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??? Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.
Do you really think it’s okay that Airbnb tells guests that 4* s means Good, and then turn around and threaten hosts if their listing falls below 4.7, telling them that’s not good enough?
If you went on vacation and said, “Oh the place we booked was good, we had a great holiday”, that means the place was not good enough?
In one situation I did contact a previous Host to ask about a helpful review that said something vague but somewhat foreboding that caught my eye about a guest. I also asked the guest about it. The Host contradicted the guest’s story and I declined the guest.
So it’s not necessarily ‘out there’ to contact a former Host.
This forum’s Hosts have repeatedly urged honest, fact-based reviews of guests. Most of us seem persuaded.
When we encounter guests whose behavior runs so counter to prior reviews I wonder – hadn’t considered this before your post, to relate the incident – whether we might be proactive with Hosts of our guests to help foster informative, honest reviews, one Host at a time.
ALL: Do you think that would be a reasonable thing to do? Or inappropriate?
Of course, our experience might be truly out-of-pattern, or reflect upon someone the guest brought with it.
What exactly? Contact prior hosts before accepting requests?
Since I review guests honestly I don’t really want to be contacted. Any inquiry is something I have to respond to or I’m dinged. It’s extra work since I already reviewed the guest. If another host is too much of a wimp to review honestly, I’m not going to waste my time contacting them anyway. I’ve had it go both ways; I’ve had a guest with a poor review that was truly a 5 star guest here. What was off, the host who gave the low review or the guest? I’ll never know. I’ve seen plenty of wacko hosts post here, I don’t trust “hosts” as a general category any more than I trust “guests” as a category.
I’ve posted many times about a guest who IB’d me late at night for a stay the next day. I woke up to see her 4 star overall average and that she was going from one local Airbnb to the next and I canceled her right away. I followed her course on Airbnb periodically over the coming months. She continued to find Airbnbs to stay in despite many poor reviews. That’s completely on hosts not reading reviews or not canceling bookings, not on the guest. And how many of her okay reviews were dishonest? Eventually she seems to have quit booking Airbnbs.
So, no to:
I was supposing an incident where you had a guest who behaved VERY badly, completely at odds with, say, past five star reviews.
Would it be sensible to apprise past Hosts of that guest, relating the incident, saying that while it was possible that this time the guest’s household was different or that the behavior of this guest this time was truly an outlier, but that please IF you have guests that truly aren’t . . . respectful of the property [fill in the blanks], please do not omit that in reviews as you as a future Host, relying on past reviews, have now suffered that disrespect. That kind of thing.
Reasonable to do as a service to affect the rating culture one Host at a time? Unreasonably intrusive [fill in the blanks] to do?
Just asking for thoughts here.
It’s really the question that @Cozy2018 raised, which I thought a very interesting one.
Yes. And presumptuous. And as KKC points out, I wouldn’t want to have the pressure to respond to an inquiry message that consisted of another host “educating” me about the review I left for a guest and how I should review going forward. I write honest reviews, and have never had a bad guest. If a guest I’ve had goes on to behave badly somewhere else (which I can’t imagine they would), that would be unfortunate for that host, but would have nothing to do with my experience nor the review I left.
No, I don’t remember them either which is why I review guests about 15 minutes after they have left. First check the rental and its condition. Second, check that the departing guests haven’t left any of their belongings (so you can let them know straight away so they can come back to get it.)
Third, write the review. Writing a review is part of the job, not something that you can’t be bothered to do.
It takes only a couple of minutes and it can be done from anywhere so I also don’t accept ‘I don’t have time’ as an excuse.
Always review. Always leave an honest review. Always remember: Reviews are for the next host
There is a host from the UK who posts on the CC- he travels a lot as a guest and says he always cross-checks reviews and won’t book with a host who’s a “serial non-reviewer”.
I also don’t understand hosts who can’t manage to spend 2 or 3 minutes leaving a review, which is all it takes. I consider it part of my job as a host.
