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I am getting tired of guest who do not review, I have decided not to post reviews first anymore. The current guest who checked out has not responded to my two emails asking her to please review me, explaining how it is important to my business to get positive reviews. The group left the place clean and even left a little thank you note.
Am I being petty thinking they should leave a review? I do not think so because reviews are the way we know about guest and host.
This is what am planning for a day 14 last minute review if she does not bother to review me:
XX left the place clean and tidy, I barely knew they were there. I am disappointed that once checked out xx did not respond to my two emails and Airbnbâs prompts asking her to please leave a review and ended up not leaving a review. Reviews are the backbone of this platform and very important for both guest and host to vet each other. I would not host XX in the future do to the fact that she could not be bothered to leave a review.
I donât know if petty is the word but please donât beg and whine for reviews. What if this guest was in the hospital and you posted that review? And even if he or she is just ignoring you, I would not say this
I wouldnât want to stay with a host that said something like this. I paid for my stay. I donât owe you anything.
When I was a new host I used to solicit reviews after a few days. It usually backfires. Donât solicit reviews. They will either leave them or they wonât, but if you bug them about it, youâre going to leave a bad taste in their mouth and they may retaliate.
Yes. And in all honesty, the number of guests who are going to bother to hunt down the reviews hosts left for guests is minuscule. But I look at things like that. To find it I look at the listing Iâm interested in and then click on a recent guest name. Then I read their recent reviews. Sometimes by doing this I find a host/place Iâd like to stay and I bookmark it. Sometimes I find a host that leaves me, metaphorically speaking, agape in dismay. âI would not host so and so because they didnât leave me a reviewâ sounds like someone who is still mad that their friend didnât have them in their top 8 friends on MySpace.
Vent here, not on the public parts of Airbnb
As for people not reviewingâŚalways keep in mind that humans are naturally egocentric. They had their stay and now they are busy. Or they are anti-review. Itâs not personal 99% of the time.
I almost always review guests as soon as I get the notice. The guest rarely reviews me first. In the case of new guests with no review I hope they will review right away so they can start building their record on Air. They may even find it useful for staying with someone down the road who requires a prior review. Many of my guests seem to be spurred by my review. They were reminded or they they were curious.
Doing something only expecting something in return is well established by philosophers across the milennia to be a losing proposition.
There are lots of guests who simply donât/wonât review, and there is little point in calling them out, other than for this to backfire on your own reputation. There are others who donât understand the review system and how it can affect our business, and some hosts try to âeducateâ them on the system but in my view, this is tacky. Best just to swallow it and move on.
Early on, this was my after stay message to my guests
Thank you for staying at ⌠you were great guests and took excellent care of the house - 5 stars for you!
Airbnb isnât going to work properly if hosts donât leave reviews for guests. Honest ones. This isnât a case of being mean about guests who are less than perfect. (Most guests are less than perfect, right?)
Other hosts need to know about guests. Reviews are the only way we can do this. You just had an appalling guest? Then review them! I want to know in case they want to stay with me.
Reviews should be factual and honest as thatâs the only way hosts can decide if they want to host that guest. If I see that a guest has a review that says â xxx did not take the garbage out, left a bloodstain on a sheet and arrived half an hour after check in timeâ then I think âso what?â Iâd be okay with that guest.
If I see a review that says âguest disrespected our quiet hours and was noisy at midnightâ then thereâs no way Iâd want to host them. That might not bother other hosts. We all have different criteria and standards.
But we all have a right to know, surely?
Very true. I remember years ago when a guest didnât leave me a review. It was the first time. But when they left, the male of the couple told me that theyâd received notification the night before that his mother had died. So this poor couple had returned home to deal with relatives and grief and funeral arrangements and wills and all sorts of crap and so thereâs no way I was going to pester for a review.
Most guests, when they leave, are returning to their day-to-day lives. They have more important things to do than write you a review.
I have to admit I donât review anyone anymore before they review me. Mind you, I still review them before the time is up. I just prefer to wait for the last moment, unless they review me first. Why?
Because I learned I can get slammed for very innocent things from seemingly nice guests. I do not count on my 5 stars from anyone anymore. Reviews are mostly fine, but stars are really unpredictable. All of my worst stars ratings came from people who were decent guests and who didnât give away the slightest hint that something was not ok. I have plenty of reviews and honestly, do not need them so much anymore. So I would rather that now and then someone forgets to write a review for me, than writing a mediocre one, punching stars randomly, just in order to write something. Because I or Airbnb prompted them to do so.
The saddest thing is that reviews are usually my biggest frustration in this job. I really donât mind much cleaning after guests, even if it requires an extra scrub, I donât mind occassional tardiness, I donât mind most of the things when the guests are there. The only thing that bothers me are things that can disturb other guests and neighbours. Iâm paid for this job and I know it has some costs attached to it.
But I just canât seem to get over people being incredibly petty, poorly informed and unrealistic in their reviews/grading. No matter how long I do this, it always bothers me. And thatâs why I donât mind people not leaving me review at all. Iâll leave them mine anyways.
As @jaquo noted, reviews are for future hosts. If a host is worried a potential guest doesnât leave reviews, they can use the AirReview plugin on Chrome or just look at the listing of their last stay.
I think a non-reviewer wouldnât bother most hosts. If we donât get a good review, no review is better than a bad one.
I had an IB for the beginning of July two days ago, with the simple piece of information âlooking forward to staying.â Given Iâve had a couple of guests recently who either cancelled last minute because of suddenly noticing the cats, or who complained that weâre not an entire listing after staying, I messaged back with these details, asking if they were content to go ahead and if not, to please cancel as weâd not be good fit for them etc; Iâm still waiting for a response. I looked her up on the chrome extension and noticed she never leaves a review for any host.
Am I daft to have a red flag niggle at the back of my mind?
I have three or four questions that are part of my IB requirement. However because Airbnb donât make it mandatory for guests to complete this section. Most donât.
I then have to chase them up for the information and remind them it is a condition of them booking with me that they provide answers. Not doing so could lead to cancellation.
This normally works.
On a couple of occasions, I have had to ask Airbnb to contact guests who donât respond.
Sorry a long winded way of answering you but I would say not an immediate red flag it depends what else you know about the guest. Do they have reviews? Do they have a completed profile? I would contact the guest again and ask for a little more information about them and why they chose your place.
Personally I have always had strict cancellation so if I get a last minute cancellation I still get paid. It might be worth looking at this. Having said that, I have never had a last minute cancellation :).
I recently had a cancellation for the reason of my cat whose photo is deliberately given priority position on my listing. They said the teacher of the workshop they were coming for was allergic to cats. I have had 4 previous guests for the same local workshop with no problems. Are cat allergies really so sensitive that just having breakfast in a kitchen with a cat in, then going to meet someone would be enough to set it off!? (I vacuum and wipe every day of course) I have strict cancellation so even though the event is weeks away they lost over ÂŁ50. Airbnb offer you the option to refund that, but I donât think itâs a good reason for cancellation?
