I think it’s still useful to leave that review.
The fact that there were no problems is useful information and speaks well for the guest.
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I don’t understand this way of thinking. Many hosts do not meet their guests at all. That has no bearing on whether a review is useful- all reviews are useful, except ones that just say “Nice guests”! which I completely dismiss, as when I have cross-checked the reviews the host has left for other guests, they all say that, so are of no value to me as I don’t necessarily believe them.
Even a guest who arrives late and leaves early who you never meet can be rated on the 3 things we rate guests on, and whether you would welcome them back.
Why not just have a saved review that says, “Good communication, respect for house rules, and left the place clean”, for o’nite guests who were hassle-free? It only takes a couple minutes to leave a review like that.
And it is certainly useful to hassle-free guests. Why not reward them for putting money in your pocket and causing you zero issues?
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Yes! These have been good guests. Hosts should know that AND the guests themselves should get that feedback and acknowledgment.
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I review everyone as I have a two night minimum. I comment on the state of the apartment as they’ve left it, and if I recommend them to future hosts. In both cases its frequently positive.
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I only review guest that leave me a review first.
That is, unless they were bad guests, then I always review them.
So good guests who put money in your pocket, left the place clean, and didn’t cause you any hassles, but just didn’t leave a review, for whatever reason (for all you know, their mother just had a stroke and they have more important things to think about than leaving you a review), don’t deserve you taking 5 minutes of your time to leave them a review. Nice, rex.
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I would suggest, if reviews are important to you that you review first, you will get more reviews that way because people want to read what you wrote. I used to be pissed off when I did not get reviews, then I started reviewing first and now I have over 200 reviews.
RR
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I always review within a day or two of check-out and almost all my guests have left reviews. Sometimes I’ll get the message that they reviewed before I did, sometimes they do it after I do.
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I review them all even thought my comments are boring. I don’t meet the guests and most are here only 2-3 days. Often I’m reviewing first which I really think prompts the guests to review.
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I review all my guests. I follow something I noticed that some other hosts do; if the stay is very short I’ll mention ‘Fred stayed for two nights and he’ and so on
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This is a little off topic… but not completely. It comes from the comments from hosts who are onsite and those who are not. Either way, what I hope to get across is that YOUR attitude makes a difference.
I live over 2,000 miles from the only Airbnb place that I have. It’s booked 95% of the time and I do all of it myself. I know, raise the rates. But the other places are asking even more. I do all the bookings myself. I have a cleaning supervisor and a separate ‘island representative’ as required by Hawaii law. In six years, I have accepted 260+ reservations and have only met one individual. (I happened to be there when a pilot who had booked was also there and asked to come by.)
I rely on my cleaners to tell me what condition the place was left in, and cleaners are not really good at that. They are not in that business.
FYI, I use IB and have NEVER had a problem. Never! I think it depends on how you define a ‘problem’. Have I lost a few wine glasses, a beach umbrella, or lose a couple of beach chairs? Yup! Did someone spill wine on the sheets, have a ‘bowel issue’ in the bathroom? Yup. Six years and that is the worst? To me, a couple of broken/ruined/stained things are the cost of doing business.
The big thing is, the neighbors have my number and have never complained, security has never been called.
I do leave reviews of everyone based on their communication. 99% of the time, that is all I have to go on. I no longer even track my reviews, but I think they are in the 4.9 range. (LOL During Covid when Hawaii was locked down, I gave an 80% discount to a local family that wanted to be by the beach. They gave me a 3 for value.)
I digress - I don’t know these people. The lesson I learned a long time ago as a teacher and then business owner: stop looking for all the bad someone might do TO you and focus on all the good that someone can do FOR you. Life is much more pleasant.
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Definitely attitude and your ability to do what you do effectively and make it work is the bottom line. So much depends on how you communicate with guests, how you market your place, why guests book with you, and your location.
I’m just a small time homeshare host and have been lucky to get wonderful guests. And the couple of issues I’ve had with guests, I just dealt with in the moment, I didn’t call Airbnb in a panic, expecting them to tell me what to do, and it all worked out, with no hard feelings between me or the guest.
But guests don’t come to my touristy beach town in Mexico to find fault and complain- the sun is shining, the ocean is beautiful, there’s 300 places to get something to eat, tons of new things to see- they came to have a good time and relax.