As others here have posted, leaving your review is an important contribution to future Hosts. I would add that it’s also helpful to educate guests. So many are clueless. Plus, by painting an accurate picture of the guest’s conduct you’re helping that guest, if not change that conduct, at least provide information that will match that guest to a Host for whom the conduct is OK.
I think it was @muddy who long ago made a very valuable distinction by saying that you’re not reviewing the person as a person; you’re reviewing the guest as a guest.
There are ‘nice’ ways to get across the basic facts of the guest’s conduct without being mean or judgmental. As @KKC has pointed out conduct that might have offended you might not offend the next Host.
You can always leave private feedback that expresses your warmth for the person.
That’s a start, but you can do better (as a Host).
Wow. Just, wow. Ok thanks.
If they left your house messy or with damages, that’s why there are cleanliness and house rules ratings, which you can mark them down on, while giving them 5* s in communication if they deserve that.
And in the written review, what’s so hard about writing," XX was pleasant to deal with and communicated well, but more attention to tidying up after themselves and treating the space respectfully would have been appreciated"?
You aren’t reviewing a guest as a person you may have liked or not liked, but as to their suitability as a guest.
And how is a guest ever supposed to learn that some of their behavior was unacceptable if you don’t leave them a review?
If hosts were as brutally honest about the guests as they are when responding to the hosts on this forum, there would be no need for this discussion!
I owned restaurants and cafe/bakeries for 30 years before doing Airbnb so I know the ins and outs of reviews. Perhaps I am just jaded after almost forty years of them.
Which I want to point out does not mean that I don’t leave them. I just don’t always leave them.
One thing you can do in a review is to FIRST highlight what the guest did well.
The categories for guests are:
Respectful of property
Adherence to house rules
Communications
Depending on by how much the guest fell short you can make the reference to what was not done well almost an after-thought, even humorous, just make it factual. Or maybe it’s such a small thing that you don’t mention it, or mention it only in the private feedback. You do need to be self-aware how you ‘are’; I often collaborate with the Host on this (I am co-Host).
You also can evaluate whether the guest slipped up because your rules were not clear, hard to find or appropriately emphasized.
I always repeat the ‘big’ rules (I say 'some of our salient house rules are . . .") in the confirmation message, AND in the pre-check-in message. That way, the rules we most care about simply cannot be missed (no smoking inside or outside, no shoes in the house, check-in at 4pm or later, check-out by 10 am, etc.).
If I see something amiss during their stay, I say it to them. If they correct it, I wouldn’t mention it in the review unless it was egregious.
Maybe we’ve just been lucky but our guests have just not violated those rules.
Going through the review process – which takes me more than just a few minutes because it forces me (I’ve just been at this for only five years) to think through whether I am being fair and communicating well. I continuously refine the listing, my scheduled messages and my words during the stay to become a more effective communicator.
So making sure I leave a review has been a very educational approach FOR ME. It’s led to improving the listing, my messaging throughout their stay, what’s in the guidebook (and how prominently presented) and what I cover in our orientation. That is easy for me as a co-Host because I live in a separate but attached part of the listing.
I WANT every guest to be a five-star guest and I feel the Host has a responsibility to help get the guest there.
I agree that we live in an over-the-top review culture and many people are weary of being asked to review every business they patronize. So it’s actually much more understandable that some guests don’t bother to leave a review than that hosts don’t.
For one thing, a host might have 150 or more reviews, and guests may not feel they have anything to add that hasn’t already been said.
Also, if you patronize a restaurant because it had good reviews, but get what you consider to be a sub-par meal, it’s not that big a deal- it’s just one meal and you simply don’t go back.
Reviewing guests is a different level, as we are entrusting them with our homes.
As a restaurant or cafe/bakery owner, you don’t review your customers, they review you. You aren’t entrusting those customers with your restaurant or bakery. They come in, have a meal or buy a croissant, and leave.
