Post by High Priestess on Sept 20, 2015 8:37:11 GMT
"Louise was very considerate & provided MORE than we expected."
Louise shared on NEw HOsts FOrum 6 months ago
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-166871
Louise
"Louise was very considerate & provided MORE than we expected."
In fact, so much better than expected that she rated me 4 stars for Accuracy and a 4 for Overall Experience, apparently because her group could have had an even better time if they'd only known how fab it was going to be.
Yep, yet enough example of the madness of this system. In this case I got pinged because my guests [who were really, really lovely BTW] stayed in and ordered a pizza one night. They were hanging out to have a glass of wine or beer with it, couldn't be bothered driving to the local bottle shop (1km away) and didn't realise that the bottle of wine and 4 beers I'd left in the fridge was for them and complimentary. This is despite me telling them on check-in, "if it's in the fridge it's for you". Even if this wasn't clear enough (and BTW, there were no language issues), she could have just asked me.
She mentioned it on check out, i.e. "we were desperate for a glass of vino last night but weren't sure whether to open the stuff in the fridge" and when I explained, yet again, that the fridge is stocked solely for their enjoyment, she seemed disappointed. She said, "Oh, we never expected that, if we'd known we could have had a much better night".
So, my going above and beyond just earned me a 4 star review. Do I really have to put a silly little sign in the kitchen saying "with compliments of your host"?
I go into mind-numbing detail in my listing description. There's 36 pictures, reams of text and even a floor plan which shows the room layout and the placement of every pot plant, lamp and rug. Given this, it has to be that a less than perfect score on Accuracy is a function of the guest's powers of comprehension, not of any shortcoming on my part. In this instance my guest completely ignored the assessment criteria for Accuracy, i.e.' How accurately did the photos and description represent the actual space?', and instead applied her own interpretation.
Airbnb needs to either remove the ratings altogether or put a lot more work into educating the guests that assessment must be done against specific criteria set by Airbnb otherwise the ratings are meaningless.
As it stands, allowing guests to rate listings without ensuring they are rating against consistent criteria is like having a police force handing out speeding tickets where each officer has a different notion of the applicable speed limit.
I should probably have added this to the post below, but I live in hope that one day Airbnb will actually read this forum (I know, I know, call me a crazy fool, but ....) and I think it's important that each and every discrete incidence of this kind of inappropriate application of the rating system by guests is brought to their attention.
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Celeste & Esiris
Celeste & Esiris6 months ago
That is ridiculous! After receiving our first unfair "bad review" and decimation of all star categories, I just contacted Airbnb today to say we should be able to dispute unfair reviews.
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Deborah
Deborah6 months ago
Thanks for your effort to advocate for hosts, Celeste and Esiris!
Andrew
Andrew6 months ago
C & E - Looking at your listing, I'm concerned about several statements telling guests "do not book if you would give ___ less than a 5 star rating." I agree Airbnb has gone way overboard in making hosts obsess about those silly stars, but it's not our place to demand that guests give us the ratings we desire. The reviews are always going to be a subjective reflection of the guest's experience, and they aren't going to know how positive their experience will be before they've had it. Airbnb has created a monster if hosts feel like they have to tell their prospective guests "GIVE US A PERFECT RATING OR YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE." That is NOT how good hospitality is done - we have to earn our good reviews, and take the negative feedback gracefully when it inevitably occurs.
Julie and Eric
Julie and Eric6 months ago
Good point. There's probably a better way to say this that's more welcoming.
Celeste & Esiris
Celeste & Esiris6 months ago
We're very, very much trying to scare people away who are not the right fit. It seems to be working well most of the time. We're actually trying to *not* be welcoming to people who wouldn't like it. After adding those deterrents, I think it's quite helped. Except this one recent horrid lady who complained about everything that was clearly listed and gave us a 1 star rating. But she was an anomaly and I have no idea why she even booked our place as it clearly was not her style. We don't want to be welcoming to those people. I feel violated that we had her in our home and would rather not do Airbnb than host people like her. People who ignore what is CLEARLY stated, then complain about it, instead of appreciating all the awesome with extra awesome piled on top -no thanks. Want to scare those people away so it will be available to people who LOVE what we offer and appreciate that we go way above and beyond to give them an exceptional experience. If someone has LEGITIMATE concerns for rating, fine, but we don't want anyone who has PRE-determined that it isn't good enough for them coming to rate us lowly for exactly what we're offering.
Julie and Eric
Julie and Eric6 months ago
I hear what you're saying, but I probably would avoid staying in any listing that had the statements, even if they were 100% perfect fits. I'm glad it's working for you!
Celeste & Esiris
Celeste & Esiris6 months ago
As another deterrent, been meaning to put up bug pictures as well, like close ups of any insect one might encounter. lol
Alexina
Alexina6 months ago
Oh yeah, totally burning right along with you, Louise. I hosted an absolutely delightful Italian couple for 3 nights during their month-long road trip. We hit it off right away (I spend 2-3 months every year in Italy) and we talked for HOURS in both languages. They were so happy they invited me to visit them in Italy. I was so pleased that I actually did a week's worth of their filthy, steaming laundry from their previous camping trip as my gift to them, so they could go out and explore SF instead of having to stay in for hours, doing laundry. When they gave me 4 stars for Communication (whaaat?!) and Value (killkillkill), I did ask them. Their response: "My judgment was based on my feelings during our stay, compared to other places we have been. Again, it was a very positive stay and I thank you for your efforts."
The prompts are “How responsive and accessible was the host before and during your stay?” and “How would you rate the value of the listing?” They couldn't answer those questions correctly?!
From what we've all been reading in the past month, there are untold thousands of hosts who've been burned by this star review system.
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Douglas
Douglas6 months ago
I think the star system is getting a lot of attention because of Airbnb's new slap on the wrist for anything less than a 5 star rating. Before it was an annoyance, now Airbnb rubs salt deep into the wound.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Absolutely. Nail on head, Douglas. I was perfectly content, and so were my guests, with my average 4.5 -5 stars. Suddenly that's not good enough? I know we're not supposed to swear on here but seriously, F*** O** with this nonsense.
Nic and Rach
Nic and Rach6 months ago
LOL Rebecca.. take it easy now... your high blood pressure is going up again... : )
Jeannette
Jeannette6 months ago
Blarg. Such an awful mess, these stars.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
You do realise, guys, that having a 4* review is ok? I mean, it's not fantastic but it's still good. I'm concerned that the discussion about the legitimate concerns over the rating system will be clouded by people getting all prissy because they didn't get 5 stars for everything. Seriously guys, you're all great I'm sure but you know, you're not god's gift and people need to be able to rate how they feel. It's not up to us to second-guess why guests mark us down. I've been a guest and I've given less than 5 stars because it was true. Not every last thing was fecking FANTASTIC. Let's not take our eye off the ball here.
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Alexina
Alexina6 months ago
I strongly disagree. It's completely up to me to second-guess why guests might mark me down. Otherwise, how can I improve? I will have learned nothing of importance if the guests do not qualify their stars by saying what they felt could have been better. I'm also a frequent guest, and have given less than 5 stars, also because it was true. I also don't feel that I "got all prissy" by feeling outraged that guests with whom I spent many hours "communicating," and for whom I went so over-and-above, would not value those efforts when it came time to evaluate their stay. Trying to smack me down by outright saying I'm not God's gift is really insulting, Rebecca. I doubt any of us claim to be, but your words are unnecessarily harsh/sarcastic.
Louise
Louise6 months ago
Rebecca, I agree that a 4 star review is OK, but I also get Alexina's point. When a review is blatantly unfair, it's not unreasonable to be left wondering where we went wrong. If we don't react and question why, we won't improve. My concern is that to Airbnb, 4 stars is most definitely not ok and more than a few in a row is grounds for them threatening us with delisting. Who wouldn't be concerned given this?
Deborah
Deborah6 months ago
It's like Louise says -- it's not so much that we as hosts are upset when we get less than 5 stars, but rather, it's the way that Airbnb views "less than 4 stars" as problematic, that is the problem for us as hosts. LIke I said in my comment below I really think many hosts would be just content to be "average" and be straight 3's, but it's when Airbnb rears up with criticisms, tips on "how to improve", and out and out threats to deactivate one's listing, that hosts get manipulated into believing they should get better ratings. So if there weren't this fallout from ratings, I think we wouldn't be having any of these discussions, we would be just always doing our best and working to improve, but we'd be doing it from a positive attitude, because it's fun to us and enjoyable, to see our guests be content and happy and pleased, not approaching improvement with a negative feeling, because a big parent figure has told us to shape up. It's the scolding that isn't appropriate here.
Andrew
Andrew6 months ago
Deborah raises an interesting point here, that I've been wondering about as well. What's wrong with a 3 star listing? If there had been a rating system for the first-ever Airbnb experiment, I doubt that the airbed on the founders' living room floor would have been rated 5 stars. But if guests have an entirely average/so-so experience, and the host is OK with that, then it's still a successful and mutually agreeable transaction.
Jeannette
Jeannette6 months ago
Hosts have received warning notes for 4* reviews, if they get 2 in a row. So 4* is NOT OK with AirBNB. (Note: 4* is not a typo. It was not for 3* reviews, it was for 4*).
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
alexina and Louise, yes indeed you're right and point taken. Sorry for bad wording. I was thinking that Airbnb wouldn't take this issue seriously if it comes across like hosts are just annoyed that guests don't leave 5* when hosts think they've deserved that rating, do you see what I mean? The really problematic issue, to me, is the stupid warnings.
Nic and Rach
Nic and Rach6 months ago
I agree that the the warnings or alerts shouldn't be applicable to a host who are still getting a 4 star ratings, I mean most of these ratings are erratic the way I see it and basing it on their experienced or mood. Been hosting for over 5 years and have 5 stars in communication and this one particular guest rated me 1* star on communication- I let that one go and Airbnb couldn't do anything to change it either.. so what's the use ? I think the reality is that Guests and Airbnb can definitely take your listings down to the worst.. if this is what Airbnb's way of evaluating our performance ... and that really SUCKS !
Linda
Linda6 months ago
Do you think Airbnb management is reading the same playbook as Amazon
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Deborah
Deborah6 months ago
As far as what star rating is okay -- in my book, anything from 3 stars on up is totally fine. After all, 3 stars is "average" and this should be viewed as fine, for those who seek to provide AVERAGE accomodations. Not everyone can or should or needs to offer something extraordinary. Many have a humble abode and are simply doing what they are expected to do -- the average. In fact if you think about it, even if most hosts start trying to do "above average", then just the fact that most hosts are now doing that, makes them average again -- the quality of average has been raised but it's still average.
