi was good. Breakfast alright, albeit a bit late at
10.30 as the cook only comes in then. I did request the host to
leave my luggage prior arrival due my flight is midnight but was
rejected outright and asked me to seek storage outside at either
rail station or airport. That’s my only dissappointment with the
host - he could have offered to take care of it, or offer to ask
the security downstairs whether they can take care of it for a
small fee etc. Otherwise, he takes good care of guest and really
make the effort for one to familiarise with the place and its
kinks and quirks.

And here is his star ratings.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: 3 STARS

CLEANLINESS: 3 STARS ACCURACY: 4 STARS
VALUE: 3 STARS COMMUNICATION: 4 STARS
ARRIVAL: 3 STARS LOCATION: 4 STARS

It is notable that in every category except one (‘communication’) he
gave me the lowest score that any of the 17 reviewers so far have
given me. And in some cases, namely ‘overall experience’, ‘value’,
‘arrival’, and ‘location’, he has been the only one to give a rating that
low.

Notably, 3 stars means significant problems - Airbnb flags these. No
significant problems were stated with respect to ‘cleanliness’, ‘value’, ‘arrival’, and
the ‘overall experience’.

Other reviewers have occasionally given me ratings below 5 stars, but
in nearly all cases (with one exception), in at most two
categories. This review marked me down in all 7 possible categories.

This review is an extreme outlier in every way.

Why did he do this? I think the answer is reasonably clear. I refused
to hold on to his baggage after checkout. His star rating is a
response to that. He mentions his displeasure in the review.

I did request the host to leave my luggage prior arrival due my
flight is midnight but was rejected outright and asked me to seek
storage outside at either rail station or airport. That’s my only
dissappointment with the host - he could have offered to take care
of it, or offer to ask the security downstairs whether they can
take care of it for a small fee etc.

Note that it is clearly stated in my house rules that I don’t offer
this service, but the guest still apparently felt he was entitled to
it. In any case, it’s not reasonable to expect the host to offer free
services to the guest after checkout.

Neither his public review nor his private comments give reasons for
these ratings. Here is how he made his initial request via email -
except it wasn’t a request.

I have no problem to check out any time but you have to let me
keep my luggage there, as my flight is midnight on Friday.

I explained to him that I did not offer this service, but apparently that was not good enough.

In conclusion, I think this review is unfair, and I’m writing to ask
Airbnb to remove it.

53

I think it sounds fine. You need to be wordy with Airbnb reps. anyway. They aren’t the brightest.

1 Like
54

Thanks for the reassurance, @cabinhost. And for taking the time to read it.

55

Ok, so, followup.

I talked to an Airbnb rep just now from Ireland who called me. In this particular case, this person actually sounded Irish. Maybe they’re hiring locals. These people don’t really seem down with the concept of checking for a convenient time to call first.

Paraphrasing the conversation, she said

she couldn’t change or remove the review. She said people will leave whatever they want to leave, and they can’t do anything about it; either removing the reviews or changing the stars. It’s the nature of the business. And she couldn’t contact the guest to ask why they left the stars, because it could seem like harassment. And that this guy wasn’t violating any Airbnb review guidelines,

The last is debatable. The guidelines, as is usual with their things, aren’t that clear, and are subject to interpretation.

And the statement about not being able to anything about it is factually false. I did have one guest who gave me very low star ratings, I contacted Airbnb, the rep managed to contact the guest, and they changed the star rating. But I’ve heard people in this forum say that in similar circumstances (guests leaving bad star ratings by mistake) the rep they talked to wouldn’t do anything. So I guess it depends on the whim of the rep.

I asked her whether it would be Ok if he left all 1 stars. She dodged the question at first, but finally said that, yes, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about that either.

She suggested I leave a public response. I’m not sure if it is worth it. I could say that - “I can’t store baggage before check-in or after check-out”? Seems redundant and pointless. She said that leaving a response would come across as a positive.

To quote from the email she just sent me:

As I said, leaving a public response is the best way to negate a bad review. This will give you the opportunity to show your future guests that the experience of that guest is not one that they can expect when they stay there and show what a great host you are. You have 14 days after you received the review to leave the response.

This sort of thing really gives me insight about why there are so few negative guest reviews on Airbnb. Hosts don’t want jerks to write lies about them and trash their star rating, so they let things lie. Makes one wonder if there really is much point to a review system.

I think one thing that would really help hosts would be if guest stars were made public. And host stars were made public too. And if reviews that both guests and hosts had written were clearly attached to their profile. If I came across this guys review when deciding to host him, it would have given me pause. If I had seen the star rating he had given me, I would definitely have said no. As it is, one has to go search for guest reviews in the host profile, which isn’t exactly convenient. And when you see it, you don’t know what stars the guest has left. Basically, more transparency is a good thing.

