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I suspect my current guest may give me a poor review. I upgraded my broadband and everything seems fine. However, my current guest is studying and downloading papers from the internet. I spent ages ensuring his computer was connected to the internet and it was fine but suggested there may be problems with the website.
He claims that he is having problems downloading using my internet. However, he seems to still have a connection and all of my devices any where in the house are absolutely fine.
If you got a poor review with someone slating your internet how would you respond.
Nothing soothes an unhappy person better than the words “I’m sorry”
I once rented a house through airbnb for a much-needed respite after a summer of serving guests in my home.
Though advertised to have A/C, it did not. The house was 86f downstairs at 10:30 at night and we could not open the windows and there were no screens on the doors…
The host’s response? “No one has complained about this before”
I would suggest you not say that. Try to help, make a show of trying to figure it out. Reboot. Whatever. Try the website on your computer and see what happens. Let the guest know you care that they are troubled. Just like you would want someone to do for you.
Even the top restaurants in town get a few bad reviews - what can you do? We are not meant ot please everyone all the time.
I did the I am sorry bit. So if he mentions it you would just leave it be or apologise on the public reply bit you can on airbnb when someone leaves a review?
Hi My broadband is 5G which I thought was pretty good. Does anyone know how in the UK it is possible to check internet speed? Is there any accessory that you can buy to increase the frequency if it low?
Thanks
Find out the name of the site. If it’s an academic site, and papers are downloaded frequently, it may be possible to explain that even with the best speed, internet broadbands tend to be shared by neighbourhood and sometimes things don’t download as fast as one would like. It’s not like the internet broadband one would have at a university, for example.
The other option would be to offer a small refund…everyone loves getting money back.
We have a 70GB monthly cap, which has always been fine - and all our guests use the web a lot. But we had a guest who blew through 10GB in one night, and 5GB a couple of other nights. We’re on a monthly plan so we just had to eat it. We think it was a teenage daughter who did the damage. The parents actually offered to pay the overage fees, but it was easier to just let it go. We should just get a better plan, but I hate giving the cable company a penny more than I have to.
It might be his computer. Some Mac OS has some issues with certain connectivity. While PC or android doesn’t. Maybe get on one of your devices see if you can download the papers for him. 2). I carry with me a portable wifi hot spot. Pre-paid and turn it in when a renter tells me he has issues with the wifi. Now that’s two different access wifi points for him or her to use. Nothing says I care like coming up with a outside the box solution.
I have a mac. I called the ISP and it turns out the only website he has problems with is a university website when he is trying to download research papers. The ISP said it is probably the university server with lots of students using it at the same time.
Some sites are very slow when it comes to downloading. He should know that., as people who are computer literate a bit know this fact.,
You can call your internet provider and ask them what speed it is. But do not worry that much about his review. He might not mention it, or when he does, be sure you have fact to support your answer like info you get from your provider.,
There will be always someone who complains about how things we have no control over.
I heard a story about a heated pool, when guests reserved the whole house for the weekend just to get away and relax mostly In a pool. They reserved the very last minute and arrived within 2 hours.,
The owner didn’t heat the pool for several days as it was chilly outside and previous guests didn’t want to swim at all. As soon as the owner received a reservation he put the heater on. But … It takes around 20 hours to heat up pool 15 degrees.
When guests arrived they were deeply dissapointed that the pool is only 73 F.,
They started fussing and fussing, were driving owner nuts. He called pool guy , the pool guy said that there is nothing can be done about it, as it is pretty cold outside,many hours it takes sometime to heat up this large quantity of water.,
12 hours through the night later the pool was of a decent temperature of 82F, but they wanted 88F.
They called again at 10 a.m. Saying how dissapointed they are that the pool is still cold. The owner went back and saw the temperature was around 84F. It was bad rainy weather outside, they were out, empty beer bottles on a bottom of the pool.
They ended up cleaning everything nicely even the beer bottles, saying how great they spent their weekend and what an awesome pool weekend it was.
He was so prepared for a horrible review that he prepared explanation ahead of time, and was very surprised.
If you’re really concerned, give him a small refund, with the explanation that the ISP gave you. Say the refund is for the fact that the actual cause can’t be determined. I don’t know how much you charged him, but maybe a 10% discount on his overall stay? If he does ding you in the reviews, you can always answer back that you did this–offered a small refund on the basis of the slow downloads–but that he was dissatisfied anyway. That’s a real red flag for future hosts. And, really, the guy should understand that these things happen sometimes and that a host really can’t be expected to fix it.
If he does leave a bad review over the speed, simply respond with this statement. “I double checked with our ISP and they said the guest’s university server, not our service, was to blame.” Don’t refund, and maybe leave feedback that this guest complained about things that were not your fault. No one wants this type of guest.