So one of my gripes with the star system is that I don't feel anyone should get scolding messages over delivering an average or better experience to a guest. And for those cases which the guest deems "below average" -- Airbnb should require a guest to provide an explanation of why they have 1 or 2 stars, and if they don't have a very good explanation, this low rating should be scrapped.
If you have ever tried to rate someone 1 or 2 stars on Amazon, from what I recall, the system actually rejects your attempt to do this unless you first have contacted the seller you bought the product from. Which also makes more sense than just taking 1 or 2 star ratings at face value.
So I say, Airbnb should require all guests who try to give a 1 or 2 star rating, to provide a valid explanation for that. THis should be read along with the review they wrote. IF something doesn't add up, the low star ratings should be removed.
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Dajana
Dajana6 months ago
I agree. I have an average listing myself. It is not the apartment we live in, and we have started renting so we earn some money and meet new friends who might be eager to accomodate us in the future. The apartment is not newly painted and doesn't have top of the line furnishing, but it's more than local hostels and even some hotels provide. I am ok with 3* and 4*. But really, really not ok with Airbnb warnings and threats and their lack of informing guests on review system. It would be great when guests would be discouraged to give purely vindictive 1* and 2* reviews!
Rosanne
Rosanne6 months ago
I really think some guests will just not give 5 stars unless everything is perfect. We all know this is not a perfect world. For 1-1/2 yrs now, and many guests - all giving me 5 stars - I had one that gave me 4. No idea why. But, one out of so many - oh, well. Maybe they were expecting the Marriott? In my "Guest Handbook" I would like to say "This is not a hotel." But, I'm afraid some people may not like it. But, I'm thinking if they want a 5 star room - they are going to have to pay for one and go to a hotel that will cost them double, triple or even more than my nightly rate.
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Michele Yap
Michele Yap6 months ago
Hi Rosanne, i am curious as to why do you think some people may not like "This is not a hotel" in the handbook?
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
I have this is NOT a hotel in my rules and quite comfortable w it as, apparently, it needs to be stated to some
scott
scott6 months ago
How do you know what individual star rating guests give? I've never looked. I don't quite know how I get 5 stars for location, either. It's not as if I'm near the beach or have views of the Opera House or anything like that.
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Fiona
Fiona6 months ago
Louise, I just saw in someone's listing they have printed an "Airbnb" label and put it on the shelves they allocated to guests in the fridge. I might do that as I've just had guests leave who let their food migrate to taking up way more room than allocated and, over three weeks it was a pita.
What did you do with Ning the ding-a-ling when she wouldn't leave?
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Louise
Louise6 months ago
My guests have a whole separate kitchen, so it's easy to work out what food is up for grabs; essentially all of it.
There wasn't much I could do about the ding-a-ling except note her behaviour in my review of her and also in my response to hers. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do on the day of departure to get her to leave at noon, and I tried everything.
I had a funeral to attend at 3pm and guests arriving at 1.30pm so it was crucial that she and her family be out and I'd spoken to them the night before and explained how there was absolutely no way they could hang around after noon check-out.
They tried every trick in the book to delay their departure and eventually at 12.30 I told them they simply HAD to go, as in right now go. I told them to go up to Lane Cove and hang out in a coffee shop, children's playground or even the library. I even offered to let them leave their luggage in the garage to pick up later. They left but got half way up the driveway and I heard them having an argument. 1 minute later they returned claiming that their extremely robust daughter who'd just polished off a huge cooked breakfast (yes, at 11am) was 'too sick' to be moved. So, short of physically removing them there was nothing I could do. I made them sit outside in the poolside dining area while I frantically got the place together. They were still there when my next guests arrived. It was infuriating and embarrassing.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I've now become much less 'reasonable' about early check-ins and late check-outs.
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Tracy
Tracy6 months ago
This kind of thing is so annoying. I had a guest state in her review that everything was exactly as described and the route to get here exactly as described and basically everything perfect and then she gave me a 4 for 'accuracy'. You just can't please some people.
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude6 months ago
Bonjour Louise, in hotels, amenities in the fridge are paying (twice the price). Some host in this forum wrote they wanted to add paying amenities. So i may have done the same mistake. I know bottles in the hotel fridge are for me. And also the bill. I use to leave a welcoming bottle of wine. 1 on 3 ask me if it for them. 1 on 10 do not touch it (i never knew if it is because they do not like alcohol or because they did not understand it was for them.
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Douglas
Douglas6 months ago
I guess hosts are getting more five star ratings than we think. I paid for an airbnb report on my area and this is what is shows for average ratings in the usa. U.S.A.
Accuracy 4.74
Cleanliness 4.72
Commnication 4.88
Location 4.75
Check In 4.87
Value 4.67
Over 95% of listings in America currently have a 4.5 or 5 star rating. Recent changes to the review process have made achieving 5-stars more difficult. Look for ratings to increasingly differentiate the most successful hosts
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Monica
Monica6 months ago
Personally I don't give a hoot about SuperHost status or 4 stars instead of 5. If the guest felt it was a positive experience then I am satisfied. I don't bend over backwards to please guests. I provide what is stated in my listings, welcome them and then leave them alone. They can visit the farm by appointment. This is a business for me, not a social happening. People will expect too much if you start to give them extras.
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C C
C C6 months ago
Monica, every time the stars discussion comes up, people always chime in with whether they feel hurt over it or not or whether it matters to them or not. I totally, 1,000% agree with you that we should give what we offer, not worry about it, and even that bending over backwards sometimes gets the worst results ever. And I agree that if they seemed to enjoy their stay & gave a good review, then I'm not even concerned about stars. But the issue is potential deactivation of listings. Would that hit in the wallet hurt your feelings? Because financial feelings are my most important feelings vis-a-vis Airbnb.
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
LOL at financial feelings! That's my main concern as well, CC. But I can't help but get really irritated by the attitude of Airbnb. It just rubs me up the wrong way - don't tell me I need to improve, just bloody don't. I laughed at "This is a business for me, not a social happening", Monica. But the marketing of the product, ie. OUR OWN LISTINGS (just in case you've forgotten that Brian, Chip et al) is all about belonging, friends, more than a place to stay, all that stuff. Plus if you host in your own home, you do have to have some social interaction and often yes, the nice side of hosting happens and it's fun and interesting. There is NO WAY that they will really deactivate listings for getting less than 5 stars. It's a stupid and meaningless threat. So why do they do it? We don't know. But they need to know how completely out of touch they are with the reality of hosting. If they want to build a 'community' then start frigging talking to us like grown-ups. Don't 'reach out' to me and send me lovey fluffy shite. Just communicate simply and respectfully. Honestly? If Airbnb was a prospective guest I'd hit the bloody decline button. Communication, trust, transparency - all the things I look for in a guest - Airbnb fails at.
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Here is an interesting piece of news that my current guest has just told me. She received a message from her last host who was very upset that my guest had rated her 1 and 2 stars in several categories. My guest was shocked and said that she had given 5 stars across the board. However, she had noticed that it was difficult to click on all the stars sometimes - they wouldn't always turn yellow. She thought it was some kind of glitch. She is going to contact Airbnb to find out how to rectify this. So. More craziness.
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David
David6 months ago
Been working a lot and using ipad with app and even phone to try to keep up with reviews and this happens a lot. You click and sometimes just 1* star shows and it seems impossible to alter it. Maybe this is why there is often such a huge difference in the written review and * ratings. What is so frustrating is how much Airbnb are pushing for guests to use the App. You literally get prompted every time you visit the site on ipad or mobile.
Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude6 months ago
Imagine it is a glitch and it is airbnb fault. Or mobile phone/PC fault. sometimes i must do 2 or 3 times an action for choosing criteria with mine on many websites before it actually take my criteria!
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
What a ridiculous state of affairs. Unbelievable. So many guests are travelling (duh) and using the app so I can imagine many of them must either give up on leaving a review or just go with whatever stars they manage to get. What a complete joke.
David
David6 months ago
Rebecca, spoke with CX about this. She said 'yes the app has limitations, best to use a PC with chrome. And no, our site does not like iPads at all.' Staggering when you think Airbnb are a digital company and must believe just a insignificant few of us have ipads.... No airbnb - 225 million ipads been sold up to Oct last year! tinyurl.com/6ef6tf5
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
David, I'm embarrassed for them, seriously. I can't even make a joke about it anymore I'm just going to quote Drew from a couple of days ago on a similar thread, kind of sums it all up: "I'm just amazed that this company, now valued at a ridiculous $23B, continues to operate like a 3 year old riding a bike on training wheels. They should be well beyond this sort of 'hey, we're a startup' dipshittery. "
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
Abnb out to define in ratings window what a star rating means, ie,
☆☆☆☆☆=above and beyond expectation and the norm
☆☆☆☆=excellent and acceptable and as described
☆☆☆=average but acceptable, could be improved
☆☆=below description and expectation. Needs improvement/correction
☆=unacceptable, problem that needs addressing and correction, not as described and or specific problem
Just as a general rating criteria, probly needs more definition, but ☆☆☆☆ should be an acceptable and positive rating so that☆☆☆☆☆means superior..and it becomes scaled so as to be meaningful.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Is this your suggestion, Capt Brad? Or have you got this info from somewhere? Completely agree with you about the need for a clear and meaningful scale. They have a load of statistical graduates working there on the search algorithms and other such things which lead to enhanced profits. You'd think one of them might cast their eye over this basic stuff.
Jeannette
Jeannette6 months ago
"4" as excellent is a huge error if that is your suggestion, Brad. 4 needs to be above average and 5 needs to be excellent, if we're not all to be drummed out of AirBNB for bad performance (i.e., 4s).
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
☆☆☆=should be where abnb starts flagging hosts on perhaps 2nd ☆☆☆
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Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
Just IMHO. All mine, as a framework suggestion for this issue
Agree the 'excellent' was misplaced and the 4 should be above average as you suggest
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
For an assessment scale to be meaningful it has to have clear distinctions. An example is the self-rated health questionnaire, widely used (and widely criticised but nobody's come up with anything better yet): How do you rate your overall health? 1 Excellent 2 Very good 3 Good 4 Fair 5 Poor. People who rate their health excellent or very good are generally just merged together for analytical purposes. Because researchers in that field are generally looking to find out where the PROBLEMS are. You don't tend to find them in the top ratings. On the other hand, if you have consistently high ratings in one area across the scale that usually is an indicator that your measurement is shit. It's not difficult and it's pretty basic stuff.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Posted before finished... Obviously the SRH is not a scale but the principle is the same. Anyway, I'm sure everybody is bored with this already but it's really frustrating to see so much information not only going to such waste but seemingly mis-managed.
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
Very good, If that was the simple scale ratings used i dont think it would have become the problem it is...
