Airbnb has a unique rating system for hosts. Essentially anything less than a 5-star review harms a listing. But how does the guest rating system work? And how do you let other hosts know about problem guests? Let’s dig in!
Leaving Accurate Guest Reviews
I was reading a story over on the Airbnb subreddit about how a guest wouldn’t leave the property for over 3 days past their check-out date. Essentially, the guests booked another stay at the host’s other unit, but never left the original unit. Seemingly harmless, what it actually did was keep the host from renting out both units simultaneously. They couldn’t just shift a guest into the open unit, so the host missed out on a good chunk of money.
Now the guests did end up leaving on the correct day of their second booking. But they refused to move units even after booking another one. The host was writing to ask how accurate of a review should they leave since despite the mixup they did technically end up leaving on the right day.
For some hosts, days matter. They may not have wiggle room to accept losses like this host incurred. You could’ve had maintenance scheduled on that unit. A number of things could’ve been happening, or none at all. Bottom line, when a guest isn’t complying with your rules, an accurate review is needed to prevent other hosts from experiencing the same issue.
Yes, it does hurt the guests ability to book future stays. But leaving an inaccurate 5-star review for a 3-star guest only hurts other hosts. It’s not about hurting the guest, it’s about leaving an accurate review to prevent future issues.
The Airbnb Guest Rating System
There are 3 main aspects of the guest rating system on Airbnb: cleanliness, following rules, and communication.
Cleanliness
How clean did the guest leave the place? This expectation is set by you in your house rules and messaging. Normal use of the place can be expected. Bedding used, dishes in the sink, etc. However, if a guest has left the place a complete mess, this is your chance to share how.
For example, we had a guest who brought a child. Totally cool with us! But what wasn’t okay was the excessive cleaning that had to happen after they left. Trash left all over the place, soiled towels and sheets. Pizza stains on the nightstands and all over the TV. Much more. In that case, we had to leave the guest less than 5 stars with a kind note letting them know why.
Follow House Rules
This is going to be where things differ from property to property. On Airbnb, there’s a section for house rules. You can take a look at ours down below:
Right below the checkout time selection is a space to leave additional rules (the screenshot cut off). That is where you’ll put any additional rules you may have for your property. We felt the standard ones Airbnb provides are more than enough. Regardless, the house rules will be shared with guests and everyone should be on the same page.
If guests don’t follow house rules, then it’s up to you to decide what to do. Really the only one we are lenient on is the quiet hours. We don’t have a noise meter installed, so we left it up to the guests to be quiet within those hours. We never got a call from the neighbors, so assumed all was well.
We have however had to deal with someone bringing a pet and another guest smoking in the property.
One thing I will say on this part is to be reasonable with house rules. Setting quiet hours too early at night and too late in the morning or having a ton of additional rules is asking for trouble. You’ll likely just annoy guests if your rules are too strict. Keep that in mind and use the example ones and any others only as necessary.
Communication
This one is usually always a 5-star for me. I don’t expect guests to reach out or to even acknowledge they received my messages. Especially after Airbnb added read receipts. Unless a guest is having issues and not communicating or being disrespectful, this remains a 5-star.
If you need to get in touch with the guest but they aren’t responding within a reasonable time, you may consider docking a star. But if you have no reason to contact the guest there’s no reason to remove stars for lack of communication.
Writing Your Public Guest Review
If your guest’s stay is smooth and no issues need to be reported, then this step is very straightforward. We like to compliment our guests in reviews, and we always try to end with something along the lines of ‘would highly recommend’ or ‘would be happy to host them again in the future’. If guests respect us and our space, we’re more than happy to help them with their next stay!
On the other hand, it’s important to leave honest reviews. Especially if guests do not respect your space. As I mentioned above, it greatly helps future hosts. It’s one of those things that sucks about hosting but if we all help each other out then things work much smoother.
Depending on how bad things are we usually just describe the problem. If you are wanting to keep things light, you can sandwich the negative feedback. Check out the first review here to see what I’m talking about:
You can see how we talked about the pros of the situation, added in the cons, then finished with a lighter ending. While this wasn’t as serious as the other negative reviews (see below), the point still needed to be made. Our cleaner had to deep clean the house, we had to replace sheets, and get the stain out of the couch before other guests arrived. It’s not necessary to sandwich the feedback, but it can help if you feel like you need to leave a negative review without sounding too harsh.
Thumbs Up Or Down
Following the 3 ratings, you’ll be asked to leave a thumbs up or thumbs down. This is for whether or not you would recommend the guest to future hosts. We rarely use the thumbs down option, but we couple it with the guests that we are leaving negative reviews for. It’s just another way to share with Airbnb and hosts how things went with your guest’s stay.
Helping Make Things Better
Writing this was a real bummer. I didn’t want to come off as complaining. Sometimes guests can leave your place in a condition that is harmful to future stays. And in that case, it’s important to document it for future hosts. It’s definitely one of the least fun things about being a host, but I’ve turned down guests with negative reviews and I’m satisfied assuming it was for the best. And I appreciate the hosts that are looking out for others to help make every stay a great one!