We’ve been covering quite a bit about bad reviews on Airbnb lately. How to remove them, how to respond to them, and even how to improve from them. In this post I want to talk about what happens when you get a bad review as well as how to recover from it. Let’s get started.
Note: this is for reviews that cannot be removed. Check out our post on how to remove a bad Airbnb review if you feel that you have a review that should be removed.
Changes In Traffic
This could all be a coincidence since of our 44 reviews only 6 were fewer than 5 stars (not counting the one that got removed). So take all of this with a grain of salt. But it really did seem like the days after a negative review our listing traffic went down. It wasn’t every time (I’ll share all 6 instances below), but enough that it stung a little extra to get those 4 star reviews.
Regardless of whether or not bad reviews actually impacted traffic, the good news is that in the days following traffic seemed to return and even jump up in some cases. So don’t sweat if you receive a single bad review. You just want to make sure you are staying above the 4.3 rating floor, in which Airbnb will remove your listing.
Be Sure To Respond To The Bad Review
Responding to the review is extremely important. We go more in-depth on this aspect in our post dedicated to responding to a negative Airbnb review, but essentially you want to thank the guest for the feedback letting them know that you hear what they are saying, give your side of things (how you’ll prevent it in the future, add any corrections, etc.), and finish with a nice “we hope you enjoy your future stays!”.
Sometimes it can be beneficial to show guests how you respond to reviews. Yes, some potential guests will see the bad review and immediately jump to another listing. But the ones that stick around long enough to read your response may be persuaded that you mean well. And from there you can be sure they enjoy their stay.
Moving Forward
As I mentioned above when going through our traffic, it does seem to recover after a negative review (if it drops at all). Now, we never dipped below the 4.3 rating floor, so you’ll want to be sure you don’t either. In that case your listing will be removed. However, as long as you stay above that, it does seem that your listing will still be put in the running.
So once you get that bad review, be sure to leave a thoughtful response and make any necessary changes to help the next guest enjoy their stay.
Avoiding A Second Bad Review
The real recovery happens after you’ve ‘redeemed’ yourself by getting a great review following a bad one. You’ll want to do everything you can to make sure that happens. Here’s a few tips:
Use Any Feedback Possible
It’s important to listen to your guest’s feedback. Now not everything is actionable, but you can find some good information through the eyes of your guest. It’s a good idea to revisit any messages and reviews to see if there are any ways you can improve prior to the next guest coming in. How is your check-in process? Are you communicating everything the guest needs (or is there something you can add)? Any notes on cleanliness? Whatever you can find you can use to level up your listing bit by bit.
Overcommunicate
We break this down in our other post on how to get more positive Airbnb reviews, but you want to make sure you are providing as much information as your guest needs for a great stay. That means sharing anything intricate about your listing.
Maybe the light switch for the living room is in a weird spot (guilty), the way to get in needs a little explaining, or you have some hidden features the guests would love to know about. Share them!
Keeping a guest informed with the details they need can help them feel like they are being taken care of. You don’t want your guests flying blind through their stay. Another great thing you can do to get some bonus points is share things around the city.
For example, we had some construction going on towards the east of our property. We simply told guests if they are coming from that direction to follow the detour signs if necessary. That’s it. It was a simple way to let guests know we were looking out for them.
Share events, construction, great places to eat or visit. Your guests will appreciate the local knowledge.
Delay The Next Review
This strategy can be implemented really whenever, but certainly is useful for not stacking negative reviews. It is gaming the system, but with how cutthroat the review system is it’s nice to keep it in your back pocket. It helps to have a little background.
When a stay is completed, both guests and hosts have 14 days to leave a review. At the end of that period, you cannot go back in and leave one. So here’s the thing: 14 is a weird number. Most guests would likely assume it’s 30 days.
Another thing working in your favor is notifications. The guest’s review only gets posted after the 14 day window is up or once you leave a review for them. With those things in mind, if you wait to leave your review (or don’t leave one at all), the review will either take longer to be posted or the guest will forget to write a review. This will also help to give guests time to cool off in case they were very unhappy with their stay.
During your busy season you could end up getting 2 or 3 bookings in the amount of time it takes for the review window to expire. Once a guest is booked they likely won’t look at any reviews. So keep all this in mind to play around with when, if at all, you post a guest’s review.
Aim To Please
These strategies helped us recover from bad Airbnb reviews. The main reason we used them was due to a guest’s lack of understanding of the rating system. Which is totally understandable since it’s unique. If there were anything seriously wrong that came up with a guest’s stay we did our best to fix the issue. Our main goal has always been to provide 5 star stays for guests, and we hope you’ll do the same!