Just got my first 1-star review after getting 27 five-star reviews. We have 3 glamping tents in the middle of nowhere and give very detailed directions (as GPS is mostly wrong here), and only have issues when someone doesn’t read them. I also text them the day of arrival reminding them to use our directions.
This guy came trespassing across the neighbor’s property crushing their plants with his car, and I tried to get him back on the right track with as little damage as possible. He got super pissed, not because I asked him to turn around but because he made a total ass out of himself with his poor driving skills in front of his girlfriend. A lot of what he says in the review is not true and I think I need to set the record straight for future guests, also this is our third tent and he is only the 2nd guest so I now have 1 five star review for this tent and one 1 star review, which may well sink this listing.
I’d love your opinions on whether to respond at all, and how:
HIS REVIEW:
This place was described so beautifully with 10 acres but no there was 3 tents and 2 trailers in the same acre absolutely no privacy. All of the kitchen supplies where covered in dirt. Directions of getting their where extremely confusing i tried reaching out to her for an hour looking for the place. When i finnaly found the tents i had entered the wrong way and as simple as a cone was blocking my way she instantly picked up the phone and called me??? like if i had not been messaging and calling her for over an hour. She made me turn around in a spot that had barely any room especially since i had a small car and they were massive holes in the ground and bushes that had potential to devastate the paint on my car. When she approached my vehicle i had told her i was trying to contact her for an hour and she replies with “Yeah I know, I was in a conference call” This absolutely infuriated me if you signed up to be a host and charge people for it the least you can do is provide HOSPITALITY. I highly doubt she was in any call and if she was as simple as asking for a minute. If it weren’t for all the fees that raised the total to $80 i would have gone to a hotel. I noticed she had bigger tents and was excited to try one of them for the next time but after this experience never again will i rent from this Host again and so you know my review is from a real person i smoke weed
MY DRAFT RESPONSE:
I’m very sorry that Alex had such a bad experience. In 7 months and 27 five star reviews from 3 tents, we only had 2 guests call after getting lost and they admitted they had not read the directions. Alex was trespassing across the neighbor’s property crushing their plants with his car, boxed himself in between bushes, and any attempt to help him out was met with a lot of anger. Sadly that anger carried over into the review he wrote, which has many inaccuracies. There are 3 tents on our 10 acre (not 1 acre) property and they are private and spread out with a couple of hundred feet between them which is much more space than you get in almost any campground. We have everything professionally cleaned, and my response rate is an hour or less. Please read the reviews from the other tents if you want a more balance take on this property. Alex was only the second guest at this - our third – tent. The guest who stayed before him gave us 5 stars with everything being identical.
Basically okay except for the mentions of the star ratings you have gotten in the past, as that always seems to come across as tacky and defensive.
I’d change the wording in the first part to, “We have only had guests confused about where to enter the property twice before, and all three times it has been due to the guests’ failure to read the clear instructions we send.”
I would also not mention him by name and refer to him as “this guest” instead.
I would also try to condense it- it’s too long and detailed.
Eliminate the last 2 sentences of the response, as well as the wording about the guest’s anger carrying over into the review- speculating about a guest’s state of mind isn’t okay and could get your response removed. Stick to facts.
And I don’t know how you describe your property in your listing, but if you don’t make it clear that the tents and occupants can be seen from each other, regardless of whether there are a few hundred yards between them, and instead make it sound super private, then I do think the guest has a point in that regard. That tents would be closer together in campground is immaterial- they didn’t book a campground, they booked a private property.
Also, it isn’t really okay for your response time to be an hour for a guest who is checking in and may be experiencing issues or have questions. If you really said you were on a conference call as an excuse for not responding for an hour, that wasn’t a great response. You need to make yourself available to guests at check-in times as long as they don’t expect a response in the middle of the night.
That is great advice, especially the sentence about entering the property - and we have signs all over the place 
Thanks muddy.
Do you have any feel for how bad is this going to be for future bookings with everything he rated being 1 star?
But your guest said,
He didn’t say it wasn’t 10 acres of property, only that the 3 tents and 2 trailers were on the same acre. And if there is only a couple of hundred feet between them then they must be on the same acre.
That part is confusing.
From what I understand, you could just chunk this listing and then re-list it as a new listing. Because you only have two reviews and one of them is a 1-star review it is probably best to just start over for this tent.
And then you don’t have to spend the time writing up this response. Whether it is all true or not, it is a damaging review because he mentions those interactions with you and it will likely be difficult for potential guests to get past that part.
