I’m curious about something. Before anyone jumps on me that it’s only a partial point reduction in my stars, I’m just curious how it happened. I have had 5 star reviews from everyone for many months now. I’ve had a 4.97 rating for 6 months at least. It went down to 4.96 and I found one guest who gave me five stars in all categories, but her overall review showed 4 stars. How does that happen?
Also, a recent guest had a weird name: user_deactivation_drill - they had zero reviews, and wouldn’t answer any questions, like their actual name. Their profile said they were a host, but they wouldn’t say where their unit was. It was really sketchy, but I let it go and they were fine. They got 3 stars on communication, but that’s all I did. Is it weird to expect a little more communication?
Yes, it’s a weird thing but the overall review that the guest gives you is whatever that number is. It is not any kind of average for communication, value, etc.
So, yes, you can be rated '5" on everything but the guest can still give you an ‘overall’ of 4 or 3 or whatever. It does not make sense to me except in the sense that the guest might feel that the other categories don’t measure the unlisted category that they care about.
No, it’s not weird to expect decent communication.
4 stars overall can be given for many reasons.
“Nothing is ever perfect”
Something about the experience not covered by the other categories. Maybe they hated the pillows or the mattress. The neighbors were loud. The shower head didn’t give a good spray. Etc.
Airbnb tells guests 4 stars means good. Unless a guest is aware that Airbnb doesn’t consider it so for hosts, they innocently think there is nothing wrong with rating a place, even one they would book again, as good.
Just fickleness. No real reason.
It was weird, because she gushed about how awesome it was, and that she would be a repeat renter. Never mentioned anything that could be improved. I hate it when people do that. I appreciate any constructive feedback!
A guest who is also a host should know that a 4 star review for a host isn’t good, however…
There seem to be profiles that say the guest is also a host when they have no listing and no reviews as a host. This may be an Airbnb glitch, or a guest may have listed their home for a one-time only deal when they went on vacation, or listed and then decided not to host, and never got a host review.
As a homeshare host I have a lot of interaction with some of my guests. Here is what one of my very nice guests said when we were chatting one day and happened to get into a discussion about Airbnb and reviews. When I told her that Airbnb considers anything below a 4.7 average to be “bad” for hosts, and that hosts lose Superhost status if they fall below 4.8-
“OMG, really? I have left 4* ratings for places I’ve stayed that I would totally book again and the hosts were great. I thought the hosts would be pleased with 4*s. Why does Airbnb tell guests that is a good rating? I feel terrible if I hurt their business and thanks for letting me know. I’ll always leave 5 in the future if the place is fine.”
So it’s quite possible that this was the case with your guest and many others. They have no intention to hurt your rating or business, they simply don’t realize that 4 stars makes a host think there was something wrong nor how Airbnb deals with hosts’ ratings. It’s not that mysterious.
I got 2 of those - 1 for ABB fees (guest didn’t understand that hosts don’t set or get those fees plus we pay fees as well) and 1 for location due to Spring Break and construction traffic - which they were warned about multiple times. Over 40 former sorority gals drive me bonkers.
As others have said, something else drove the 4 besides the usual rating categories. I used to do a lot of employee surveys and I noticed that certain departments answered lower on any type of survey even if I had good reason to believe that they were happy. I’ve also been on committees requiring rating organizations and applicants and been told that I am a tough but consistent rater. I expect that guests who give a 4 think they’ve given you a perfectly acceptable “B” and don’t understand the impact it can have on a host’s overall rating. It is too bad that .5 increments are not included. I think there would be a lot of 4.5s.
Some people think the overall stars are like the hotel ratings that rate the quality, not the experience.
I’ve heard this theory before and it doesn’t add up to me. Guests don’t have any trouble at all rating actual hotels on their experience instead of the hotel quality (amenity list) star ratings. You can do a google hotel search for any city and there isn’t any correlation between the guests’ ratings of hotels and the hotel star ratings.
I don’t see why guests would only be confused when rating Airbnbs but not actual hotels. If they have any confusion it must be about why all Airbnbs expect a 5-star review. But even as skewed as Airbnb ratings are there are plenty of fancy/tons of amenity listings with low ratings and budget spots with high ratings. Only the really extreme stand out. It’s an odd game.
As a guest, it’s frustrating, makes me want to stop reviewing unless I feel really inspired to give a 5 or feel obligated to warn other guests about something.
Aside from revenge reviews, if you were to come up with a general encompassing reason for why people, be they guests or hosts, give the ratings they do, I would say it’s basically a matter of expectations.
That is why many quite simple, private room listings can maintain 5 star ratings and some high end places with plenty of bells and whistles can get 4 stars. As long as the guest has no expectations beyond what is offered, and may get even a bit more than that, 5 stars will likely be given. But if their expectations don’t match what is offered, there will be downratings.
Same goes for the ratings hosts give. As we see on this forum when a host asks for feedback on rating a guest, the answers can vastly differ, because hosts have varying expectations of what constitutes acceptable guest behavior.