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
So that 3's become the trigger piont instead of 4, with perhaps a have to answer a question why and comment/justification space required as feedback to keep them honest and clear to all...host, guest and BigBrother...and to allow a constructive criticism correction and especially to give an answer why, which seems to be big part of the contoversy as well
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Sounds very reasonable. I believe guests and hosts are triggered to give reasons when they rate lower than 3 stars. I can't remember whether it's optional or not. It's a difficult situation, though. You can't force guests to leave a review and you can't force them to tell you why they left the ratings they did. You just can't. They are paying customers ultimately, let's not pretend otherwise.
Deborah
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older version w/o commenter names
In fact, so much better than expected that she rated me 4 stars for Accuracy and a 4 for Overall Experience, apparently because her group could have had an even better time if they'd only known how fab it was going to be.
Yep, yet enough example of the madness of this system. In this case I got pinged because my guests [who were really, really lovely BTW] stayed in and ordered a pizza one night. They were hanging out to have a glass of wine or beer with it, couldn't be bothered driving to the local bottle shop (1km away) and didn't realise that the bottle of wine and 4 beers I'd left in the fridge was for them and complimentary. This is despite me telling them on check-in, "if it's in the fridge it's for you". Even if this wasn't clear enough (and BTW, there were no language issues), she could have just asked me.
She mentioned it on check out, i.e. "we were desperate for a glass of vino last night but weren't sure whether to open the stuff in the fridge" and when I explained, yet again, that the fridge is stocked solely for their enjoyment, she seemed disappointed. She said, "Oh, we never expected that, if we'd known we could have had a much better night".
So, my going above and beyond just earned me a 4 star review. Do I really have to put a silly little sign in the kitchen saying "with compliments of your host"?
I go into mind-numbing detail in my listing description. There's 36 pictures, reams of text and even a floor plan which shows the room layout and the placement of every pot plant, lamp and rug. Given this, it has to be that a less than perfect score on Accuracy is a function of the guest's powers of comprehension, not of any shortcoming on my part. In this instance my guest completely ignored the assessment criteria for Accuracy, i.e.' How accurately did the photos and description represent the actual space?', and instead applied her own interpretation.
Airbnb needs to either remove the ratings altogether or put a lot more work into educating the guests that assessment must be done against specific criteria set by Airbnb otherwise the ratings are meaningless.
As it stands, allowing guests to rate listings without ensuring they are rating against consistent criteria is like having a police force handing out speeding tickets where each officer has a different notion of the applicable speed limit.
I should probably have added this to the post below, but I live in hope that one day Airbnb will actually read this forum (I know, I know, call me a crazy fool, but ....) and I think it's important that each and every discrete incidence of this kind of inappropriate application of the rating system by guests is brought to their attention.
Reply 1:
That is ridiculous! After receiving our first unfair "bad review" and decimation of all star categories, I just contacted Airbnb today to say we should be able to dispute unfair reviews.
Reply 2:
Thanks for your effort to advocate for hosts!
Reply 3:
C & E - Looking at your listing, I'm concerned about several statements telling guests "do not book if you would give ___ less than a 5 star rating." I agree Airbnb has gone way overboard in making hosts obsess about those silly stars, but it's not our place to demand that guests give us the ratings we desire. The reviews are always going to be a subjective reflection of the guest's experience, and they aren't going to know how positive their experience will be before they've had it. Airbnb has created a monster if hosts feel like they have to tell their prospective guests "GIVE US A PERFECT RATING OR YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE." That is NOT how good hospitality is done - we have to earn our good reviews, and take the negative feedback gracefully when it inevitably occurs.
Reply 4:
Good point. There's probably a better way to say this that's more welcoming.
Reply 5:
We're very, very much trying to scare people away who are not the right fit. It seems to be working well most of the time. We're actually trying to *not* be welcoming to people who wouldn't like it. After adding those deterrents, I think it's quite helped. Except this one recent horrid lady who complained about everything that was clearly listed and gave us a 1 star rating. But she was an anomaly and I have no idea why she even booked our place as it clearly was not her style. We don't want to be welcoming to those people. I feel violated that we had her in our home and would rather not do Airbnb than host people like her. People who ignore what is CLEARLY stated, then complain about it, instead of appreciating all the awesome with extra awesome piled on top -no thanks. Want to scare those people away so it will be available to people who LOVE what we offer and appreciate that we go way above and beyond to give them an exceptional experience. If someone has LEGITIMATE concerns for rating, fine, but we don't want anyone who has PRE-determined that it isn't good enough for them coming to rate us lowly for exactly what we're offering.
Reply 6:
I hear what you're saying, but I probably would avoid staying in any listing that had the statements, even if they were 100% perfect fits. I'm glad it's working for you!
Reply 7:
As another deterrent, been meaning to put up bug pictures as well, like close ups of any insect one might encounter. lol
Reply 8:
Oh yeah, totally burning right along with you, Louise. I hosted an absolutely delightful Italian couple for 3 nights during their month-long road trip. We hit it off right away (I spend 2-3 months every year in Italy) and we talked for HOURS in both languages. They were so happy they invited me to visit them in Italy. I was so pleased that I actually did a week's worth of their filthy, steaming laundry from their previous camping trip as my gift to them, so they could go out and explore SF instead of having to stay in for hours, doing laundry. When they gave me 4 stars for Communication (whaaat?!) and Value (killkillkill), I did ask them. Their response: "My judgment was based on my feelings during our stay, compared to other places we have been. Again, it was a very positive stay and I thank you for your efforts."
The prompts are “How responsive and accessible was the host before and during your stay?” and “How would you rate the value of the listing?” They couldn't answer those questions correctly?!
From what we've all been reading in the past month, there are untold thousands of hosts who've been burned by this star review system.
Reply 9:
I think the star system is getting a lot of attention because of Airbnb's new slap on the wrist for anything less than a 5 star rating. Before it was an annoyance, now Airbnb rubs salt deep into the wound.
Reply 10:
Absolutely. Nail on head, Douglas. I was perfectly content, and so were my guests, with my average 4.5 -5 stars. Suddenly that's not good enough? I know we're not supposed to swear on here but seriously, F*** O** with this nonsense.
Reply 11:
LOL Rebecca.. take it easy now... your high blood pressure is going up again... : )
Reply 12:
Blarg. Such an awful mess, these stars.
Reply 13:
You do realise, guys, that having a 4* review is ok? I mean, it's not fantastic but it's still good. I'm concerned that the discussion about the legitimate concerns over the rating system will be clouded by people getting all prissy because they didn't get 5 stars for everything. Seriously guys, you're all great I'm sure but you know, you're not god's gift and people need to be able to rate how they feel. It's not up to us to second-guess why guests mark us down. I've been a guest and I've given less than 5 stars because it was true. Not every last thing was fecking FANTASTIC. Let's not take our eye off the ball here.
Reply 14:
I strongly disagree. It's completely up to me to second-guess why guests might mark me down. Otherwise, how can I improve? I will have learned nothing of importance if the guests do not qualify their stars by saying what they felt could have been better. I'm also a frequent guest, and have given less than 5 stars, also because it was true. I also don't feel that I "got all prissy" by feeling outraged that guests with whom I spent many hours "communicating," and for whom I went so over-and-above, would not value those efforts when it came time to evaluate their stay. Trying to smack me down by outright saying I'm not God's gift is really insulting, Rebecca. I doubt any of us claim to be, but your words are unnecessarily harsh/sarcastic.
Reply 15:
I agree that a 4 star review is OK, but I also get the latter point. When a review is blatantly unfair, it's not unreasonable to be left wondering where we went wrong. If we don't react and question why, we won't improve. My concern is that to Airbnb, 4 stars is most definitely not ok and more than a few in a row is grounds for them threatening us with delisting. Who wouldn't be concerned given this?
Reply 16:
It's not so much that we as hosts are upset when we get less than 5 stars, but rather, it's the way that Airbnb views "less than 4 stars" as problematic, that is the problem for us as hosts. LIke I said in my comment below I really think many hosts would be just content to be "average" and be straight 3's, but it's when Airbnb rears up with criticisms, tips on "how to improve", and out and out threats to deactivate one's listing, that hosts get manipulated into believing they should get better ratings. So if there weren't this fallout from ratings, I think we wouldn't be having any of these discussions, we would be just always doing our best and working to improve, but we'd be doing it from a positive attitude, because it's fun to us and enjoyable, to see our guests be content and happy and pleased, not approaching improvement with a negative feeling, because a big parent figure has told us to shape up. It's the scolding that isn't appropriate here.
Reply 17:
An interesting point raised here, that I've been wondering about as well. What's wrong with a 3 star listing? If there had been a rating system for the first-ever Airbnb experiment, I doubt that the airbed on the founders' living room floor would have been rated 5 stars. But if guests have an entirely average/so-so experience, and the host is OK with that, then it's still a successful and mutually agreeable transaction.
Reply 18:
Hosts have received warning notes for 4* reviews, if they get 2 in a row. So 4* is NOT OK with AirBNB. (Note: 4* is not a typo. It was not for 3* reviews, it was for 4*).
Reply 19:
yes indeed you're right and point taken. Sorry for bad wording. I was thinking that Airbnb wouldn't take this issue seriously if it comes across like hosts are just annoyed that guests don't leave 5* when hosts think they've deserved that rating, do you see what I mean? The really problematic issue, to me, is the stupid warnings.
Reply 20:
I agree that the the warnings or alerts shouldn't be applicable to a host who are still getting a 4 star ratings, I mean most of these ratings are erratic the way I see it and basing it on their experienced or mood. Been hosting for over 5 years and have 5 stars in communication and this one particular guest rated me 1* star on communication- I let that one go and Airbnb couldn't do anything to change it either.. so what's the use ? I think the reality is that Guests and Airbnb can definitely take your listings down to the worst.. if this is what Airbnb's way of evaluating our performance ... and that really SUCKS !
Reply 21:
Do you think Airbnb management is reading the same playbook as Amazon
Reply 22:
As far as what star rating is okay -- in my book, anything from 3 stars on up is totally fine. After all, 3 stars is "average" and this should be viewed as fine, for those who seek to provide AVERAGE accomodations. Not everyone can or should or needs to offer something extraordinary. Many have a humble abode and are simply doing what they are expected to do -- the average. In fact if you think about it, even if most hosts start trying to do "above average", then just the fact that most hosts are now doing that, makes them average again -- the quality of average has been raised but it's still average.
So one of my gripes with the star system is that I don't feel anyone should get scolding messages over delivering an average or better experience to a guest. And for those cases which the guest deems "below average" -- Airbnb should require a guest to provide an explanation of why they have 1 or 2 stars, and if they don't have a very good explanation, this low rating should be scrapped.
