What is AirReview? We will get into that in a bit. First let’s discuss the importance of positive Airbnb reviews.
Good reviews for Airbnb listings are one of the most significant elements of the hosts’ success. Even if you have a fantastic listing, your prospective guests will check your Airbnb reviews before making the final decision.
It is important to note, positive reviews for Airbnb listings increase occupancy rates. The better the rating, the more convinced users become that your listing stands above the rest. Additionally, reviews for Airbnb help to generate traffic and increase the listings’ rank on the site. Hence, knowing good Airbnb reviews are crucial, you would want to ensure that you have everything to guarantee positive reviews from your guests.
How to get Great Reviews
Firstly, you should know the Airbnb review policy thoroughly. What do Airbnb review for guests and Airbnb review for host mean? How do they work? Receiving positive reviews may appear easy, but there is more too it. Simply offering smooth and spotless service from beginning to end may not always cut it. Whenever possible, hosts should take all precautions one as access to.
Secondly, whenever possible, it is advised you learn about your potential guests. Otherwise, you are leaving it up to chance that your place is the right fit for them. In this article, we’ll discuss advanced methods of screening your guests before they arrive. Furthermore, we will dive into a fantastic tool called AirReview that allows you to identify bad guests before they check-in. We will find out what AirReview actually is and how to use it to your benefit.
If you want to avoid bad reviews and improve your reviews as a host, read on! We’ll be digging into the topic below.
What Is AirReview?
Most Airbnb hosts use the Airbnb platform to find out about their prospective guests before accepting their bookings. This review system shows you Airbnb reviews for guests given by their former hosts. Indeed, other hosts’ Airbnb reviews for guests are extremely valuable insights that shouldn’t be ignored.
However, as a host, you are not only interested in what other hosts think about your potential guest, but you are also concerned about how the guest has reviewed their former hosts.
The review system on the Airbnb platform does not allow you to see the guests’ reviews for Airbnb stays. When only utilizing the platform, hosts may only view the reviews that were left on guest’s profiles.
AirReview is a handy tool that takes things a step further. It allows you to see your potential guests’ reviews they have left for other hosts. Hosts may download this tool as an extension to the Chrome or Firefox browser.
Why Should I Use AirReview?
We mentioned how positive reviews affect your listing. As Airbnb good reviews make your place desirable among guests, Airbnb bad reviews will naturally do the opposite. Therefore, avoiding getting negative reviews are as important as increasing positive reviews on your profile.
But first, we need to clarify that avoiding negative reviews doesn’t mean avoiding critics. A good host should always be open to constructive criticism from their guests. However, we also need to accept that some Airbnb bad reviews are unavoidable. Moreover, considering Airbnb review policy doesn’t allow hosts to delete negative reviews, it is important to avoid negative reviews whenever possible.
Let’s check out how AirReview benefits hosts.
Identify Hard to Please Airbnb Guests
The reviews guests give hosts are considered one of the best ways learn about your potential guests. As an Airbnb host, you welcome guests from all walks of life into your home. These guests have different priorities and needs when it comes to a listing.
When you use AirReview, you can see the reviews that these potential guests have left for prior hosts. This can be extremely eye-opening. Remember, guests and hosts are unable to view each other’s reviews until after two weeks has passed or until after both parties have completed their reviews. You can read more about this here “The Airbnb Review Process Explained“.
Using AirReview, you can see exactly what they had to say about their previous listing and if they mentioned. Any trash talking or complaints will be visible for you. If there are any personal attacks left on the review, I would highly suggest looking into your cancellation options. As spoken about in “The Ins and Outs of Airbnb Cancellation Policies“, cancellations are highly frowned upon. However, some situations exist where as a host it is perfectly okay to cancel.
Harsh complaints about the property or the host should be seen as a red flag. There may be situations in which negative reviews are warranted. However, disrespectful language on a public platform should scream caution to you as the upcoming host.
Discover Guest Preferences – In Advance
Not all potentially dangerous reviews will be as obvious as the trash talking mentioned above. Some guests will simply be more particular than others. You can also gauge this when looking at reviews.
Let’s think about a situation that guests who particularly want to have elevator access and your place doesn’t have it. If the guests book your place, there is no way to keep them content unless installing an elevator in your building. As we all know, the solution wouldn’t be possible, and your guests inevitably have an unpleasant stay. This is a clear mismatch situation. It is not your fault that a guest chose to book your place knowing an elevator was important to them.
Unfortunately, this could come out when it is time for reviews. Remember, every guest has the opportunity to review your listing after they have stayed in your home. Read more here to learn all about the review process.
It could either be the guests who didn’t realize that you don’t have an elevator in the building or you who didn’t specify it. On the other hand, there is no way for you to see this specific preference that your potential guests have on the Airbnb review system, where you can only see the reviews written by their former hosts. However, if you use AirReview, you are more likely to see what makes your potential guests happy, unhappy, comfortable, or uncomfortable during any of their former stays.
AirReview at Work
Let’s stay with the above scenario. Now let’s change it slightly and use AirReview to check your upcoming guests. The AirReview tool shows that these guests left verbiage regarding a previous stay complaining about the lack of an elevator. If your listing is on an upper floor, but does not have an elevator there could potentially be some problems up ahead.
Seeing this review you could choose to communicate with guest and simply remind them of the amenities or lack thereof. Going over house rules and any other pertinent information before their stay begins is always advised. If your guest had any unrealistic expectations, this additional communication should clear things up.
If your guests are not happy with it, this opens the discussion to come up with an agreed upon solution. If this leads to a cancellation, this will actually save you from getting a bad review. And you’ll benefit from this in the long term.
4 Simple Steps when Using AirReview
- Make sure that you read the reviews of guests and the reviews of hosts objectively. When you see a negative review from your potential guest about a host, try to strip yourself of your host role for a minute and understand both sides.
- Don’t ignore the positive reviews left by your potential guest left. Use them as an opportunity to see if there is any small touch you can add to make your place more homey. This will encourage a positive review.
- Always remember that a bad review is going to pop up from time to time. You don’t need to immediately decide to avoid guests who left bad reviews for their former hosts. However, try to dig a bit deeper. When you see that your potential guests complained about a lack of facility or utensils in the Airbnb, first go and check the mentioned Airbnb listing. This will help you to understand if the guest is complaining for a reason or not.
- Keep in mind that serial negative reviewers also exist on Airbnb as in every platform. Therefore, please do your research to make sure that your potential guests are not among them.
Main Takeaways
As a host, it is your duty to protect your property and your reputation. Using a tool such as AirReview can allow you to explore your upcoming guests. This helps to increase the likelihood of a positive stay and positive reviews.
AirReview helps you to identify some of the bad guests before they check-in.