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 was shocked to see that on top of my reviews there is a number that stands for the percent of guests that have recommended my place. My percent is 97%.
Imagine your place is located on a very touristic part of your town. The surroundings are full of social life, bars, restaurants, cool boutique stores, etc. A young couple stays with you and they love the location. On their review they said your apartment was delightful and there were plenty of things to do in the surroundings day and night. You receive 5 starts on everything plus a lovely text review. Then an old couple comes to your place impressed for how it looks and for the amazing reviews you have. However they ended up having a bad experience at your place. This wasn´t the location they expected. It was hard to sleep because of the noise coming from the bars and restaurants around. They would like to stay in a more quiet place. As they were upset with the location their mind switched now to see everything negative, so your apartment looks small, your kitchen looks basic, it’s too shinny to sleep or to dark to move around, a dog close by barks all the time, etc. They left saying in their review that the place didn´t meet their expectations but the host was helpful. You receive 4 starts in Overall, and 4 starts on the rest, except your shinny location tha now gets a poor 3 starts.
Ok, so after a while you realize that reviews have two main components: the reviewed subject and the reviewer, and the rate you get depends on boths. You are in control of only one of them but the other one is just luck. Airbnb decides to build an aggregated system where the rate you get is based on the collective measure of each rate you get from your reviewers. This is a risky move as it states that the reviewer´s perspective is similar among all of them. In the end a Superhost isn´t a superhost for everyone, and a non-superhost is a superb host for others. Something isn´t right here.
So far so good, We adapted ourselves to the faulty review system. It has been here for a while but now Airbnb is testing new tweaks to it probably forgeting how inaccurate was in the first place. They throw a new number to play with: the percent of guests that recommend your place. If you remember that old couple they have probably not recommend you while the youngers one would want to give you 2 thumbs up if there was an option to do it. Other guests haven´t recommend you for other reasons. Some because they truly haven´t like your place which is fine, but others because you haven´t let them extend their check-out, or you haven´t let them mail things to your home, or maybe because you can´t be that good so lets give her a thumbs down to balance things a bit. So what is this new number saying to the one that isn´t still convinced to stay with you. Yes, 97% of people wants to stay with but I bet you that the user´s mind easily reversed it and start thinking on those 3% that don´t want to stay with you. A not recommend advice is simple as “don´t stay here”. It is even harder to diggest than a 4 starts or 3 starts. Isn´t Airbnb too obsessed with DATA?
Ah now i think i know what you mean. I noticed a new search box beside the stars/ reviews…so a guest can put clean in the search, or recommended etc, and it comes up who has mentioned that particular word in the review! Surely the stars answer all that. Grrr, I wish airbnb would just leave alone, and stop changing things that dont need changed.
No, that’s not what I mean. Below your review´s total count number there is a short text label that says for exmaple “97% of guests recommend this place”. They might be rolling this out to a few users first as they always do. However it looks painfull. Everything we do is rated and every guest can take your business down in a second with Airbnb. It is very stressfull! I’m thinking that people will start being too selective when chosing their guests and in the long run will hurt their (Airbnb) own revenue.
ah ok i get you now… No i musnt have this yet!!
Aghhhh. I remember as a guest this was one of the last questions air asked when doing the hosts review.
Scary…us as hosts always have to be on the ball! I’ve 5 stars on everything at the mo so I hope that will continue and i hope the majority of my guests will want to recommend me.
One more reply to this. I just listed my place on home escape. It’s completely free to guests and hosts, and it allows guests and hosts to communicate directly.
I know they are small, but this is kind of how VRBO was in the beginning. More like a place for guests and hosts to meet and connect directly.
And speaking of reviews… They allow you to upload as many as you want, and you can add your own stars. Kind of freeing. Worth a shot! Interface looks good and the price is right.
So have I got this right? The percentage is the number of guests who have left positive reviews? So we are penalised (in the percentage rating) when guests don’t leave reviews? So unfair.
My last-but-one guests loved my place. I knew that they’d leave a great review. But on their last night here they heard that a family member had passed away. So they go home to all that chaos - arranging funerals and so forth. I doubt they will have the time or inclination to write a review even though they were happy here.
Are we now being penalised when guests don’t review? Someone tell me I’m wrong!
I checked a few other listings and I saw that there are a lot on where some guests clearly stated that they haven´t enjoyed their stay (reinforcing this by textually saying they won´t recommend this place). Still those places shown a glowy “100% guests recommend this place”.
The worst thing I don´t like about this is that it is completely invisible to us to later file a claim to Airbnb. I mean, if you take your time you can keep track of each star rating you get and complain if you haven´t receive your SH status if you think you deserve it, but on this case, how can you know which people gave you a thumbs down to your place. We all know that Airbnb favors new hosts among former hosts given them more visibility. I hate to say this, but I don´t trust in them handling my data and I’m not sure if that 97% really belongs to me or is a way to demote my place somehow to reduce my number of booking in the favor of the newbies. The other thing I hate about this, is that it removes your oportunity to improve. If only one person gives you a thumbs down then all the sudden you have lost that 100%, and let me say that after spending 5 years of hosting you will get those. This obviously favors new hosts with less experience in the site. It could be totally different if that number is calculetd based on the reviews you receive on your last year (we actually don´t know how they are doing it). Speaking about myself, my apartment and even my offered service isn´t the same now as it was 5 years ago. I can´t answer for those first reviews I got. This isn´t fair and sucks!
No, I don´t think so. But I’m worried about how the system could handle the ones who submitted a review but forget to click on the thumbs up/down button. Should I tell my guests to please remember to click there to help me keep that number high. The lack of knowledge makes us paranoic. Don´t you think?
We have two rooms in our house that we have on AirBnB. For one of our rooms we have “100% of guests recommend this place” and we know that there have been a few people that have stayed in that room that have not left reviews. We have 35 reviews for that room.
The other room has 15 reviews and does not have the verbiage that gives a percentage of recommendations. So, we have come to the conclusion that you have to have more than 15 reviews for the verbiage about recommendations to show up.