If you have ever tried to rate someone 1 or 2 stars on Amazon, from what I recall, the system actually rejects your attempt to do this unless you first have contacted the seller you bought the product from. Which also makes more sense than just taking 1 or 2 star ratings at face value.
So I say, Airbnb should require all guests who try to give a 1 or 2 star rating, to provide a valid explanation for that. THis should be read along with the review they wrote. IF something doesn't add up, the low star ratings should be removed.
Reply 23:
I agree. I have an average listing myself. It is not the apartment we live in, and we have started renting so we earn some money and meet new friends who might be eager to accomodate us in the future. The apartment is not newly painted and doesn't have top of the line furnishing, but it's more than local hostels and even some hotels provide. I am ok with 3* and 4*. But really, really not ok with Airbnb warnings and threats and their lack of informing guests on review system. It would be great when guests would be discouraged to give purely vindictive 1* and 2* reviews!
Reply 24:
I really think some guests will just not give 5 stars unless everything is perfect. We all know this is not a perfect world. For 1-1/2 yrs now, and many guests - all giving me 5 stars - I had one that gave me 4. No idea why. But, one out of so many - oh, well. Maybe they were expecting the Marriott? In my "Guest Handbook" I would like to say "This is not a hotel." But, I'm afraid some people may not like it. But, I'm thinking if they want a 5 star room - they are going to have to pay for one and go to a hotel that will cost them double, triple or even more than my nightly rate.
Reply 25:
Hi i am curious as to why do you think some people may not like "This is not a hotel" in the handbook?
Reply 26:
I have this is NOT a hotel in my rules and quite comfortable w it as, apparently, it needs to be stated to some
Reply 27:
How do you know what individual star rating guests give? I've never looked. I don't quite know how I get 5 stars for location, either. It's not as if I'm near the beach or have views of the Opera House or anything like that.
Reply 28:
I just saw in someone's listing they have printed an "Airbnb" label and put it on the shelves they allocated to guests in the fridge. I might do that as I've just had guests leave who let their food migrate to taking up way more room than allocated and, over three weeks it was a pita.
What did you do with Ning the ding-a-ling when she wouldn't leave?
Reply 29:
My guests have a whole separate kitchen, so it's easy to work out what food is up for grabs; essentially all of it.
There wasn't much I could do about the ding-a-ling except note her behaviour in my review of her and also in my response to hers. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do on the day of departure to get her to leave at noon, and I tried everything.
I had a funeral to attend at 3pm and guests arriving at 1.30pm so it was crucial that she and her family be out and I'd spoken to them the night before and explained how there was absolutely no way they could hang around after noon check-out.
They tried every trick in the book to delay their departure and eventually at 12.30 I told them they simply HAD to go, as in right now go. I told them to go up to Lane Cove and hang out in a coffee shop, children's playground or even the library. I even offered to let them leave their luggage in the garage to pick up later. They left but got half way up the driveway and I heard them having an argument. 1 minute later they returned claiming that their extremely robust daughter who'd just polished off a huge cooked breakfast (yes, at 11am) was 'too sick' to be moved. So, short of physically removing them there was nothing I could do. I made them sit outside in the poolside dining area while I frantically got the place together. They were still there when my next guests arrived. It was infuriating and embarrassing.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I've now become much less 'reasonable' about early check-ins and late check-outs.
Reply 30:
This kind of thing is so annoying. I had a guest state in her review that everything was exactly as described and the route to get here exactly as described and basically everything perfect and then she gave me a 4 for 'accuracy'. You just can't please some people.
Reply 31:
Bonjour Louise, in hotels, amenities in the fridge are paying (twice the price). Some host in this forum wrote they wanted to add paying amenities. So i may have done the same mistake. I know bottles in the hotel fridge are for me. And also the bill. I use to leave a welcoming bottle of wine. 1 on 3 ask me if it for them. 1 on 10 do not touch it (i never knew if it is because they do not like alcohol or because they did not understand it was for them.
Reply 32:
I guess hosts are getting more five star ratings than we think. I paid for an airbnb report on my area and this is what is shows for average ratings in the usa. U.S.A.
Accuracy 4.74
Cleanliness 4.72
Commnication 4.88
Location 4.75
Check In 4.87
Value 4.67
Over 95% of listings in America currently have a 4.5 or 5 star rating. Recent changes to the review process have made achieving 5-stars more difficult. Look for ratings to increasingly differentiate the most successful hosts
Reply 33:
Personally I don't give a hoot about SuperHost status or 4 stars instead of 5. If the guest felt it was a positive experience then I am satisfied. I don't bend over backwards to please guests. I provide what is stated in my listings, welcome them and then leave them alone. They can visit the farm by appointment. This is a business for me, not a social happening. People will expect too much if you start to give them extras.
Reply 34:
every time the stars discussion comes up, people always chime in with whether they feel hurt over it or not or whether it matters to them or not. I totally, 1,000% agree with you that we should give what we offer, not worry about it, and even that bending over backwards sometimes gets the worst results ever. And I agree that if they seemed to enjoy their stay & gave a good review, then I'm not even concerned about stars. But the issue is potential deactivation of listings. Would that hit in the wallet hurt your feelings? Because financial feelings are my most important feelings vis-a-vis Airbnb.
Reply 35:
LOL at financial feelings! That's my main concern as well, CC. But I can't help but get really irritated by the attitude of Airbnb. It just rubs me up the wrong way - don't tell me I need to improve, just bloody don't. I laughed at "This is a business for me, not a social happening", . But the marketing of the product, ie. OUR OWN LISTINGS (just in case you've forgotten that Brian, Chip et al) is all about belonging, friends, more than a place to stay, all that stuff. Plus if you host in your own home, you do have to have some social interaction and often yes, the nice side of hosting happens and it's fun and interesting. There is NO WAY that they will really deactivate listings for getting less than 5 stars. It's a stupid and meaningless threat. So why do they do it? We don't know. But they need to know how completely out of touch they are with the reality of hosting. If they want to build a 'community' then start frigging talking to us like grown-ups. Don't 'reach out' to me and send me lovey fluffy shite. Just communicate simply and respectfully. Honestly? If Airbnb was a prospective guest I'd hit the bloody decline button. Communication, trust, transparency - all the things I look for in a guest - Airbnb fails at.
Reply 36:
Here is an interesting piece of news that my current guest has just told me. She received a message from her last host who was very upset that my guest had rated her 1 and 2 stars in several categories. My guest was shocked and said that she had given 5 stars across the board. However, she had noticed that it was difficult to click on all the stars sometimes - they wouldn't always turn yellow. She thought it was some kind of glitch. She is going to contact Airbnb to find out how to rectify this. So. More craziness.
Reply 37:
Been working a lot and using ipad with app and even phone to try to keep up with reviews and this happens a lot. You click and sometimes just 1* star shows and it seems impossible to alter it. Maybe this is why there is often such a huge difference in the written review and * ratings. What is so frustrating is how much Airbnb are pushing for guests to use the App. You literally get prompted every time you visit the site on ipad or mobile.
Reply 38:
Imagine it is a glitch and it is airbnb fault. Or mobile phone/PC fault. sometimes i must do 2 or 3 times an action for choosing criteria with mine on many websites before it actually take my criteria!
Reply 39:
What a ridiculous state of affairs. Unbelievable. So many guests are travelling (duh) and using the app so I can imagine many of them must either give up on leaving a review or just go with whatever stars they manage to get. What a complete joke.
Reply 40:
I spoke with CX about this. She said 'yes the app has limitations, best to use a PC with chrome. And no, our site does not like iPads at all.' Staggering when you think Airbnb are a digital company and must believe just a insignificant few of us have ipads.... No airbnb - 225 million ipads been sold up to Oct last year! tinyurl.com/6ef6tf5
Reply 41:
I'm embarrassed for them, seriously. I can't even make a joke about it anymore I'm just going to quote from a couple of days ago on a similar thread, kind of sums it all up: "I'm just amazed that this company, now valued at a ridiculous $23B, continues to operate like a 3 year old riding a bike on training wheels. They should be well beyond this sort of 'hey, we're a startup' dipshittery. "
Reply 42
Abnb out to define in ratings window what a star rating means, ie,
☆☆☆☆☆=above and beyond expectation and the norm
☆☆☆☆=excellent and acceptable and as described
☆☆☆=average but acceptable, could be improved
☆☆=below description and expectation. Needs improvement/correction
☆=unacceptable, problem that needs addressing and correction, not as described and or specific problem
Just as a general rating criteria, probly needs more definition, but ☆☆☆☆ should be an acceptable and positive rating so that☆☆☆☆☆means superior..and it becomes scaled so as to be meaningful.
Reply 43
Is this your suggestion? Or have you got this info from somewhere? Completely agree with you about the need for a clear and meaningful scale. They have a load of statistical graduates working there on the search algorithms and other such things which lead to enhanced profits. You'd think one of them might cast their eye over this basic stuff.
Reply 44:
"4" as excellent is a huge error if that is your suggestion, Brad. 4 needs to be above average and 5 needs to be excellent, if we're not all to be drummed out of AirBNB for bad performance (i.e., 4s).
REply 45:
☆☆☆=should be where abnb starts flagging hosts on perhaps 2nd ☆☆☆
Reply 46:
Just IMHO. All mine, as a framework suggestion for this issue
Agree the 'excellent' was misplaced and the 4 should be above average as you suggest
Reply 47:
For an assessment scale to be meaningful it has to have clear distinctions. An example is the self-rated health questionnaire, widely used (and widely criticised but nobody's come up with anything better yet): How do you rate your overall health? 1 Excellent 2 Very good 3 Good 4 Fair 5 Poor. People who rate their health excellent or very good are generally just merged together for analytical purposes. Because researchers in that field are generally looking to find out where the PROBLEMS are. You don't tend to find them in the top ratings. On the other hand, if you have consistently high ratings in one area across the scale that usually is an indicator that your measurement is shit. It's not difficult and it's pretty basic stuff.
Reply 48:
Posted before finished... Obviously the SRH is not a scale but the principle is the same. Anyway, I'm sure everybody is bored with this already but it's really frustrating to see so much information not only going to such waste but seemingly mis-managed.
Reply 49:
Very good, If that was the simple scale ratings used i dont think it would have become the problem it is...
Reply 50:
So that 3's become the trigger piont instead of 4, with perhaps a have to answer a question why and comment/justification space required as feedback to keep them honest and clear to all...host, guest and BigBrother...and to allow a constructive criticism correction and especially to give an answer why, which seems to be big part of the contoversy as well
Reply 51:
Sounds very reasonable. I believe guests and hosts are triggered to give reasons when they rate lower than 3 stars. I can't remember whether it's optional or not. It's a difficult situation, though. You can't force guests to leave a review and you can't force them to tell you why they left the ratings they did. You just can't. They are paying customers ultimately, let's not pretend otherwise.
