No matter how good your Airbnb listing is, there are some people that won’t feel they had a 5 star stay. Here are some ways to tackle a guest leaving a negative review:
Note: keep in mind that on Airbnb anything below 5 stars counts as a negative review. So it’s important to address all issues no matter how small.
Step 1: Prevention
A great way to tackle negative reviews is to prevent them from happening in the first place.
Pictures
Do they look accurate? It’s OK to take vibrant photos of your space, but make sure you aren’t catfishing your guests. Keep in mind that any amenities you show in the pictures will also need to be present in the house, otherwise you’ll run the risk of hurting their trust.
Cleanliness
Keep your space extra clean. Guests expect hotel quality cleanliness, so be sure to give that to them.
Communication
This is one of the biggest components of prevention. Having good communication in place (hopefully automated to save you time) can help you start on the right foot with guests. Overcommunicate information about your space. Let them know they can reach out to you with any issues to be addressed DURING their stay, not after.
After the first day or so (more if they are staying longer), you can reach out and ask them how their stay is going and if they need anything to make it better. Most of the time they won’t need anything, but this will hopefully give the guests with issues a chance to voice them and allow you to make it right.
The day before checkout you’ll want to send over checkout instructions. This is where I like to include a snippet on how Airbnb ratings are different than a traditional hotels. We also like to share this graphic (feel free to use it as well!) when explaining the Airbnb review system:
The two biggest problem groups I’ve had with negative reviews are with first-time Airbnb guests, or those that don’t communicate at all. So if we can share some information on how the system works, we can prevent some of those reviews from happening.
When it comes to preventing a negative review, the biggest thing is figuring out if there is anything negative in the first place, so be sure to follow up with your guests during their stay or you’ll find out about their issues in their 3 star review.
Step 2: Reviewing the Review
Let’s say prevention doesn’t work. You’ve just received a negative review. Now what? It’s time to take a look at what the review is actually saying, because there may be a chance to get it removed.
Note: I’m not advocating for removing reviews that show true flaws in your space. Those can be very beneficial. What I don’t allow is for guests to leave reviews that are negative without cause. Those are helpful for no one.
If you notice that a guest has left a review with information that isn’t true, or isn’t relevant to your space, you can have it reviewed by Airbnb staff. For example, I have a listing that nowhere on it says that it is ADA accessible. However, a guest left me a 3 star review because I didn’t have a shower bar installed. I sent it over to the support staff and it was removed. Now my overall rating gets to stay higher and a non-relevant review was removed from our listing.
On the flip side, I received a 2 star review for just about everything in the house. The beds weren’t comfortable, claimed there were bugs throughout the home (even though I couldn’t find a single one when I looked. I wouldn’t want any bugs in a place I was staying so I took it very seriously), she didn’t like our patio furniture, and more. While I didn’t agree with everything and thought that we didn’t deserve the 2 stars, it was her opinion and because of that the review had to stay. Had I communicated better using my own advice in the previous section (which were created in large part to this review) I may have prevented this. Or at the very least turned a potential 2 star review into a 3 or 4 star review.
If you do decide that there are reasons that would warrant removing the review, I recommend giving support a call. They do have a chat feature, but I find a phone call helps to get your point across better. They will still open up a message thread where you can send over evidence if needed, but that initial phone call seems to help put things into perspective for the support staff.
Step 3: Responding Publicly to a Negative Review
If for one reason or another you end up with a negative review that is going to stay on your profile, you’ll want to be smart about how you respond to it. This can be a great opportunity to show guests how dedicated you are to creating a space that lives up to expectations.
That doesn’t mean we want to let a guest walk all over us, but that we hear what they have to say and respond accordingly.
There are going to be many scenarios for responding, so the below examples won’t be a copy/paste for every single one. But they will get you started in the right direction. For the rest you can use the breakdown following the messages to craft your own response.
Here’s a response to a review we received for our place not being “homey”:
“Hey guest,
Thank you for your review! We’re sorry to hear that you didn’t like how the place was decorated, but we wanted to let you know we’ve went back in and added some more decorations. The next time you stay it will feel much more homey!”
More generally, how we respond to a review we don’t necessarily agree with:
“ Hey guest,
We are very sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy your stay. We try our best to create a space that everyone enjoys, but we understand that not everyone will. While we appreciate your feedback, there are a few things we’d like to note: [insert disagreement].
We also encourage each guest to reach out to us with any issues so we can remedy them while they are staying. We are always looking to improve as hosts so we appreciate your honest feedback and we hope you enjoy your next travels! Best,”
Breaking Down a Good Airbnb Response
We want to try to keep our response as short as possible. Potential guests won’t want to read an essay. We’re also looking to sandwich our feedback if we have any. Make them feel heard, add your own feedback, then thank them again.
Intro: keep this simple. You want to dive right into the feedback. Example: Hey guest,
Acknowledgement: let them know you appreciate their feedback and you hear them.
Agree/Disagree: are there things they put in the review that you can/want to improve upon? Let them know! Maybe they have some things in there you don’t agree with. Here’s the time to add those in.
Thank them again: sandwiching your feedback can make it more receptive. “We appreciate your feedback, here’s our feedback, thank you again for your feedback!”
Sign off: leave with something as simple as “Safe travels”
This formula helps us to craft responses that help potential guests know that we are listening to guest feedback while also standing up to any unreasonable requests.
Step 4: Responding Privately to a Negative Review
It’s perfectly OK to reach out to a guest after they’ve left a negative review and ask for them to provide more details. It is not OK to reach out and belittle them for their review, no matter how bad it is. You want to see if they can elaborate on their initial review for potential improvements of your listing and/or property itself, not make them feel bad for leaving what they felt was an honest review.
Sending them a simple message can help with a response. I find that guests don’t respond to messages of this nature to begin with, so keep it short and sweet.
“Hey guest,
I appreciate your thoughts about our place in your review. We aim to provide 5 star experiences, and are sorry to hear we didn’t live up to that during your stay. Would you mind letting us know how we can improve in order to satisfy our future guests better?
Best,
Jarett”
This bit of communication has the lowest response rate for us, but the responses we do receive are very valuable.
Conclusion
Negative reviews happen from time to time. It’s important to treat them the correct way so that you can minimize any issues that arise. Be respectful and honest. And let future guests know that you are willing to listen to guests in order to make each stay better than the last.