I have two units and have had a solid 5.0 on one, since I started it two+ years ago, the other one is currently a 4.93. I had one guest that gave me a three because she said the area was sketchy, and I didn’t tell her it’s a duplex. (That information is in the opening page information). It dropped from a 5 to a 4.5. So I figured, whatever, it will go back up. That was a year ago. Even though my reviews are amazing, it’s been at 4.93 for about 5 months. If one review can bring it down that much, how long does it take to bring it back up to 5 stars? I find it hard to believe that after 30 or so reviews in the past 5 months it’s stayed EXACTLY the same. Anyone else have this issue?
It’s just math, BearsLair. Your average review can never be a 5 if there is one rating lower than a 5. Over some more time, it will get so close to a 5 as calculated (4.999999), that they’ll round it up and you will show as a 5 again.
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You can figure it out with math (although it can be tedious).
If you had a 5.00 average rating and one 3-star review brought the rating down to 4.50, it means you only had 3 reviews before you got the 3-star.
Add up each rating and divide by the total number of ratings. In your case, before you got the 3-star your overall rating was this:
(5 + 5 + 5) / 3 = 5.0
Then after you got the 3-star rating, it was this:
(5 + 5 + 5 + 3) / 4 = 4.5
And now you have a 4.93, but since what AirBnB shows is rounded to the nearest 0.01, it means you have between 26 and 29 5-star reviews plus the one 3-star. It will move up to 4.94 when you get your 30th 5-star review.
Your average rating will never get back to a perfect 5.00. However, it will show as 5.00 (due to rounding) on the Airbnb website if you get your actual rating to 4.995. You aren’t going to like what it takes to get there, though. You would actually need 399 5-star reviews to get your average up to 4.995.
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I got a 3 star review my first year. I have 622 reviews: one 1 star(given in error, talk about one that stings!), one 3 star, 7 4 star and 613 5 star. My average is 4.98. It will never be full 5.0 again.
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I have many other things to worry about than a few percentage points on Air’s bogus rating scale. Hosts obsess too much about ratings and reviews instead of on improving hosting, which will result in higher ratings without worry.
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Yes, this obsession with ratings is an unnecessary stress hosts elect to shoulder. What’s the point of stressing over something you can’t do anything about?
Of course if you can step.up your game it might get better ratings, but even if there’s nothing a host can improve on, there’s still going to be guests who just won’t leave a 5* review.
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I appreciate the comments. However, my two units are a duplex. One has been 5.0 for 2 1/2 years. I consistently get 5 stars on both, which is why I was wondering why the 4.93 hadn’t budged. I can’t really up my service any more than I’ve already done, since I’m getting 5’s. Apparently I’m stuck here for awhile since I can’t get MORE than 5 stars on each review.
Anyone who ever struggled to raise their GPA sypathizes with you. The closer to the top you get the harder it is.
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I have a friend who is a total perfectionist when it comes to her own expectations of herself, and was a career student for quite awhile, going for more and more degrees.
She got a B+ on a paper one time and you should have seen how distraught she was. She just couldn’t believe she would ever get anything less than an A, and considered it a huge fail.
People with different personalities and standards rate differently. It will take some time to get back to a 5, but most guests will be happy with a 4.93. If they read the review from the person who gave you a three the prospective guest will see that the rater hadn’t read.
Agreed.
Also My new response for an inaccurate review is: I feel badly this guest was unhappy with the rental. Please see my other reviews for an accurate portrayal of guest opinions & satisfaction.
No emotion. Factual
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