Louise shared on NEw HOsts FOrum 6 months ago
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-166871
Louise
"Louise was very considerate & provided MORE than we expected."
In fact, so much better than expected that she rated me 4 stars for Accuracy and a 4 for Overall Experience, apparently because her group could have had an even better time if they'd only known how fab it was going to be.
Yep, yet enough example of the madness of this system. In this case I got pinged because my guests [who were really, really lovely BTW] stayed in and ordered a pizza one night. They were hanging out to have a glass of wine or beer with it, couldn't be bothered driving to the local bottle shop (1km away) and didn't realise that the bottle of wine and 4 beers I'd left in the fridge was for them and complimentary. This is despite me telling them on check-in, "if it's in the fridge it's for you". Even if this wasn't clear enough (and BTW, there were no language issues), she could have just asked me.
She mentioned it on check out, i.e. "we were desperate for a glass of vino last night but weren't sure whether to open the stuff in the fridge" and when I explained, yet again, that the fridge is stocked solely for their enjoyment, she seemed disappointed. She said, "Oh, we never expected that, if we'd known we could have had a much better night".
So, my going above and beyond just earned me a 4 star review. Do I really have to put a silly little sign in the kitchen saying "with compliments of your host"?
I go into mind-numbing detail in my listing description. There's 36 pictures, reams of text and even a floor plan which shows the room layout and the placement of every pot plant, lamp and rug. Given this, it has to be that a less than perfect score on Accuracy is a function of the guest's powers of comprehension, not of any shortcoming on my part. In this instance my guest completely ignored the assessment criteria for Accuracy, i.e.' How accurately did the photos and description represent the actual space?', and instead applied her own interpretation.
Airbnb needs to either remove the ratings altogether or put a lot more work into educating the guests that assessment must be done against specific criteria set by Airbnb otherwise the ratings are meaningless.
As it stands, allowing guests to rate listings without ensuring they are rating against consistent criteria is like having a police force handing out speeding tickets where each officer has a different notion of the applicable speed limit.
I should probably have added this to the post below, but I live in hope that one day Airbnb will actually read this forum (I know, I know, call me a crazy fool, but ....) and I think it's important that each and every discrete incidence of this kind of inappropriate application of the rating system by guests is brought to their attention.
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Celeste & Esiris
Celeste & Esiris6 months ago
That is ridiculous! After receiving our first unfair "bad review" and decimation of all star categories, I just contacted Airbnb today to say we should be able to dispute unfair reviews.
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Deborah
Deborah6 months ago
Thanks for your effort to advocate for hosts, Celeste and Esiris!
Andrew
Andrew6 months ago
C & E - Looking at your listing, I'm concerned about several statements telling guests "do not book if you would give ___ less than a 5 star rating." I agree Airbnb has gone way overboard in making hosts obsess about those silly stars, but it's not our place to demand that guests give us the ratings we desire. The reviews are always going to be a subjective reflection of the guest's experience, and they aren't going to know how positive their experience will be before they've had it. Airbnb has created a monster if hosts feel like they have to tell their prospective guests "GIVE US A PERFECT RATING OR YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE." That is NOT how good hospitality is done - we have to earn our good reviews, and take the negative feedback gracefully when it inevitably occurs.
Julie and Eric
Julie and Eric6 months ago
Good point. There's probably a better way to say this that's more welcoming.
Celeste & Esiris
Celeste & Esiris6 months ago
We're very, very much trying to scare people away who are not the right fit. It seems to be working well most of the time. We're actually trying to *not* be welcoming to people who wouldn't like it. After adding those deterrents, I think it's quite helped. Except this one recent horrid lady who complained about everything that was clearly listed and gave us a 1 star rating. But she was an anomaly and I have no idea why she even booked our place as it clearly was not her style. We don't want to be welcoming to those people. I feel violated that we had her in our home and would rather not do Airbnb than host people like her. People who ignore what is CLEARLY stated, then complain about it, instead of appreciating all the awesome with extra awesome piled on top -no thanks. Want to scare those people away so it will be available to people who LOVE what we offer and appreciate that we go way above and beyond to give them an exceptional experience. If someone has LEGITIMATE concerns for rating, fine, but we don't want anyone who has PRE-determined that it isn't good enough for them coming to rate us lowly for exactly what we're offering.
Julie and Eric
Julie and Eric6 months ago
I hear what you're saying, but I probably would avoid staying in any listing that had the statements, even if they were 100% perfect fits. I'm glad it's working for you!
Celeste & Esiris
Celeste & Esiris6 months ago
As another deterrent, been meaning to put up bug pictures as well, like close ups of any insect one might encounter. lol
Alexina
Alexina6 months ago
Oh yeah, totally burning right along with you, Louise. I hosted an absolutely delightful Italian couple for 3 nights during their month-long road trip. We hit it off right away (I spend 2-3 months every year in Italy) and we talked for HOURS in both languages. They were so happy they invited me to visit them in Italy. I was so pleased that I actually did a week's worth of their filthy, steaming laundry from their previous camping trip as my gift to them, so they could go out and explore SF instead of having to stay in for hours, doing laundry. When they gave me 4 stars for Communication (whaaat?!) and Value (killkillkill), I did ask them. Their response: "My judgment was based on my feelings during our stay, compared to other places we have been. Again, it was a very positive stay and I thank you for your efforts."
The prompts are “How responsive and accessible was the host before and during your stay?” and “How would you rate the value of the listing?” They couldn't answer those questions correctly?!
From what we've all been reading in the past month, there are untold thousands of hosts who've been burned by this star review system.
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Douglas
Douglas6 months ago
I think the star system is getting a lot of attention because of Airbnb's new slap on the wrist for anything less than a 5 star rating. Before it was an annoyance, now Airbnb rubs salt deep into the wound.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Absolutely. Nail on head, Douglas. I was perfectly content, and so were my guests, with my average 4.5 -5 stars. Suddenly that's not good enough? I know we're not supposed to swear on here but seriously, F*** O** with this nonsense.
Nic and Rach
Nic and Rach6 months ago
LOL Rebecca.. take it easy now... your high blood pressure is going up again... : )
Jeannette
Jeannette6 months ago
Blarg. Such an awful mess, these stars.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
You do realise, guys, that having a 4* review is ok? I mean, it's not fantastic but it's still good. I'm concerned that the discussion about the legitimate concerns over the rating system will be clouded by people getting all prissy because they didn't get 5 stars for everything. Seriously guys, you're all great I'm sure but you know, you're not god's gift and people need to be able to rate how they feel. It's not up to us to second-guess why guests mark us down. I've been a guest and I've given less than 5 stars because it was true. Not every last thing was fecking FANTASTIC. Let's not take our eye off the ball here.
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Alexina
Alexina6 months ago
I strongly disagree. It's completely up to me to second-guess why guests might mark me down. Otherwise, how can I improve? I will have learned nothing of importance if the guests do not qualify their stars by saying what they felt could have been better. I'm also a frequent guest, and have given less than 5 stars, also because it was true. I also don't feel that I "got all prissy" by feeling outraged that guests with whom I spent many hours "communicating," and for whom I went so over-and-above, would not value those efforts when it came time to evaluate their stay. Trying to smack me down by outright saying I'm not God's gift is really insulting, Rebecca. I doubt any of us claim to be, but your words are unnecessarily harsh/sarcastic.
Louise
Louise6 months ago
Rebecca, I agree that a 4 star review is OK, but I also get Alexina's point. When a review is blatantly unfair, it's not unreasonable to be left wondering where we went wrong. If we don't react and question why, we won't improve. My concern is that to Airbnb, 4 stars is most definitely not ok and more than a few in a row is grounds for them threatening us with delisting. Who wouldn't be concerned given this?
Deborah
Deborah6 months ago
It's like Louise says -- it's not so much that we as hosts are upset when we get less than 5 stars, but rather, it's the way that Airbnb views "less than 4 stars" as problematic, that is the problem for us as hosts. LIke I said in my comment below I really think many hosts would be just content to be "average" and be straight 3's, but it's when Airbnb rears up with criticisms, tips on "how to improve", and out and out threats to deactivate one's listing, that hosts get manipulated into believing they should get better ratings. So if there weren't this fallout from ratings, I think we wouldn't be having any of these discussions, we would be just always doing our best and working to improve, but we'd be doing it from a positive attitude, because it's fun to us and enjoyable, to see our guests be content and happy and pleased, not approaching improvement with a negative feeling, because a big parent figure has told us to shape up. It's the scolding that isn't appropriate here.
Andrew
Andrew6 months ago
Deborah raises an interesting point here, that I've been wondering about as well. What's wrong with a 3 star listing? If there had been a rating system for the first-ever Airbnb experiment, I doubt that the airbed on the founders' living room floor would have been rated 5 stars. But if guests have an entirely average/so-so experience, and the host is OK with that, then it's still a successful and mutually agreeable transaction.
Jeannette
Jeannette6 months ago
Hosts have received warning notes for 4* reviews, if they get 2 in a row. So 4* is NOT OK with AirBNB. (Note: 4* is not a typo. It was not for 3* reviews, it was for 4*).
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
alexina and Louise, yes indeed you're right and point taken. Sorry for bad wording. I was thinking that Airbnb wouldn't take this issue seriously if it comes across like hosts are just annoyed that guests don't leave 5* when hosts think they've deserved that rating, do you see what I mean? The really problematic issue, to me, is the stupid warnings.
Nic and Rach
Nic and Rach6 months ago
I agree that the the warnings or alerts shouldn't be applicable to a host who are still getting a 4 star ratings, I mean most of these ratings are erratic the way I see it and basing it on their experienced or mood. Been hosting for over 5 years and have 5 stars in communication and this one particular guest rated me 1* star on communication- I let that one go and Airbnb couldn't do anything to change it either.. so what's the use ? I think the reality is that Guests and Airbnb can definitely take your listings down to the worst.. if this is what Airbnb's way of evaluating our performance ... and that really SUCKS !
Linda
Linda6 months ago
Do you think Airbnb management is reading the same playbook as Amazon
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Deborah
Deborah6 months ago
As far as what star rating is okay -- in my book, anything from 3 stars on up is totally fine. After all, 3 stars is "average" and this should be viewed as fine, for those who seek to provide AVERAGE accomodations. Not everyone can or should or needs to offer something extraordinary. Many have a humble abode and are simply doing what they are expected to do -- the average. In fact if you think about it, even if most hosts start trying to do "above average", then just the fact that most hosts are now doing that, makes them average again -- the quality of average has been raised but it's still average.
So one of my gripes with the star system is that I don't feel anyone should get scolding messages over delivering an average or better experience to a guest. And for those cases which the guest deems "below average" -- Airbnb should require a guest to provide an explanation of why they have 1 or 2 stars, and if they don't have a very good explanation, this low rating should be scrapped.
