Reviews and Becoming a Super Host
How the Airbnb Rating Works
After each stay, both the guest and hosts are able to leave ratings and reviews on their experience within 14 days of the checkout. In order to encourage transparency and fairness, the reviews are only posted once both parties have provided feedback or when the 14-day period is over. Both also have the option to share private comments as well.
Your average rating will appear on your listing after 3 reviews.
The guests can provide ratings on:
- Overall experience
- Cleanliness
- Accuracy
- Value
- Communication
- Check-in
- Location
- Amenities
The star rating that appears for each listing on the search page is the aggregate overall experience rating. On the listing page, browsers will be able to see the aggregate score for each category as well as the written reviews from the past guests.
How Rating Affects Your Hosting Status
According to the survey, 94% of consumers will avoid dealing with a business with bad reviews. People don’t trust businesses with lower than 4-star ratings. So listings with lower ratings will have to compromise seriously on the price to attract bookings. Consistently low ratings could result in temporary or permanent suspension.
If you have multiple listings, your individual listings are not affected by reviews or ratings of others. However, guests can go to your host profile and see the ratings of your other listings if they were to do some due diligence. Thus, it is critical that you get positive ratings across all listings for long-term success.
High ratings can earn you a superhost status. Airdna’s study shows that becoming a superhost leads to 81% uptick in occupancy rate and 60% increase in daily earnings. It gives you more leverage and flexibility in determining the price of the listing. To become a superhost, you must have:
- 4.8 or higher overall rating
- Minimum 10 stays in the past year or 100 nights over at least 3 completed stays
- Less than 1% cancellation rate
- 90% response rate (within 24 hours)
The trajectory of your success as the host will vary greatly depending on your ratings. Airbnb assesses the eligibility of superhost candidates every 3 months. There are other programmes such as Airbnb Plus and Airbnb Luxe that could give you a leg up.
What It Takes to Get a 5-Star Rating
Getting a good rating starts with setting clear expectations with the guests. Even if you are renting out your couch in a small studio, guests will leave pleasant comments and high ratings if their expectations have been properly managed from before they book. Create a good listing description with photos and writings to clearly explain what the guests will get and what they won’t.
There shouldn’t be a huge discrepancy between what you offer (and how the guests perceive as the value offered) and the asking price. Nothing sours the guest experience faster than feeling as though they’ve overpaid. So carefully consider your pricing strategy.
The rating categories are actually the areas that guests care the most about such as cleanliness, amenities, and ease of coordination with the host (especially for check-in and check-out). Housekeeping and guest communication are arguably the most important aspects and can be extremely time-consuming. In order to scale and achieve efficiency, many hosts will employ a property manager to handle them.
Small gestures can go a long way. A booklet with pictorial instructions on how to use the appliances or gadgets, some free snacks upon check-in, and a list of recommendations for hot restaurants in the area are all powerful (yet easy to set up) ways to leave a positive impression on your guests.
Disputing Bad Ratings and Reviews
The only way to remove Airbnb reviews is by reaching out to Airbnb resolution centre and reporting the reviews for violating their content policy. Some of the most common ways a review gets removed are:
- Guest is blackmailing the host to provide some benefits by threatening a bad review
- Review contains the exact address of the listing
- Review from a guest that booked but never stayed
- Guest mentions a resolution centre case or requests for a refund
- Review contains provable lies
For your own protection, keep all communication with your guests on the Airbnb platform. It also helps if your house rules and listing descriptions are detailed and explicit so that it’s harder for guests to justify their dissatisfaction and complaints.
If the review cannot be removed, the host has the option to respond publicly to the bad review. Remain calm and non-confrontational in your response. It’s best if you immediately point out why they should’ve known or what you’ve done to help them with their situation at the top of your response so other guests can see it while scrolling fast. The key is to make sure your future guests will dismiss the one bad review as a one-off incident with an unreasonable guest.
Other helpful tips for hosts:
