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How do I write a review, a detailed and succinct pne without sounding bitter.
I recently hosted an Airbnb host who had other guests that were not listed on the reservations. He asked me to update the booking to include the guests but when I did, he rejected the update. My outdoor camera confirmed at least 8 people in total. He moved my furniture and dented the wall and window seal in the process. Left condom on the floor and smoked inside the house which were all against the house rules.
He continues to claim that he didnât do anything wrong and we are currently going through the resolution center. It was a 2 day booking and all 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms were used. He even called to ask why 1 put of 5 smart big screen TVâs was having a connection issue around past 11 pm.
I just got an alert that he left us a review. I already prepared a review that I was going to post on day 14 in case he didnât write us one. But now that he did, I know its not good. But I need to make sure to write a detailed and yet professional review.
Below is my review;
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this guest. He claimed to be an Airbnb host himself, but his behavior did not reflect the standards expected from someone familiar with the platform.
He arrived with 8 additional guests who were not included in the original reservation and only mentioned this upon arrival, stating he was driving and couldnât update the booking earlier. When the reservation was adjusted to reflect the actual number of guests, he refused to pay the difference.
He also violated house rules by smoking inside the property, rearranging furniture, and causing damage to the wall and window seal. Overall, this stay showed a clear lack of respect for the house rules and the space. I strongly advise other hosts to proceed with caution.
IF he really is an Airbnb host, it would be mentioned in his Airbnb profile and you could verify that. Whether having two separate Airbnb accounts (one for hosting and one as a guest) is allowed or against Airbnbâs TOS, I donât know but weâve only hosted Airbnb hosts where it was mentioned on their profile and non of the others claimed to be one (where it wasnât mentioned in their profile).
Do NOT assume that a host has to be familiar with the platform! I would not write any of that what âhe should know as a hostâ. To abide the house rules is something every guest should do - regardless of also being host⌠or not.
This wonât help you anymore: Him announcing additional guests and then rejecting your modified booking details is a red flag and I would have immediately involved host support BEFORE check-in.
You saw him entering your place on camera (without an appropriate booking for these people). Iâd have kicked him out right there and then. Violation of Airbnbâs terms and your house rules.
He rejected the modified offer but then makes the excuse of not being able to update the booking because he was driving. His problem as without a proper reservation your rules should explicitly state that access will be refused. He is obviously lying and or being extremely disrespectful, expecting you to dance to his tune. You should be the one in control.
Regarding the wording of the review. Only cold hard facts of what happened. No âhe should haveâ etc.
Just as future advice: State your terms and rules clearly in your listing, welcome booklet and your booking confirmation messages and check-in messages. We do NOT give our guests a single chance to look the other way and claim they âdidnât have time to do what we asked forâ. It depends on at which risk level you want to operate your business. We live in the same house, guests stay under the same roof which requires them to provide ID and personal details within 24 hours of making the reservation. If not, they can go elsewhere. We have received less reservations, no doubt, but ever since we changed this, we had great guests who were very thoughtful and respected our rules and requirements, no questions asked. They possess the mindfulness of why we ask our guests for those things. The guests who question our terms are the ones we donât want at our place. Itâs matter of respect.
I know that thereâs some value in just stating cold hard facts but I also think that thereâs no harm in being fully self-expressed when it comes to a review.
When guests review their stay they are hardly ever constrained by cold hard facts but nearly always speak from the heart - and I think thatâs why we have reviews and why we enjoy reading them.
Another aspect of this is the idea that we somehow donât want to offend and that by remaining factual we are somehow less offensive. Personally, I can choose to be offended or choose to be not offended, as can anyone else.
Iâve been told by my wife on several occasions that Iâm tactless but for myself I canât bear walking on eggshells or tip-toeing around issues (apparently Iâm clumsy too) .
