Giving Not-Perfect Feedback for HO?

@mars The link you give is a very misleading quote. Genuine reviewers don’t give bad reviews all the time - only when they feel they are necessary. I have given a couple of one star reviews in my time but if any future host checked my profile they will see that these are mixed within mostly 5 stars.

If someone is always giving only bad reviews that say more about the person giving the review than the person receiving it.

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Hi @mars I’d have thought that the only homeowners who wouldn’t let you stay if they see you leave negative reviews, assuming you write constructively and fairly, would be the ones with something to be scared about, that you wouldn’t want to stay in anyway!

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As an Airbnb host I disagree. I get some good, some bad and some indifferent reviews. I also review my guests honestly.
It is important for an Airbnb to take aboard the guests comments and try to rectify any highlighted problems. Also to acknowledge good reviews in a reply. Guests have highlighted a problem in our apartment and we are trying very hard to fix it but we need the cooperation of the owners of the apartments surrounding us. I keep them informed as we rely on second visits and word of mouth recommendations.

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lixie.pad, I do try to give feedback in a way that doesn’t draw retribution, but I mostly do it by leaving stuff out. For instance, if I don’t say “Recommended sit” and/or “I’d happily sit again,” then that means I do not. If I don’t say clean, it wasn’t clean. If I don’t say uncluttered, it was messy. If I don’t mention a dedicated guest bedroom, there wasn’t one. If I don’t say the homeowner provided clear instructions, good communication, and had reasonable expectations, they didn’t. And when I read other sitters’ reviews, I’m looking for that – for instance, I’ll look at a sitter’s review. If she doesn’t say those things, I go check her other reviews to see if she DOES say them for other sits. If she mentions clean, uncluttered, comfortable and says “Highly recommended sit” or something on one sit, but on the one I’m considering she only talks about how sweet the animals are? Major red flag for me. That sitter is telling me the house or homeowner expectations were a problem in some way.

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I’ve never mentioned having had a dedicated bedroom. Isn’t that the default? I would for sure mention that I had to sleep on the couch. But it hasn’t crossed my mind to always mention that I had a bedroom (a guest one, or the host’s if there was only one).

This, I do find a very useful tactic - checking the review patterns of sitters and seeing what was left out. Sad though that we have to put in so much effort to ferret out the truth.

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And now with the race for ‘The 5’ there doesn’t seem to be much time to ponder whether to apply or not…

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That helped so much, thank you!as an neurosiverse peraon it’s sometimes hard to read
between the lines.bit I will adapt to this style of writing . We were at such a friendly family with toddler and baby so I understood kind of that the fridge, bathroom and corners were, Ehm. Not minded. 'place was cleaner when we came back than when we left it " is kind of an interesting expression, too😱. Whoa much too research