There are homeshare hosts who live in more mundane places who seem to get a lot of awful guests- ones who make a mess in the shared kitchen and expect the host to clean up after them, who talk loudly on the phone at 2 am without regard for housemates, people who it becomes apparent are homeless, who move in for a week’s booking with piles of boxes of stuff and refuse to leave when the booking is over. And it seems like half the time, by the time the host posts, all upset, asking for advice, the behavior has been going on for days, and the host hasn’t even talked to the guest about it. I don’t know how people think they can homeshare without being the kind of person who can easily talk to their guests as soon as some unacceptable behavior starts, instead saying they hate “confrontation”, and quietly seething and fretting, feeling like they are a prisoner in their own home.
I’ve read frantic posts from distraught hosts who have endless issues with partiers, but when you look at their listing, it practically screams Party House! From the large guest count to the pool and hot tub, to it reading like an impersonal real estate ad, extolling all the virtues and none of the warts, to the listing wording assuring guests they will have complete privacy, making it sound like no one is watching over the place. The hosts don’t even realize how the listing comes across to prospective guests and why it’s attracting the wrong kind of guests.
So I agree, any type of hosting model can work well, as long as the host understands what is required in order to have it run smoothly. The thing is, no one applies for a job as a nurse, or a teacher, or a carpenter, if they have no training or experience in that field. But anyone can decide to list a house for rent as an str, without understanding that it, too, is a job that requires a certain skill set.
And I know that remote hosts like you don’t have much interaction with guests that can allow you to leave much more than a basic review, and that’s fine. You rate honestly on communication, and I’m sure your staff would let you know if the place reeked of cigarette smoke, or they trashed the place out- you don’t have to see the place or meet the guests personally to know whether they were guests other hosts need to be warned about or whether they deserve a good review.
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Exactly. Why are people who ‘hate confrontation’ in the hospitality business in the first place?
This is a service industry - we either provide the service ourselves or we pay a co-host to do it but whichever way, communication is high on the list of required characteristics to run an
str business.
The ‘best’ I ever read, and I think it might have been here several years ago, was the host who posted a problem with his guest who had been in the rental for several days.
The guests were very noisy. The host had been frantically calling Airbnb but not managing to get through. So he spent some of his valuable time posting about it asking for advice.
I think we all assumed he was an absent host but it turned out that this was a HOMESHARE!
Truly, the bloke expected Airbnb to do something, or us here at the forum, when all he had to do was walk upstairs and tell the guest to shut up.
Unbelievable but true.
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Oh yeah, I’ve read posts where homeshare hosts have had a guest in residence for a week already, booked for 3 weeks, who they say is leaving the kitchen in an awful state, expecting the host to wash their dirty dishes, helping himself to their food in the fridge, and the host has just been miserably and silently putting up with it.
They ask if or how they should “confront” the guest. They don’t seem to understand that mentioning something about the guest’s behavior that isn’t okay as soon as it’s evident, can just be an easy-going conversation about what is expected when sharing a home, even casually dropped into other conversation.
“I’m making a pot of tea, would you like some? Oh, hey, could you please remember to wipe the counter after you use the kitchen, we’ll be swarming with ants if you don’t. Did you get a chance to check out that nice second hand bookstore down the block I told you about?”
It’s only if you stew about things silently for days that when you do steel yourself to say something, it feels like a confrontation.
To me, it’s as if one of my teenage grandkids came to visit. Sure, they aren’t paying guests, but they need to know the first time they do it that making a sandwich and leaving the countertop smeared with jam, the knife laying there attracting ants, and sticky soda dripped on the floor without being wiped up isn’t the way to be a welcome guest in anyone’s home.
It’s also not fair to the guest to be resenting them without giving them an opportunity to shape up, only slamming them afterwards in the review. Some guests simply don’t realize what’s expected, and would totally change their behavior if they knew they were disturbing others.
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Yes. I review every guest. Most are two night with some one night guests.
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No, I don’t review guests unless they leave a review. Why ? … because I have a management company that oversee my house so I don’t personally see how my guests left everything. I’d only know if there were problems if the management company reports them to me, and I’ve never had a problem in 10 years of hosting.
Can you tell us what you say in your review of a guest you have never met, for a stay you never experienced? What is in your review that is helpful to us, other hosts?
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Unless I hear otherwise from my management company, I write: “communication was good and house rules were followed” … short and sweet. It describes the extent of what I know about that guest.
I have a hard time believing that every guest over the course of 10 years who your management company didn’t find it necessary to report to you about left the place clean, followed house rules and communicated well.
And I don’t understand at all what bearing the guest having left a review has on it.
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Believe it or not, In 10 years I only had 1 occasion to give a tenant a bad review … group of college kids competing in a snowboard tournament. Other than that, over 10 years and probably 400-500 guests, no issues … unless you count an extra bag or 2 of garbage as an issue (I don’t). It might be that I’ve got a good management company or my close communication with the guests prior and throughout their stay, but whatever it is seems to be working.
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