If you have ever tried to rate someone 1 or 2 stars on Amazon, from what I recall, the system actually rejects your attempt to do this unless you first have contacted the seller you bought the product from. Which also makes more sense than just taking 1 or 2 star ratings at face value.
So I say, Airbnb should require all guests who try to give a 1 or 2 star rating, to provide a valid explanation for that. THis should be read along with the review they wrote. IF something doesn't add up, the low star ratings should be removed.
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Dajana
Dajana6 months ago
I agree. I have an average listing myself. It is not the apartment we live in, and we have started renting so we earn some money and meet new friends who might be eager to accomodate us in the future. The apartment is not newly painted and doesn't have top of the line furnishing, but it's more than local hostels and even some hotels provide. I am ok with 3* and 4*. But really, really not ok with Airbnb warnings and threats and their lack of informing guests on review system. It would be great when guests would be discouraged to give purely vindictive 1* and 2* reviews!
Rosanne
Rosanne6 months ago
I really think some guests will just not give 5 stars unless everything is perfect. We all know this is not a perfect world. For 1-1/2 yrs now, and many guests - all giving me 5 stars - I had one that gave me 4. No idea why. But, one out of so many - oh, well. Maybe they were expecting the Marriott? In my "Guest Handbook" I would like to say "This is not a hotel." But, I'm afraid some people may not like it. But, I'm thinking if they want a 5 star room - they are going to have to pay for one and go to a hotel that will cost them double, triple or even more than my nightly rate.
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Michele Yap
Michele Yap6 months ago
Hi Rosanne, i am curious as to why do you think some people may not like "This is not a hotel" in the handbook?
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
I have this is NOT a hotel in my rules and quite comfortable w it as, apparently, it needs to be stated to some
scott
scott6 months ago
How do you know what individual star rating guests give? I've never looked. I don't quite know how I get 5 stars for location, either. It's not as if I'm near the beach or have views of the Opera House or anything like that.
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Fiona
Fiona6 months ago
Louise, I just saw in someone's listing they have printed an "Airbnb" label and put it on the shelves they allocated to guests in the fridge. I might do that as I've just had guests leave who let their food migrate to taking up way more room than allocated and, over three weeks it was a pita.
What did you do with Ning the ding-a-ling when she wouldn't leave?
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Louise
Louise6 months ago
My guests have a whole separate kitchen, so it's easy to work out what food is up for grabs; essentially all of it.
There wasn't much I could do about the ding-a-ling except note her behaviour in my review of her and also in my response to hers. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do on the day of departure to get her to leave at noon, and I tried everything.
I had a funeral to attend at 3pm and guests arriving at 1.30pm so it was crucial that she and her family be out and I'd spoken to them the night before and explained how there was absolutely no way they could hang around after noon check-out.
They tried every trick in the book to delay their departure and eventually at 12.30 I told them they simply HAD to go, as in right now go. I told them to go up to Lane Cove and hang out in a coffee shop, children's playground or even the library. I even offered to let them leave their luggage in the garage to pick up later. They left but got half way up the driveway and I heard them having an argument. 1 minute later they returned claiming that their extremely robust daughter who'd just polished off a huge cooked breakfast (yes, at 11am) was 'too sick' to be moved. So, short of physically removing them there was nothing I could do. I made them sit outside in the poolside dining area while I frantically got the place together. They were still there when my next guests arrived. It was infuriating and embarrassing.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I've now become much less 'reasonable' about early check-ins and late check-outs.
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Tracy
Tracy6 months ago
This kind of thing is so annoying. I had a guest state in her review that everything was exactly as described and the route to get here exactly as described and basically everything perfect and then she gave me a 4 for 'accuracy'. You just can't please some people.
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude6 months ago
Bonjour Louise, in hotels, amenities in the fridge are paying (twice the price). Some host in this forum wrote they wanted to add paying amenities. So i may have done the same mistake. I know bottles in the hotel fridge are for me. And also the bill. I use to leave a welcoming bottle of wine. 1 on 3 ask me if it for them. 1 on 10 do not touch it (i never knew if it is because they do not like alcohol or because they did not understand it was for them.
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Douglas
Douglas6 months ago
I guess hosts are getting more five star ratings than we think. I paid for an airbnb report on my area and this is what is shows for average ratings in the usa. U.S.A.
Accuracy 4.74
Cleanliness 4.72
Commnication 4.88
Location 4.75
Check In 4.87
Value 4.67
Over 95% of listings in America currently have a 4.5 or 5 star rating. Recent changes to the review process have made achieving 5-stars more difficult. Look for ratings to increasingly differentiate the most successful hosts
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Monica
Monica6 months ago
Personally I don't give a hoot about SuperHost status or 4 stars instead of 5. If the guest felt it was a positive experience then I am satisfied. I don't bend over backwards to please guests. I provide what is stated in my listings, welcome them and then leave them alone. They can visit the farm by appointment. This is a business for me, not a social happening. People will expect too much if you start to give them extras.
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C C
C C6 months ago
Monica, every time the stars discussion comes up, people always chime in with whether they feel hurt over it or not or whether it matters to them or not. I totally, 1,000% agree with you that we should give what we offer, not worry about it, and even that bending over backwards sometimes gets the worst results ever. And I agree that if they seemed to enjoy their stay & gave a good review, then I'm not even concerned about stars. But the issue is potential deactivation of listings. Would that hit in the wallet hurt your feelings? Because financial feelings are my most important feelings vis-a-vis Airbnb.
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
LOL at financial feelings! That's my main concern as well, CC. But I can't help but get really irritated by the attitude of Airbnb. It just rubs me up the wrong way - don't tell me I need to improve, just bloody don't. I laughed at "This is a business for me, not a social happening", Monica. But the marketing of the product, ie. OUR OWN LISTINGS (just in case you've forgotten that Brian, Chip et al) is all about belonging, friends, more than a place to stay, all that stuff. Plus if you host in your own home, you do have to have some social interaction and often yes, the nice side of hosting happens and it's fun and interesting. There is NO WAY that they will really deactivate listings for getting less than 5 stars. It's a stupid and meaningless threat. So why do they do it? We don't know. But they need to know how completely out of touch they are with the reality of hosting. If they want to build a 'community' then start frigging talking to us like grown-ups. Don't 'reach out' to me and send me lovey fluffy shite. Just communicate simply and respectfully. Honestly? If Airbnb was a prospective guest I'd hit the bloody decline button. Communication, trust, transparency - all the things I look for in a guest - Airbnb fails at.
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Here is an interesting piece of news that my current guest has just told me. She received a message from her last host who was very upset that my guest had rated her 1 and 2 stars in several categories. My guest was shocked and said that she had given 5 stars across the board. However, she had noticed that it was difficult to click on all the stars sometimes - they wouldn't always turn yellow. She thought it was some kind of glitch. She is going to contact Airbnb to find out how to rectify this. So. More craziness.
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David
David6 months ago
Been working a lot and using ipad with app and even phone to try to keep up with reviews and this happens a lot. You click and sometimes just 1* star shows and it seems impossible to alter it. Maybe this is why there is often such a huge difference in the written review and * ratings. What is so frustrating is how much Airbnb are pushing for guests to use the App. You literally get prompted every time you visit the site on ipad or mobile.
Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude6 months ago
Imagine it is a glitch and it is airbnb fault. Or mobile phone/PC fault. sometimes i must do 2 or 3 times an action for choosing criteria with mine on many websites before it actually take my criteria!
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
What a ridiculous state of affairs. Unbelievable. So many guests are travelling (duh) and using the app so I can imagine many of them must either give up on leaving a review or just go with whatever stars they manage to get. What a complete joke.
David
David6 months ago
Rebecca, spoke with CX about this. She said 'yes the app has limitations, best to use a PC with chrome. And no, our site does not like iPads at all.' Staggering when you think Airbnb are a digital company and must believe just a insignificant few of us have ipads.... No airbnb - 225 million ipads been sold up to Oct last year! tinyurl.com/6ef6tf5
Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
David, I'm embarrassed for them, seriously. I can't even make a joke about it anymore I'm just going to quote Drew from a couple of days ago on a similar thread, kind of sums it all up: "I'm just amazed that this company, now valued at a ridiculous $23B, continues to operate like a 3 year old riding a bike on training wheels. They should be well beyond this sort of 'hey, we're a startup' dipshittery. "
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
Abnb out to define in ratings window what a star rating means, ie,
☆☆☆☆☆=above and beyond expectation and the norm
☆☆☆☆=excellent and acceptable and as described
☆☆☆=average but acceptable, could be improved
☆☆=below description and expectation. Needs improvement/correction
☆=unacceptable, problem that needs addressing and correction, not as described and or specific problem
Just as a general rating criteria, probly needs more definition, but ☆☆☆☆ should be an acceptable and positive rating so that☆☆☆☆☆means superior..and it becomes scaled so as to be meaningful.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Is this your suggestion, Capt Brad? Or have you got this info from somewhere? Completely agree with you about the need for a clear and meaningful scale. They have a load of statistical graduates working there on the search algorithms and other such things which lead to enhanced profits. You'd think one of them might cast their eye over this basic stuff.
Jeannette
Jeannette6 months ago
"4" as excellent is a huge error if that is your suggestion, Brad. 4 needs to be above average and 5 needs to be excellent, if we're not all to be drummed out of AirBNB for bad performance (i.e., 4s).
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
☆☆☆=should be where abnb starts flagging hosts on perhaps 2nd ☆☆☆
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Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
Just IMHO. All mine, as a framework suggestion for this issue
Agree the 'excellent' was misplaced and the 4 should be above average as you suggest
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
For an assessment scale to be meaningful it has to have clear distinctions. An example is the self-rated health questionnaire, widely used (and widely criticised but nobody's come up with anything better yet): How do you rate your overall health? 1 Excellent 2 Very good 3 Good 4 Fair 5 Poor. People who rate their health excellent or very good are generally just merged together for analytical purposes. Because researchers in that field are generally looking to find out where the PROBLEMS are. You don't tend to find them in the top ratings. On the other hand, if you have consistently high ratings in one area across the scale that usually is an indicator that your measurement is shit. It's not difficult and it's pretty basic stuff.
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Posted before finished... Obviously the SRH is not a scale but the principle is the same. Anyway, I'm sure everybody is bored with this already but it's really frustrating to see so much information not only going to such waste but seemingly mis-managed.
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
Very good, If that was the simple scale ratings used i dont think it would have become the problem it is...
