When reality doesnt live up to expectations

Hi!
My first post here :slight_smile:
We just got our first bad review today - 3 stars overall. Ugh - it really hurts! It was not about bad cleaning or bad communication, and they told me that they really liked our house. They just didn´t like the surroundings, the village, the neigbours, the animals (which I do NOT understand at all - we love it there - its like Paradise to us). Anyways, our house is placed in a small Greek village close to “real Greeks” whom are working and living their lives every day right there. Like we do when we are at home in Denmark - not on vacation. For us its the charm: getting close to the locals with everything that follows when staying in a small village in the country side. And since its not a hotel but a private villa, I don´t think you can expect complete silence and all conveniences right next to you, but it seems like its was their expectation.

I know that you cant please everybody, and usually we get 5 stars all the way through with very few exceptions, but I’m just wondering if we should make it more clear in our description of our place that noise might happen?? Since its a private villa - not a hotel?

How do you handle this?

Greetings
Nina

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Yes, make it clear. I board dogs in my home and so I mention it more than once in the listing and also put a picture of 8 dogs in my kitchen in the listing. The guest is separate from me and won’t see the dogs or interact with them unless they ask to come into my part of the house for that purpose. But they will hear them. This has not impacted my ability to host or my reviews aside from once fairly early in my hosting career.

So you learn, improve, and put it in the rear view ASAP.

It sounds wonderful to me. I actually look for listings that have dogs or other animals. That’s a selling point for me and for many people. Market to them.

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I’m just afraid that it will take focus from everything elses if we mention the possibility of neighbourly disturbances. We stay there five weeks each year ourselves, and have never had problems. Yes - we occasioanlly hear our neighbours or the village dogs barking, the cats meowing etc., but it has never been a problem - more like a delightful reminder of where we are. What I mean to say it that it is out of our hands - we dont own the animals. sometimes it is event strays running around. Im really worried that it would lower our bookings if we mention it, and it will be difficult for us to reject any complaints if our profile mention “problems” with noises…

How I’d handle it is by getting used to the fact that not everyone is going to give you 5 stars. As I’ve written here before, I had guests who gave me 3 or 4 stars (I can’t remember exactly, it was a long time ago) because there were roadworks on the road to the beach. People do these things.

Just about every host has had a guest who didn’t like the surroundings and I know, it’s not fair, it’s the guest who chose it, blah blah. But remember that advertising on Airbnb isn’t like conventional advertising - with any OTA that has reviews, you have to under-promise and over-deliver.

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Ha ha - yeah thats true. And everything else you write.

It just really hurts :tired_face: and it makes you feel treated really unfair.

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Reminds me of a coworker that vacationed in Spain and later complained that no one spoke English. Some people are closed minded. Totally unfair to you as a host that they left you a 3 star review. Maybe you can respond to their review saying something like “guests didn’t appreciate small village lifestyle but did mentioned that they liked the house.”

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Please try not to let it hurt. And look at it another way - reality didn’t live up to your expectations as you were expecting a 5 star rating. :slight_smile:

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I was a public school teacher and felt that was so routinely that now I get over it quickly on the rare occasions it happens with Airbnb.

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Reminds me of a coworker that vacationed in Spain and later complained that no one spoke English. Some people are closed minded. Totally unfair to you as a host that they left you a 3 star review. Maybe you can respond to their review saying something like “guests didn’t appreciate small village lifestyle but did mentioned that they liked the house.”

Funny that you mention it. In the review, which was written in French, she writes that communication was good “If you understand English”.

If I had replied in French she would NOT have been able to understand a word :sweat_smile:

I have already replied to her, but I will keep your very good suggestion in mind!

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[quote=“ViKaCr, post:5, topic:48362”]
It just really hurts :tired_face: and it makes you feel treated really unfair.
[/quote]

Please try not to let it hurt. And look at it another way - reality didn’t live up to your expectations as you were expecting a 5 star rating. :slight_smile:

I will try, but I really love my place, so its like a personal criticism when people dont like it - but I will have to work with that - I know :wink:.
And I’m not quite ready to lower my expectations yet. Aiming at five stars next time!

Maybe you could put in your listing that this is not some isolated place but in a real village, with real people and the animals, quirks that go with them.
I traveled in Greece maybe 10 years ago seeking out all the ruins and museums and staying in small places not removed from the culture. We got around by buses, and some trains. That’s what traveling is all about, right?

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Perhaps we have to do that, I just have to think of a clever way to phrase it so it wont scare people off.

Sounds like a great trip you had back then!

I don’t think it needs to be particularly clever… it just needs to separate the people who would love your place from the people who would hate it. You can’t please everyone; it’s valuable to recognize who’s your target guest.

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True! And luckily we have succeeded most of the times.

Put this somewhere in the listing description:

“If you are looking for absolute quiet, this is not the place for you. You are close to other homes in this Greek country village, so you may hear children at play, domestic animal sounds, neighbors going about their business, and family and friends enjoying each other’s company.”

That should cover everything from the occasional sheep bleat to a Saturday night blowout.

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Here’s something that helps me: I keep in mind that I WANT to scare off certain people. I am happy to scare off certain people. As with @dpfromva 's suggestion, I make my first line more about the sort of guest we want (“takes rough weather in stride”, for instance, in our case) than about attracting hoards of the disappointed.

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Ah, thats great! Thank you for inspiration!

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You are quite right. And we are always fully booked already in the beginning of the season so we probably shouldn fear not having any guests at all if we make this clear. Thank you!

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I try to attract people that like the great outdoors and birds. I post bird photos on my page. Recently had someone book that said the photo of the Pileated Woodpecker is what made her book.

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Yes, that response for sure. Also, you might share your listing - or just your description (?) for critique? “Villa” can suggest different experiences to different travelers.

In Thailand modest apartment buildings like ours in a suburb of Bangkok were called “mansions”

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