The only advice that I can give, @epadat, (apart from putting your question to this forum) is to sleep on your review before posting. Often Iâll write something that, on re-reading in the cold light of dawn, isnât as appropriate as I imagined when first drafted.
By coincidence, I wrote my first ever review for some poorly behaved guests only the other day:
âNot everyone has the social skills or awareness to either show contrition or mention the accidental damage theyâre responsible for. But in the absence of any such communication the attempted concealment of huge, oily curry stains on the throw and duvet cover and the useless reconstruction of a broken plate has a child-like quality about it that only just about tempers the feeling of being abused. Taking loo rolls seems weird to me too but presumably Chrissy and Kate both wanted a souvenir of their short, but not short enough, stay.â
In the past if weâve had wayward guests Iâve just not given a review but after listening to other contributors on this forum I realise that Iâm doing the community a disservice by abstaining and so I now hope Iâm being helpful and that anyone reading the above review will be in no doubt of my opinion on the character of their next potential guests (names changed btw).
I try not to quick to sending replies or writing reviews. I typically take my time and try to edit my writing to best serve me while also sending the correct message for which it was intended.
I hope that I am able to get his review removed by Airbnb but thats a long shot. They are not always helpful.
Your draft review doesnât sound at all âbitterâ to me, it sounds factual and fine.
Believe it or not, it is reportedly even harder to get a review removed lately than it ever was- Airbnb is now using bot to determine whether a review violates policy and the bot supposedly thinks all reviews are fine. So expect a request for review removal to be rejected, although maybe itâs possible to appeal it.
Aside from the obvious bummer of retaliation reviews tanking your rating, I actually think terrible guests who leave lying revenge reviews usually make things worse for themselves, as long as the host leaves a brief, pithy review response that makes it clear the guest is lying (which you can do without saying âLiar!â)- and the review is an outlier among lots of good reviews.
@jujuba I love that review you left- the sarcasm sounds so distinctly British to me.
I have also been told more than once that I am tactless. Or, as one of my best friends says, âYou never have to wonder what S. is thinking- sheâs going to tell you straight upâ.
I also agree that there is nothing wrong with self-expression in a review, in fact, sometimes itâs better. A guest can deny that they âleft the place filthyâ, but they canât deny âwe felt very disrespected by the state we found the place inâ.
I made a booboo on this one. I have outlined situations that can lead to cancellation of booking without refunds clearly and even send automated messages to guests in case they missed it during booking. I was completely thrown off as this guest was the one who asked me to initiate the modification of the reservation. And seeing the Host icon advertised on his profile made me come to the wrong conclusion. I made a huge mistake, and I have learned a huge lesson. ALL guests should be treated equal with equal expectations.
Iâve had several guests who were âalso a hostâ (theyâve all been fine guests), and while most had a listing and reviews of their listing I could read, a couple of them didnât. When I asked one of those guests about that during her stay, she said she once listed her apartment when she went on holiday, but only that once.
So it seems that if someone has ever hosted, even for 1 night, they will have âalso a hostâ on their profile.
Who knows, they could even have had their listing deleted due to tons of bad reviews, and Airbnb might list them as âalso a hostâ.
And yes, guests are guests- itâs rather foolish to make assumptions about someone being a good guest just because they are also a host, or anything else. I know some hosts have assumed that a guest being a doctor or some other upscale professional means theyâll be great guests, only for the host to find the place left filthy, or their staff reporting that the guests talked down to them and treated them like slaves, expecting their every demand to be catered to.
I have hosted a Medical Doctor who felt very entitled. She and her family stayed for about 2 weeks and left the house in a state that could have been better. All in all, every experience provides me with an opportunity to learn and do better. Hopefully not have enough negative impact to significantly impact my business.
Yes, and communication is key. We all make mistakes and thatâs how we learn - thatâs how it works. Once a stream of communication is established, we usually end up with an extremely pleasant experience both on our (host) side and the for the guests as well as we all have a better understanding of each other.