In the new listing, if you aren’t already clear about the set-up, you’ll want to be really really clear about the fact that the tents and trailers are near one another. I can see how the 10-acres might imply more privacy than that. But it will be fine as long as it’s clear - even to someone who isn’t going to read the listing thoroughly. “Private tent in a shared campground” or something like that.
I wonder if this line can be used to remove the review. Have you checked the review guidelines in detail and found anything that you can use to get this review removed?
I recently got three revenge reviews removed because they disclosed the location.
It might take a few tries to get a sympathetic agent.
This guy will look a bit of a bozo with the weed comment, but I think you need to address 2 areas: Potential future guests getting the impression you are non-responsive, and whether there is any risk of a “not as described” challenge re the placement of the tents and trailers.
"We’re sorry that the guest didn’t have a great experience at our glamping site. While we provide detailed directions and instructions on driving and parking well in advance, we have modified our procedures to closely monitor any questions messaged during the check-in window.
The listing photos clearly show the campsite-type placement of the lodgings, which are 200 ft. apart.
We always welcome guests to contact us during their stay with any issue, such as supplies and equipment, so we can address it immediately."
If you already had a bunch of 5* reviews for this listing, I’d say not to fret about it. But as it’s one of only 2 reviews, as suggested above, I would delete that listing and start over, if possible, as it could certainly have a big impact. The review will still appear on your profile page, but not on the new listing.
If you feel compelled to reply, I would go super simple:
“The last line of Bob’s review rather says it all. Please do take a look at our other reviews for some balance.”
Do you have other bookings for that tent? If so, I would just let those reviews bury this one.
The problem with her saying to look at the other reviews for balance is that there is only one other review for that tent listing. She would need to say to look at her profile page to see the reviews for her other tent listings (and that all the tents are the same, if they are), as guests may not be aware that they can see all of a host’s reviews that way.
I do like the “last line of Bob’s review says it all”.
I’d be inclined to elaborate on that just a bit. “The last line of X’s review may explain why he failed to read the clear access instructions sent to all guests, as well as the directional signs posted at the property entrance, drove through the neighbors’ property, crushing many of their plantings, and seemed to have a great deal of difficulty turning his car around without causing further damage when I came to help direct him.”
But I’m a fan of well-deserved sarcasm.
I would LOVE for you to elaborate on that. I was indeed in a conference call and can prove that but what part of the guidelines does that line violate?
I do love that line.
I have 3 more bookings and the lady who was here today loved it and said she would write a 5 star review.
I like @JJD’s suggestion best: chuck the listing and start again. Less time and energy drain, fresh start; plus, the pot-rant has so much detail that there might be a tid-bit there that would give future glampers pause.
An entertaining read, so thanks for that.
I am of a different camp review-wise.
Don’t acknowledge his dumb-axx comments.
“Please view our other 5-star reviews for an accurate portrayal of our listing & hosting style/quality”
With 29 5 star reviews this brings you to 4.87. So still superhost. There is a school of thought excessive 5 star reviews indicates something is askew. Perfection doesn’t exist.
The 4.87 may get you bookings because you are more real.
For the record, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this forum. It felt so shitty getting this review and all of you replying with such awesome advice makes me feel so much better.
And I knew this review was coming, from the way the way he left the place, there was anger written all over it. He pulled the navy blue comforter on the ground and trampled all over it with muddy shoes. The clean storage tub we have all the kitchen stuff in, he dumped his dirty dishes that still had a lot of sticky greasy food on them in the tub upside down so food and grease went all over everything.
I’m seriously considering taking that listing down. It is a smaller tent for less money and it was supposed to be a test run to see if smaller tents are worth it, but with that review we won’t get accurate data on it anymore. I like Bob and Muddy’s suggestions about the last line and it explaining a lot.
Geez, I’d hate to be around this guy if he wasn’t mellowed out on pot. 
Trampled all over the comforter with muddy shoes? What a jerk.
Did you leave him a review? I sure hope so and I hope you mentioned all this.
In my experience people don’t read reviews. They look at the location and the price then greed takes over. And the very few times I have had really bad reviews I assume this person is saying what some others were thinking but didn’t say and so distill some action points for me to follow up from their rant and make changes.
Every guest is different. I definitely read the reviews before booking!
I agree with all of this written by Muddy. SnowyPeaks, do not fret, I would book your tent in a heartbeat and his review would not deter me in the least. People read between the lines with reviews like his.
They read the reviews before the listing, if they read anything.
Wow what a jerk!! Maybe he shouldn’t smoke weed anymore as it appears that he’s so proud of that
Sorry you were subjected to this behavior