Capt Brad
Capt Brad6 months ago
So that 3's become the trigger piont instead of 4, with perhaps a have to answer a question why and comment/justification space required as feedback to keep them honest and clear to all...host, guest and BigBrother...and to allow a constructive criticism correction and especially to give an answer why, which seems to be big part of the contoversy as well
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Rebecca
Rebecca6 months ago
Sounds very reasonable. I believe guests and hosts are triggered to give reasons when they rate lower than 3 stars. I can't remember whether it's optional or not. It's a difficult situation, though. You can't force guests to leave a review and you can't force them to tell you why they left the ratings they did. You just can't. They are paying customers ultimately, let's not pretend otherwise.
Deborah
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older version w/o commenter names
In fact, so much better than expected that she rated me 4 stars for Accuracy and a 4 for Overall Experience, apparently because her group could have had an even better time if they'd only known how fab it was going to be.
Yep, yet enough example of the madness of this system. In this case I got pinged because my guests [who were really, really lovely BTW] stayed in and ordered a pizza one night. They were hanging out to have a glass of wine or beer with it, couldn't be bothered driving to the local bottle shop (1km away) and didn't realise that the bottle of wine and 4 beers I'd left in the fridge was for them and complimentary. This is despite me telling them on check-in, "if it's in the fridge it's for you". Even if this wasn't clear enough (and BTW, there were no language issues), she could have just asked me.
She mentioned it on check out, i.e. "we were desperate for a glass of vino last night but weren't sure whether to open the stuff in the fridge" and when I explained, yet again, that the fridge is stocked solely for their enjoyment, she seemed disappointed. She said, "Oh, we never expected that, if we'd known we could have had a much better night".
So, my going above and beyond just earned me a 4 star review. Do I really have to put a silly little sign in the kitchen saying "with compliments of your host"?
I go into mind-numbing detail in my listing description. There's 36 pictures, reams of text and even a floor plan which shows the room layout and the placement of every pot plant, lamp and rug. Given this, it has to be that a less than perfect score on Accuracy is a function of the guest's powers of comprehension, not of any shortcoming on my part. In this instance my guest completely ignored the assessment criteria for Accuracy, i.e.' How accurately did the photos and description represent the actual space?', and instead applied her own interpretation.
Airbnb needs to either remove the ratings altogether or put a lot more work into educating the guests that assessment must be done against specific criteria set by Airbnb otherwise the ratings are meaningless.
As it stands, allowing guests to rate listings without ensuring they are rating against consistent criteria is like having a police force handing out speeding tickets where each officer has a different notion of the applicable speed limit.
I should probably have added this to the post below, but I live in hope that one day Airbnb will actually read this forum (I know, I know, call me a crazy fool, but ....) and I think it's important that each and every discrete incidence of this kind of inappropriate application of the rating system by guests is brought to their attention.
Reply 1:
That is ridiculous! After receiving our first unfair "bad review" and decimation of all star categories, I just contacted Airbnb today to say we should be able to dispute unfair reviews.
Reply 2:
Thanks for your effort to advocate for hosts!
Reply 3:
C & E - Looking at your listing, I'm concerned about several statements telling guests "do not book if you would give ___ less than a 5 star rating." I agree Airbnb has gone way overboard in making hosts obsess about those silly stars, but it's not our place to demand that guests give us the ratings we desire. The reviews are always going to be a subjective reflection of the guest's experience, and they aren't going to know how positive their experience will be before they've had it. Airbnb has created a monster if hosts feel like they have to tell their prospective guests "GIVE US A PERFECT RATING OR YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE." That is NOT how good hospitality is done - we have to earn our good reviews, and take the negative feedback gracefully when it inevitably occurs.
Reply 4:
Good point. There's probably a better way to say this that's more welcoming.
Reply 5:
We're very, very much trying to scare people away who are not the right fit. It seems to be working well most of the time. We're actually trying to *not* be welcoming to people who wouldn't like it. After adding those deterrents, I think it's quite helped. Except this one recent horrid lady who complained about everything that was clearly listed and gave us a 1 star rating. But she was an anomaly and I have no idea why she even booked our place as it clearly was not her style. We don't want to be welcoming to those people. I feel violated that we had her in our home and would rather not do Airbnb than host people like her. People who ignore what is CLEARLY stated, then complain about it, instead of appreciating all the awesome with extra awesome piled on top -no thanks. Want to scare those people away so it will be available to people who LOVE what we offer and appreciate that we go way above and beyond to give them an exceptional experience. If someone has LEGITIMATE concerns for rating, fine, but we don't want anyone who has PRE-determined that it isn't good enough for them coming to rate us lowly for exactly what we're offering.
Reply 6:
I hear what you're saying, but I probably would avoid staying in any listing that had the statements, even if they were 100% perfect fits. I'm glad it's working for you!
Reply 7:
As another deterrent, been meaning to put up bug pictures as well, like close ups of any insect one might encounter. lol
Reply 8:
Oh yeah, totally burning right along with you, Louise. I hosted an absolutely delightful Italian couple for 3 nights during their month-long road trip. We hit it off right away (I spend 2-3 months every year in Italy) and we talked for HOURS in both languages. They were so happy they invited me to visit them in Italy. I was so pleased that I actually did a week's worth of their filthy, steaming laundry from their previous camping trip as my gift to them, so they could go out and explore SF instead of having to stay in for hours, doing laundry. When they gave me 4 stars for Communication (whaaat?!) and Value (killkillkill), I did ask them. Their response: "My judgment was based on my feelings during our stay, compared to other places we have been. Again, it was a very positive stay and I thank you for your efforts."
The prompts are “How responsive and accessible was the host before and during your stay?” and “How would you rate the value of the listing?” They couldn't answer those questions correctly?!
From what we've all been reading in the past month, there are untold thousands of hosts who've been burned by this star review system.
Reply 9:
I think the star system is getting a lot of attention because of Airbnb's new slap on the wrist for anything less than a 5 star rating. Before it was an annoyance, now Airbnb rubs salt deep into the wound.
Reply 10:
Absolutely. Nail on head, Douglas. I was perfectly content, and so were my guests, with my average 4.5 -5 stars. Suddenly that's not good enough? I know we're not supposed to swear on here but seriously, F*** O** with this nonsense.
Reply 11:
LOL Rebecca.. take it easy now... your high blood pressure is going up again... : )
Reply 12:
Blarg. Such an awful mess, these stars.
Reply 13:
You do realise, guys, that having a 4* review is ok? I mean, it's not fantastic but it's still good. I'm concerned that the discussion about the legitimate concerns over the rating system will be clouded by people getting all prissy because they didn't get 5 stars for everything. Seriously guys, you're all great I'm sure but you know, you're not god's gift and people need to be able to rate how they feel. It's not up to us to second-guess why guests mark us down. I've been a guest and I've given less than 5 stars because it was true. Not every last thing was fecking FANTASTIC. Let's not take our eye off the ball here.
Reply 14:
I strongly disagree. It's completely up to me to second-guess why guests might mark me down. Otherwise, how can I improve? I will have learned nothing of importance if the guests do not qualify their stars by saying what they felt could have been better. I'm also a frequent guest, and have given less than 5 stars, also because it was true. I also don't feel that I "got all prissy" by feeling outraged that guests with whom I spent many hours "communicating," and for whom I went so over-and-above, would not value those efforts when it came time to evaluate their stay. Trying to smack me down by outright saying I'm not God's gift is really insulting, Rebecca. I doubt any of us claim to be, but your words are unnecessarily harsh/sarcastic.
Reply 15:
I agree that a 4 star review is OK, but I also get the latter point. When a review is blatantly unfair, it's not unreasonable to be left wondering where we went wrong. If we don't react and question why, we won't improve. My concern is that to Airbnb, 4 stars is most definitely not ok and more than a few in a row is grounds for them threatening us with delisting. Who wouldn't be concerned given this?
Reply 16:
It's not so much that we as hosts are upset when we get less than 5 stars, but rather, it's the way that Airbnb views "less than 4 stars" as problematic, that is the problem for us as hosts. LIke I said in my comment below I really think many hosts would be just content to be "average" and be straight 3's, but it's when Airbnb rears up with criticisms, tips on "how to improve", and out and out threats to deactivate one's listing, that hosts get manipulated into believing they should get better ratings. So if there weren't this fallout from ratings, I think we wouldn't be having any of these discussions, we would be just always doing our best and working to improve, but we'd be doing it from a positive attitude, because it's fun to us and enjoyable, to see our guests be content and happy and pleased, not approaching improvement with a negative feeling, because a big parent figure has told us to shape up. It's the scolding that isn't appropriate here.
Reply 17:
An interesting point raised here, that I've been wondering about as well. What's wrong with a 3 star listing? If there had been a rating system for the first-ever Airbnb experiment, I doubt that the airbed on the founders' living room floor would have been rated 5 stars. But if guests have an entirely average/so-so experience, and the host is OK with that, then it's still a successful and mutually agreeable transaction.
Reply 18:
Hosts have received warning notes for 4* reviews, if they get 2 in a row. So 4* is NOT OK with AirBNB. (Note: 4* is not a typo. It was not for 3* reviews, it was for 4*).
Reply 19:
yes indeed you're right and point taken. Sorry for bad wording. I was thinking that Airbnb wouldn't take this issue seriously if it comes across like hosts are just annoyed that guests don't leave 5* when hosts think they've deserved that rating, do you see what I mean? The really problematic issue, to me, is the stupid warnings.
Reply 20:
I agree that the the warnings or alerts shouldn't be applicable to a host who are still getting a 4 star ratings, I mean most of these ratings are erratic the way I see it and basing it on their experienced or mood. Been hosting for over 5 years and have 5 stars in communication and this one particular guest rated me 1* star on communication- I let that one go and Airbnb couldn't do anything to change it either.. so what's the use ? I think the reality is that Guests and Airbnb can definitely take your listings down to the worst.. if this is what Airbnb's way of evaluating our performance ... and that really SUCKS !
Reply 21:
Do you think Airbnb management is reading the same playbook as Amazon
Reply 22:
As far as what star rating is okay -- in my book, anything from 3 stars on up is totally fine. After all, 3 stars is "average" and this should be viewed as fine, for those who seek to provide AVERAGE accomodations. Not everyone can or should or needs to offer something extraordinary. Many have a humble abode and are simply doing what they are expected to do -- the average. In fact if you think about it, even if most hosts start trying to do "above average", then just the fact that most hosts are now doing that, makes them average again -- the quality of average has been raised but it's still average.
So one of my gripes with the star system is that I don't feel anyone should get scolding messages over delivering an average or better experience to a guest. And for those cases which the guest deems "below average" -- Airbnb should require a guest to provide an explanation of why they have 1 or 2 stars, and if they don't have a very good explanation, this low rating should be scrapped.
If you have ever tried to rate someone 1 or 2 stars on Amazon, from what I recall, the system actually rejects your attempt to do this unless you first have contacted the seller you bought the product from. Which also makes more sense than just taking 1 or 2 star ratings at face value.