56

Very good idea @faheem , why not add the stars to their reviews, and vice versa. It makes the whole exercise more ‘review-able’ for if someone wrote a smashing review and gave 1-stars it is obvious they made a mistake. Or if they left less than 5 stars. Perhaps it will start to educate guests on how the star system works (or doesn’t).

It is a lousy system anyway, change it to 10 stars or get rid of it altogether. In business, you never, ever implement a feature in which you have to teach each and every person individually how to use something, in order to achieve uniformity of application among all clients.

57

Hi @Mearns,

Actually, I do that already (assuming you mean I should add stars to the publicly viewable portion of my guest reviews). And have been doing that for some time. I think I got the idea from someone in the forum. I’ve never seen anyone else do it. I do it because I think it is a good idea, and I think everyone should do it. Maybe other people here do it, but people here are scattered so thinly across the planet it’s entirely possible I’ve never run across another Airhostforum host’s review in the course of my normal hosting.

But that isn’t really the point. It doesn’t work if people have the option to do it. The stars should just be made automatically visible, for both guests and hosts.

Well, Airbnb doesn’t even have any guidelines about what the star ratings mean, which kind of makes nonsense of the whole thing. Case in point, the rep said people are going to give whatever stars they want. She apparently considered this inevitable, like gravity or something. It didn’t seem to occur to her that guidelines are Good, and what’s the point of stars if nobody knows what they mean?

58

Amazing, what a sloppy and lazy way of thinking, like it doesn’t matter to them. What a slug.

59

If I give five stars for a guest across the board, I put at the end of my written review. :Five stars for [guest]! I think that is helpful for other hosts to see.

2 Likes
60

I give the breakdown:

Cleanliness 5/5, Communication 5/5, Observance of House Rules 5/5

I’ve not given anyone less than all 5 stars since I started doing this - I’ve not been setting very high standards here. But in Airbnb, 5 stars doesn’t really mean 5 stars.

1 Like
61

Temper Tantrums 5/5; Lung Capacity 5/5

5 Likes
62

I just stole this for my own listing, shortened slightly. Great way to conceal my true can’t-be-arsed-with-the-extra-hassle
reason. Thanks Faheem!

1 Like
63

That’s my real reason too. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

2 Likes
64

I put in my house rules that guests will be charged $10 if they want to store bags and return later for pickup. I often have to do the ugly “IT’S IN MY HOUSE RULES” when they realize they didn’t read my house rules. If I find them charming or likeable I will waive the fee.

65

Hi @cs2015,

This doesn’t have much to do with anything, but I just wanted to say that despite your somewhat terrifying listing, you seem to get lots of business. Clearly, you have superpowers. You should write a book and reveal your secrets. Or maybe an article.

Do many guests take you up on your offer? And isn’t it inconvenient to wait around for people to show up? Aside from the other disadvantages?

66

To be quite honest Faheem, whenever I direct interested guests to actually READ everything …they USUALLY end up not booking. The ones who actually still do USUALLY turn out to be pretty great guests. This is not 100%. Sometimes I’m just too tired and I just accept the booking request, ignore the fact that they are ignoring everything, run around pulling hair out of the drain and locking the door after them and quizzing them about their comings and goings…figuring out how they can get around…answering questions…bla bla bla. And since my listing has become so terrifying and the hot weather in Seattle is fading away…it has trickled to zero bookings. I’m loving it! I will probably have to remove it all later if I seriously want any business again.

67

People don’t “take me up on my offer”. I inform them after a booking is confirmed and point and wave at house rules as they change arrival time later and later. They end up paying. It IS inconvenient waiting around but now I cheer their lateness as it means an extra 10 bucks for me!

1 Like
68

Hi @cs2015,

Oh. Is all that verbiage a recent addition, then? I had the impression it had been there for awhile.

Well, now. That’s an interesting approach to business. You sound like the Nero Wolfe of Airbnb. (I don’t know if anyone gets that reference. My father used to read this novels, so I read some of them too.)

Oh, and to be clear, my original question is whether people take you up on the $10 and you can park you luggage after checkout thing. And if so, isn’t it a pain waiting for them to pick up their luggage? I think I would find it so.

ADDENDUM: Sorry, clearly we were typing at the same time. But I’m confused by

“change arrival time later and later”? We’re talking about leaving luggage after checkout, right? And $10 isn’t really much money if you have to sit around for hours waiting for someone to arrive.

69

For $10 I will loyally guard their luggage!

70

I was busy looking up "Nero Wolfe’ on wikipedia…thanks! I am flattered.

Oh…regarding luggage pick up…it’s not a big deal to me because I am home all the time.

71

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

Me too. I don’t want to feel stuck there, though. Plus, having to arrange my life around strangers quickly gets old. Can I get a Hallelujah?