Reviews are a great source of trust on your listing. Rather than guests going in blind to your property, they can check out the reviews to see how other guests felt. So it’s very important to get those 5-star reviews! However, you’ll likely not always receive positive reviews. Here’s some supporting information as well as how to remove a bad review from Airbnb:
A Quick Note: What Types Of Reviews Can Be Removed?
I’ve reached out to Airbnb support two times over the life of our listing to try and get reviews removed. One review was outright false, and one was extremely negative for what I thought was no reason.
The problem is, you can’t get a review removed if it’s just a guest’s opinion. That was the result of the second review. So just keep that in mind when trying to remove a review. It’s always still worth a shot though!
How To Remove A Bad Review From Airbnb
The first thing you’ll need to do is navigate to the Airbnb support page. There are two ways to contact support: chat or phone. The screenshot below shows Superhost support but I had a similar experience before and after becoming a Superhost.
I’ve used the chat feature for other reasons, but for reviews I prefer to call them. You can get your point across easier and let them know you aren’t just trying to game the system. So give them a call and state the reasons why you want the review removed.
In my case, I wanted the first review removed because it was based on amenities that we never said we offered. I wish I had taken a screenshot to share but I can’t access it now that it’s removed.
Regardless, the guest left a 3 star review because we didn’t have ADA accessible amenities within the house. This included not having installed a shower bar. Having no ADA specific items in the house, we made sure to leave that box unchecked when setting up our Airbnb listing.
So we felt that the review was unfair and wanted it removed. Once support answers, simply state that you want to dispute an unfair review. They’ll ask for more context to which you can give your evidence.
They’ll then open up a message thread where you can share any additional information, photos, invoices (if needed), etc. Following that, they’ll review your claim. This is where things differed between our first and second review removal attempt.
The first got approved and they removed the review. The second stated that since there were opinions involved that they couldn’t remove the review. So at the end of the day you are up to the mercy of the support team to decide what counts as a removable review. And that’s totally understandable, but something to be aware of.
What If I Can’t Remove The Bad Review?
If you can’t remove the review in question, the next best thing is to respond to it. Responding to a negative Airbnb review can show guests how you handle situations that arise. Regardless of whether you feel the review should be there or not, you should have a respectful response to show future guests.
We go more in-depth in the link above, but essentially you’ll want to thank the guest for their review, provide any supporting evidence you feel is necessary, and then finish with something nice to say.
There may also be times where you get a review with useful feedback about your listing. In that case, you can use the review to improve your property. For example, we had a guest struggle to get in our home because they couldn’t download the August app (which is connected to our deadbolt). So we started creating codes to send to the guests to ensure if they couldn’t connect that they could use the keypad.
Keep On Keepin’ On
It’s perfectly understandable that you get a bad review every once in a while. But it’s not the end of your hosting career if you get one. Following our 2 star review that we couldn’t get removed we received 13 straight 5 star reviews. So keep chugging along and creating a great stay for your guests. Eventually all of the negative noise will be drowned out by the guests who truly enjoyed staying at your place.