So I say, Airbnb should require all guests who try to give a 1 or 2 star rating, to provide a valid explanation for that. THis should be read along with the review they wrote. IF something doesn't add up, the low star ratings should be removed.
Reply 23:
I agree. I have an average listing myself. It is not the apartment we live in, and we have started renting so we earn some money and meet new friends who might be eager to accomodate us in the future. The apartment is not newly painted and doesn't have top of the line furnishing, but it's more than local hostels and even some hotels provide. I am ok with 3* and 4*. But really, really not ok with Airbnb warnings and threats and their lack of informing guests on review system. It would be great when guests would be discouraged to give purely vindictive 1* and 2* reviews!
Reply 24:
I really think some guests will just not give 5 stars unless everything is perfect. We all know this is not a perfect world. For 1-1/2 yrs now, and many guests - all giving me 5 stars - I had one that gave me 4. No idea why. But, one out of so many - oh, well. Maybe they were expecting the Marriott? In my "Guest Handbook" I would like to say "This is not a hotel." But, I'm afraid some people may not like it. But, I'm thinking if they want a 5 star room - they are going to have to pay for one and go to a hotel that will cost them double, triple or even more than my nightly rate.
Reply 25:
Hi i am curious as to why do you think some people may not like "This is not a hotel" in the handbook?
Reply 26:
I have this is NOT a hotel in my rules and quite comfortable w it as, apparently, it needs to be stated to some
Reply 27:
How do you know what individual star rating guests give? I've never looked. I don't quite know how I get 5 stars for location, either. It's not as if I'm near the beach or have views of the Opera House or anything like that.
Reply 28:
I just saw in someone's listing they have printed an "Airbnb" label and put it on the shelves they allocated to guests in the fridge. I might do that as I've just had guests leave who let their food migrate to taking up way more room than allocated and, over three weeks it was a pita.
What did you do with Ning the ding-a-ling when she wouldn't leave?
Reply 29:
My guests have a whole separate kitchen, so it's easy to work out what food is up for grabs; essentially all of it.
There wasn't much I could do about the ding-a-ling except note her behaviour in my review of her and also in my response to hers. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do on the day of departure to get her to leave at noon, and I tried everything.
I had a funeral to attend at 3pm and guests arriving at 1.30pm so it was crucial that she and her family be out and I'd spoken to them the night before and explained how there was absolutely no way they could hang around after noon check-out.
They tried every trick in the book to delay their departure and eventually at 12.30 I told them they simply HAD to go, as in right now go. I told them to go up to Lane Cove and hang out in a coffee shop, children's playground or even the library. I even offered to let them leave their luggage in the garage to pick up later. They left but got half way up the driveway and I heard them having an argument. 1 minute later they returned claiming that their extremely robust daughter who'd just polished off a huge cooked breakfast (yes, at 11am) was 'too sick' to be moved. So, short of physically removing them there was nothing I could do. I made them sit outside in the poolside dining area while I frantically got the place together. They were still there when my next guests arrived. It was infuriating and embarrassing.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I've now become much less 'reasonable' about early check-ins and late check-outs.
Reply 30:
This kind of thing is so annoying. I had a guest state in her review that everything was exactly as described and the route to get here exactly as described and basically everything perfect and then she gave me a 4 for 'accuracy'. You just can't please some people.
Reply 31:
Bonjour Louise, in hotels, amenities in the fridge are paying (twice the price). Some host in this forum wrote they wanted to add paying amenities. So i may have done the same mistake. I know bottles in the hotel fridge are for me. And also the bill. I use to leave a welcoming bottle of wine. 1 on 3 ask me if it for them. 1 on 10 do not touch it (i never knew if it is because they do not like alcohol or because they did not understand it was for them.
Reply 32:
I guess hosts are getting more five star ratings than we think. I paid for an airbnb report on my area and this is what is shows for average ratings in the usa. U.S.A.
Accuracy 4.74
Cleanliness 4.72
Commnication 4.88
Location 4.75
Check In 4.87
Value 4.67
Over 95% of listings in America currently have a 4.5 or 5 star rating. Recent changes to the review process have made achieving 5-stars more difficult. Look for ratings to increasingly differentiate the most successful hosts
Reply 33:
Personally I don't give a hoot about SuperHost status or 4 stars instead of 5. If the guest felt it was a positive experience then I am satisfied. I don't bend over backwards to please guests. I provide what is stated in my listings, welcome them and then leave them alone. They can visit the farm by appointment. This is a business for me, not a social happening. People will expect too much if you start to give them extras.
Reply 34:
every time the stars discussion comes up, people always chime in with whether they feel hurt over it or not or whether it matters to them or not. I totally, 1,000% agree with you that we should give what we offer, not worry about it, and even that bending over backwards sometimes gets the worst results ever. And I agree that if they seemed to enjoy their stay & gave a good review, then I'm not even concerned about stars. But the issue is potential deactivation of listings. Would that hit in the wallet hurt your feelings? Because financial feelings are my most important feelings vis-a-vis Airbnb.
Reply 35:
LOL at financial feelings! That's my main concern as well, CC. But I can't help but get really irritated by the attitude of Airbnb. It just rubs me up the wrong way - don't tell me I need to improve, just bloody don't. I laughed at "This is a business for me, not a social happening", . But the marketing of the product, ie. OUR OWN LISTINGS (just in case you've forgotten that Brian, Chip et al) is all about belonging, friends, more than a place to stay, all that stuff. Plus if you host in your own home, you do have to have some social interaction and often yes, the nice side of hosting happens and it's fun and interesting. There is NO WAY that they will really deactivate listings for getting less than 5 stars. It's a stupid and meaningless threat. So why do they do it? We don't know. But they need to know how completely out of touch they are with the reality of hosting. If they want to build a 'community' then start frigging talking to us like grown-ups. Don't 'reach out' to me and send me lovey fluffy shite. Just communicate simply and respectfully. Honestly? If Airbnb was a prospective guest I'd hit the bloody decline button. Communication, trust, transparency - all the things I look for in a guest - Airbnb fails at.
Reply 36:
Here is an interesting piece of news that my current guest has just told me. She received a message from her last host who was very upset that my guest had rated her 1 and 2 stars in several categories. My guest was shocked and said that she had given 5 stars across the board. However, she had noticed that it was difficult to click on all the stars sometimes - they wouldn't always turn yellow. She thought it was some kind of glitch. She is going to contact Airbnb to find out how to rectify this. So. More craziness.
Reply 37:
Been working a lot and using ipad with app and even phone to try to keep up with reviews and this happens a lot. You click and sometimes just 1* star shows and it seems impossible to alter it. Maybe this is why there is often such a huge difference in the written review and * ratings. What is so frustrating is how much Airbnb are pushing for guests to use the App. You literally get prompted every time you visit the site on ipad or mobile.
Reply 38:
Imagine it is a glitch and it is airbnb fault. Or mobile phone/PC fault. sometimes i must do 2 or 3 times an action for choosing criteria with mine on many websites before it actually take my criteria!
Reply 39:
What a ridiculous state of affairs. Unbelievable. So many guests are travelling (duh) and using the app so I can imagine many of them must either give up on leaving a review or just go with whatever stars they manage to get. What a complete joke.
Reply 40:
I spoke with CX about this. She said 'yes the app has limitations, best to use a PC with chrome. And no, our site does not like iPads at all.' Staggering when you think Airbnb are a digital company and must believe just a insignificant few of us have ipads.... No airbnb - 225 million ipads been sold up to Oct last year! tinyurl.com/6ef6tf5
Reply 41:
I'm embarrassed for them, seriously. I can't even make a joke about it anymore I'm just going to quote from a couple of days ago on a similar thread, kind of sums it all up: "I'm just amazed that this company, now valued at a ridiculous $23B, continues to operate like a 3 year old riding a bike on training wheels. They should be well beyond this sort of 'hey, we're a startup' dipshittery. "
Reply 42
Abnb out to define in ratings window what a star rating means, ie,
☆☆☆☆☆=above and beyond expectation and the norm
☆☆☆☆=excellent and acceptable and as described
☆☆☆=average but acceptable, could be improved
☆☆=below description and expectation. Needs improvement/correction
☆=unacceptable, problem that needs addressing and correction, not as described and or specific problem
Just as a general rating criteria, probly needs more definition, but ☆☆☆☆ should be an acceptable and positive rating so that☆☆☆☆☆means superior..and it becomes scaled so as to be meaningful.
Reply 43
Is this your suggestion? Or have you got this info from somewhere? Completely agree with you about the need for a clear and meaningful scale. They have a load of statistical graduates working there on the search algorithms and other such things which lead to enhanced profits. You'd think one of them might cast their eye over this basic stuff.
Reply 44:
"4" as excellent is a huge error if that is your suggestion, Brad. 4 needs to be above average and 5 needs to be excellent, if we're not all to be drummed out of AirBNB for bad performance (i.e., 4s).
REply 45:
☆☆☆=should be where abnb starts flagging hosts on perhaps 2nd ☆☆☆
Reply 46:
Just IMHO. All mine, as a framework suggestion for this issue
Agree the 'excellent' was misplaced and the 4 should be above average as you suggest
Reply 47:
For an assessment scale to be meaningful it has to have clear distinctions. An example is the self-rated health questionnaire, widely used (and widely criticised but nobody's come up with anything better yet): How do you rate your overall health? 1 Excellent 2 Very good 3 Good 4 Fair 5 Poor. People who rate their health excellent or very good are generally just merged together for analytical purposes. Because researchers in that field are generally looking to find out where the PROBLEMS are. You don't tend to find them in the top ratings. On the other hand, if you have consistently high ratings in one area across the scale that usually is an indicator that your measurement is shit. It's not difficult and it's pretty basic stuff.
Reply 48:
Posted before finished... Obviously the SRH is not a scale but the principle is the same. Anyway, I'm sure everybody is bored with this already but it's really frustrating to see so much information not only going to such waste but seemingly mis-managed.
Reply 49:
Very good, If that was the simple scale ratings used i dont think it would have become the problem it is...
Reply 50:
So that 3's become the trigger piont instead of 4, with perhaps a have to answer a question why and comment/justification space required as feedback to keep them honest and clear to all...host, guest and BigBrother...and to allow a constructive criticism correction and especially to give an answer why, which seems to be big part of the contoversy as well
Reply 51:
Sounds very reasonable. I believe guests and hosts are triggered to give reasons when they rate lower than 3 stars. I can't remember whether it's optional or not. It's a difficult situation, though. You can't force guests to leave a review and you can't force them to tell you why they left the ratings they did. You just can't. They are paying customers ultimately, let's not pretend otherwise.