No more bookings since “Highest/Lowest Reviews” feature!

[Florencia0]

My listing didn´t get any new reservation since the new feature that Airbnb launched in which your reviews are grouped in two columns by the Highest and Lowest ratings they got. From how I understand, the Lowest section gathers reviews that got ratings from 1 to 3 stars (Overall Experience). The Highest section gathers the rest.

The thing is that the majority of my guests gave me 5 stars in more than 200 reviews, a few subset of about 8% gave me 4 stars (but comments are good) and only one girl gave me 3 stars (it was 2 years ago). That girl gave me the most retaliatory comment I got. It was terrible. She said the mattress hurt her back, that the apartment felt cramped and a full set of lies just to damage my reputation. It was horrible and she was a person full of hate.

When I got her review (2 years ago) I wasn't very worried because she was the ONLY one saying things like that about my apartment and the next reviews will take relevance to her dirty words. But now that Airbnb is highlighting her review as the first and only one from the group of Lowest review, every user will read it, and they will certainly doubt about staying with me. In fact, I was having healthy bookings until this feature was released.

I´m so worried about this feature and I don´t understand how Airbnb could think this is good. By sure not for hosts, but how it could be would for guests. A review left years ago is totally DATED and the ones under the group from 1 to 3 stars came from the most retaliatory guests. I know she was a bad guest but the user interested in staying with me don't, so when he reads her comment, he will doubt about staying with me. Her review is DATED.

I have check how this new feature might work in other listings and I find a lot of them under my same situation. Superhosts with a lot of amazing listings paired with just one or two terrible reviews from the most retaliatory guests highlighted under the Lowest review group for a quick access to the user that is interested in reading the worst of our listings. How could this be a good thing?

[Annette33]

@Jp13, It isn't that the damaging review you have is the lowest featured, it is simply the last one you have received.

The best you can do to counteract that is being a great host and having a great place at good pricing, all of which gets reflected in your reviews. It is a competitive market out there and guests have lots of choices. So yes, your considerable markdowns for communication and cleanliness are not working in your favor either.

So sorry about the encounter with your last guest, but perhaps you overreacted a bit when you charged him $289.00 for the key incident. His review isn't actually all bad, basically he was complimentary, but the issue with the keys is indeed very damaging. Here you characterize the guest as horrible, yet in your review of him, you  say: "Vincent was very polite and respectful".  So honestly, putting the two together, I tend to go with the guest's assessment of the described situation.

I also don't see how it is possible to "have to turn away most of my requests because I had too many" : as soon as you have a request coming in, Airbnb considers it pending, it gets marked in gray on your calendar, not available to other potential guests right then until you accept or decline, and then immediately upon acceptance the calendar gets blocked out for those dates. So how can you have too many all at one time? Not possible.

What is done is done. Best for you is to go forward and make your listing and hosting the best it can be. Eventually that key issue will disappear among other reviews, but you still gotta work on bringing up your star ratings. Good luck!

[Jp13]

In hindsight I should have been more honest in the guests's review, charged a deposit, and done a shorter stay. That being said I don't know how to make things better as a host if I'm not able to attract guests due to the last review even if the previous reviews were good.  So  That's not particularly helpful feedback. 

The weird political situation is that he also became my neighbor.  He made disparaging remarks about the area and then chose to stay there. The house had five locks that needed to be replaced that was why the replacement fee was so high. I only quoted what the locksmith gave to me. The guest lied about the keys and didn't tell us till he moved out so it was actually a scary situation because the security of the house was compromised. 

[Vali1]

Wondering how things are going now. I've had the same problem. I see my settings are mysteriously reverted to no bookings same day after 6 AM. checkout time is 12 AM.  Then the calendar tab settings about ck in and out tng in place either. 

[Regina38]

I do not like this at all. My apaprtments are in a hundred year old house. They are not handicapp accessible and I let people know this. I got a bad review from a woman who said she had problems with her knees needed a place to stay for her and her son. she was having trouble finding a place because he was autistic and she needed private apt. I let her come over after booking to look so her son would not be anxious and she could acertain it would work for her. I showed her around told her to sit on furniture and bed make sure she could o the 4 steps up to the porch. Told her she could cancel if she did not think it would work. She gave me 3 stars and stated that even though apt was on first floor it wasnt handicapp accesible. I checked on her adult son in the morning to make sure e made his bus and one day sat on porch because bus was late. She never complained until she left review. She even said there were no kitchen towels. They were right in the drawer where I showed her both when she visited and when she checked in. She gave me 3 stars. I have another lady that has stayed 3 times and each time gave me 3 stars. First time she said couch cushions were uncomfortable. I went and got new ones. I couldnt see that she was giving 3 stars and she is my neighbors mother. After the 3rd time when airbnb made their stars visible I called her and asked her why. she said the couch was too low and she had trouble getting up from it. I explained that this was my business and if she could not give a good star review to please find somewhere else to stay in future. she said we love your place???? I said one more chance. if she gives bad review I will not rent to her again. she can stay 20 minutes from her grandchild instead of next door. so now all these nasty picky peoples reviews will be highlighted? that is ridiculous. I also have a review where the people said they smelled cig smoke but did not complain to me except in review. I had long term tenant and girlfirend was smoking in apartment against rules. I gave him notice and made that apt airbnb so that is addressed. and that will come up too.

[Vincent137]

I'm a French host.... on Airbnb for now at least 2 years, with a lot of excellent comments and consequently a good rating.

Early April this year, we had an unpleasant argument with guests who, in our opinion, left the house in such a poor state that we took pictures, sent them to Airbnb together with our claim, as we wanted to deduct a compensation from the deposit refund.

The guest contested and, as I did not want to start a true dispute, I gave up and let go....

The thing is that I then received a "menace" from AIRBNB, saying that they may suspend our listing (if...if...). I tried on the page dedicated to comments to click on the latest msg from these guests, who were unfair enough to pretend that bedding was not adequate... (only because they did not understand that it was intently, because of the exceptional warm weather, that we had not put the duvets into the quilt covers, so that they could use the latter as sheer bedsheets). But, for some unknown reason, it's impossible to get through on the page at the moment, we get a mention ""Shoot, it seems that the link is not working, Airbnb is busily working at restoring it, etc...).

I'm really angry at Airbnb's attitude, which I find entirely in favour of guests and very quick in penalizing hosts.... Although we, the hosts, are the ones who enable Airbnb to do their profit !!!

I would be happy to have other hosts' opinion,

Elisabeth

[Rachel-And-Omar-Marius0]

This feature needs to removed asap or I'll be forced to move my business to HomeAway or FlipKey.

I had one very negative review from a prima donna guest 3 years ago, out of 200 total reviews, and now that old, terrible review is displayed front and center and scaring potential guests away.

This new feature has already had an immediate negative impact on my bookings compared to the past several years.

Hosts aren't happy airbnb, DO SOMETHING before you lose us!

I agree with giving guests multiple options to filter or sort reviews, but not like this where the Lowest Reviews are prominently showcased.

[Annette33]

@Rachel-And-Omar-Marius0 , When I went to your listing, I see 76 reviews, not 200. and 99 reviews when I click on "other reviews". In both cases I only see the chronological sequence , not highest/lowest review, or the worst review being prominently showcased.

So I don't believe your bookings are suffering because of this feature: it can apparently be seen by you,  but not by  potential guests coming to your page.

You are not talking to Airbnb here, but to other hosts who are just trying to be helpful to eachother.

[Vali1]

I've gone to the trouble of de listing that listing that the bad review was left on and creating another listing. It's outrageous ppl make up lies because you don't kiss their *Bliep*