Why such a d!psh!t can easily reject a booking modification but claims he couldnât review or check on his reservation because he was driving is just a lame excuse. I donât know him but overall it sounds like that he is not a very considerate person and sees no need to involve you (as the host) in their travel plans more precisely (as in defining who is travelling in his party).
I know that there are this off-chance situations that we never encountered before and then they go south for some bizarre reason, thatâs why we tightened our screening process and, so far, have had a very good experience with our guests and so did they with us. For us it was worth adjusting our approach. This doesnât work for every host, obviously but there are many gears the can be adjusted to make the whole machine purr
Hooray, good for you.
Refreshingly, after I posted my review (above) I got a message from CS saying they are sorry that the guest fell below the standard expected and that they would monitor her going into the future.
Sometimes itâs hard to reconcile the randomness of CS interactions as reported on this forum but so far for me theyâve been pretty good.
I also believe that words such as âviolatedâ and phrases like âclear lack of respectâ - they indicate emotion on your part, when Airbnb reviews are intended to be factual and unemotional.
But ideally a host should deal with serious infringements at the time and not wait until the review. Bringing extra people was poor behaviour that should be dealt with at once by asking the entire party to leave. (Also ideally, either the host or co-host should meet the guests on arrival to avoid the issue.)
The sort of guest who sneaks in additional people is likely to be a problem in other ways so itâs best to get rid of them straight away.
Moving the furniture in no big deal, neither is the condom really. Not the sort of thing you want to pick up without rubber gloves! (Iâm assuming it was used?)
When writing a review, itâs a good idea to remember that all hosts, just like all guests, have different standards so itâs as well to specify exactly why the guest was unsuitable (as the OP did with the smoking issue - that would be against house rules for 99.9 percent of hosts).
Iâd also make sure that I photographed the condom and the damage!
But in a situation where guests claimed that he was there by self, it was necessary for me to point that out. And throwing a used condom on the floor is just plain disgusting.
Moving a furniture is usually not an issue for me but moving a heavry bed all the way that it almost hit the dresser and callous enough to damage the wall and window seal is also a big deal.
That is very, very nasty - to expect a third party to pick up your xxx is horrible. Unfortunately as hosts, we have to deal with these things from time to time.
Looks like a massive and heavy bed. I wonder what motivated the guest to make the effort of moving this huge piece of furniture in a room that appears to have plenty space around all sides of the bed. Disrespectful.
Just had two Eastern European gentlemen (father and son) check out whose first inquiry was where they can pick up some French women. It was explicitly clarified by the son that they do âtaste the womenâ wherever their business travels take them. Since this was a first time request and also not having frequented such establishments where one would find such women, I said that I cannot be of any help regarding this.
Their hygiene standards were clearly demonstrated on the tiles around the toilet where we discretely placed stickers to ask guests to sit down.
Smokers who booked an accommodation on a non-smoking property.
The only comment left was that the A/C should have been working which we do not claim to have.
It was again a struggle of guests who didnât bother to read the listing or look at the photos which would have clearly shown what they can expect. Plus it was a short term booking - 2 days before arrival, without any form of communication from their end, which is something weâre trying hard to establish before guests arrive.
This has been our experience before that the guests who literally do not communicate were the ones who always were not fully satisfied. We didnât have the opportunity to ensure that they understood what they booked and what they can expect and that we can help and answer any questions they may have.
To me it is both indifference and entitlement and with some communication the whole experience could have been better for all of the people involved but itâs one of those things. You canât control 100% of the situations.
I write reviews that are almost always positive, because the guests have been great. Occasionally i wish Iâd said something more truthful, such as âThe guests were bad tempered on arrival and spoke to me rudelyâ - however, I donât as theyâve left the place in a tidy state and thatâs the main thing, not how unpleasant theyâd been. I even recommend them to future hosts when perhaps i should have given them fewer stars.
Any tips here , anyone?
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