I try not to be ‘brutal.’
If a client does something amiss, here’s my thought process:
Example: Recently a guest took a charging port from one bedroom and put it in another bedroom. That violates our messaging to keep/return things to their original place (don’t recall if I made it a rule – I’d have to check the listing’s rules). How much do I care? Not that much. In fact, I found it useful feedback via conduct that I should probably have two charging ports in the King-size bedroom. So I bought another charging port.
Hypothetical example: Suppose I found that a guest took glasses near the pool. Somewhere we say not to do that. Do I care? Yes, I do.
But here I would go to the next step in my process and ask how much of that is on me. It’s not a rule we emphasize. I could easily put a label on the shelf below our plastic mugs saying “These plastic mugs are great for the pool!”
I might leave private feedback that says 'Note: FYI: It’s a best practice to only use plastic not glass mugs near the pool because if a glass broke in the pool we’d have to drain the pool! ($$$)"
I have five levers I can operate:
Rules in the listing: Saying it clearly, more prominently.
Messages: Confirming, Pre-check-in, Extra/separate message(s), text or oral if I become aware of something in the moment.
Labels: Just-in time/place message at the property phrased in a positive way (I know some Hosts, including the one I am co-Host for) think these ‘tacky’ but they work and I feel show caring.
Orientation: I conduct a face to face or FaceTime orientation for most guests. I could make sure to mention it, emphasize it here, show the plastic ‘glasses’ etc.
House manual: Is the guidance there? Is it easy to see (should it be in bold? Larger font? In the index?)
So I look to these levers to figure out how I could be more effective.
@lagunafairway recently said not to under-estimate the power of charm. I agree!
Though this is not my super-power I can move in that direction. But I can of course make sure that the property is in tip-top shape and super clean, leave treats, provide a well-documented house manual and guidebook, be super-responsive and look for ways to show I care (e.g., we offer to take in groceries and put away; no extra charge), personalize messages to reflect what I know of the guests’ names, purpose of visit, something they’ve told/written to me. I just have faith in the power of reciprocity, not that it’s 100% (but what is?).
If it’s small or something I think many people might miss, but I still think it’s important, it might also go here. But I will revisit steps 1-3.
If I care, it’s important, my messaging was good but these people just did it because they could and knew better or should have (it feels like a ‘FU’), YES, I am calling them out on it but nicely, factually (no judgments).
I take pride in my honest reviews. I also take pride in reviewing every guest. I may have skipped one or two (out of 1000) that I can’t recall. I don’t know why anyone would take offense at being told that a fellow host thinks it’s the obligation of every host to review every guest honestly.
Every time someone complains about a poor experience with a guest who “had good reviews” the ire should be pointed towards all those hosts who either don’t review, or don’t review honestly. Sometimes a guest has been a member a long time but doesn’t have reviews. Is that because the host didn’t review them?
Point at hand. Brutal was the wrong word in reference to reviewing the guests. If hosts told it like they think it is regarding the guests as much as hosts do when responding to posts and comments on this forum, I would have more faith in reviews. BTW if it takes a host two minutes to write a review, I have my doubts about the usefulness of that review to the next host. As I have stated, I do write reviews but not with every guest. Just the ones where I believe I have something significant to add to the equation.
Yes, that was the case with one of my guests. She said she’d had 2 Airbnb stays before, but the hosts didn’t leave her reviews. I had no reason to doubt that, as her 3 year old profile with no reviews wasn’t something I asked her about when I accepted her booking, so she couldn’t have thought I might not accept her booking on that basis. She mentioned it during the course of her 2 week stay.
I’ve had 3 guests over the years who had long-standing profiles, but no reviews and all 3 times there was a reasonable explanation for that, so I’ve never understood the fear or assumption that a guest who isn’t a newbie must not have reviews because previous hosts found them objectionable but were reticent to leave an honest review.