What’s the process for guest reviews?
Hello!
We know that guest reviews are a particularly important topic to you.
To try and help you navigate this process, we’ve highlighted some of the key points in how they work.
All guests who stay at your property can leave a review.
After their stay, guests will receive an email asking to rate individual elements of their stay and provide an overall score out of 10.
The overall score counts towards your Guest Review Score.
After at least one guest has reviewed their stay at your property, you’ll receive your Guest Review Score. These scores are averaged out to reach the score shown on your property listing.
We consider an average of your scores over the past three years (to take into account the lower number of reviews received during COVID).
The individual elements are scored using a smiley-face system.
Ranging from poor to excellent, guests are asked to rate specific aspects of their stay including staff, location, facilities and cleanliness. Guests can also leave a comment where they can explain why they enjoyed their stay or why it didn’t meet their expectations.
Want more information on guest reviews? You can read more here. Don’t forget to leave us your feedback, comments or tips below.
You forgot to say:
"Guests can post anything they like, whether true or not"
"Guests can post abusive comments, including racist, sexist, and all sorts of other 'ist' comments"
"Guests can post reviews without comments, leaving hosts/partners without the ability to respond"
"Guests can attempt blackmail by threatening a bad review unless they get money"
"Booking.com have no interest in supporting hosts/partners or in making the review system fair"
We agree totally, Its really a harassment, even guests who have breached Hotel rules are given the option of rating , this is very very frustrating, and no support from Booking.com what so ever. Our future bookings are penalized due to misbehaved guests even when we have taken every step to make them happy.
Agreed 100% hotel partners have absolutely no recourse at all.
This, plain and simple.
100%
Hi Evana and thanks for posting!
I believe that many guests are not familiar with the process of the review system and they get confused…
Many partners also have complained that guests that have booked for someone else leave reviews although they haven’t stayed in the property…
I personally try to inform my guests how important it is for both parties to leave a review…some they don’t care or they don’t have time!!!
Very difficult to be responsible!!!
100% agree with Isle of Wight …!!!
Booking.com have no interest in supporting hosts/partners in general, not only regarding reviews!
Exactly guests can write just anything! Nobody cares!
After all with current review system small hotels with limited facilities have no chance to have a good score! But again who cares!
Unfortunately there is no alternative platform to work with! Hopefully this will change one day and everybody will forget booking.com!!!
I really hope we get another platform aside booking.com, they just dont care about partners, double charging for commission and refusing to payback
It's true though... Booking.com has no interest to provide its accommodation partner a fair and useful feature. Not only about their guest review system that is unfair, but pushing properties to accept pay-at-property for the guest that has high risk of fraud and scam. They won't listen the accommodation. They won't care whether their accommodation partner are struggling because of their broken and unfair system. What they care is to collect as much as customer and has no interest on listening accommodation concerns
We just do not accept pay-at-property, we have a policy for deposit payment and we charge the Card accordingly, if the card is not authorised or not good for payment we mark the card as invalid and guest has 24hrs to update card, if they don`t within 24 hrs we then have the option to cancel the booking ourselves. But sometimes they do update credit card details and sometimes the same thing happens and this can be repetitive. Booking.com does nothing to stop this even after 3-4 updates of new credit card details which are still not authorised.
Sadly some countries ban charging credit cards without the card present - we are in such a country. This leaves us vulnerable as we aren't able to charge deposits or when there is a last minute cancellation or no-show. In our country, BdC forces us to include pay-at-property :(
There are many alternatives to BDC!
Expedia for example, are now our top performing OTA and BDC is the lowest.
Expedia react to and fix problems. BDC do not.
Others will suggest AirBnB, depending on your property style.
AFAWAC BDC is a has been.
Expedias standard commission is way too much !
Hi fluff and thanks for sharing your experience…
BDC has to provide better service…
Wish you a nice weekend…
Fluff
It depends on the region. For the hotels BDC is the only one. Ezpedia and any others are useless. Bdc has 95% of bookings. Airbnb is good for apartments. So we have no choice.
@Gd Dolidze
Two of our properties are hotels and BDC simply does not figure in the supply of guests. BDC used to be top dog but were already waning before Covid. Now they are insignificant, for us at least and many that we talk to. BDC has lost consumer confidence, earned the mistrust and derision of many properties and is facing a wave of social media exposure of their poor practices and attitude, along with some upcoming legal actions.
In contrast Expedia have really taken up the slack, pretty much where BDC were 4 years ago. They are also easily contactable and do sort problems out. Obviously I can only speak for our properties and those we have discussed the matter with.
@Evana Ghidinelli
In booking policy As @Didem - Community Manager wrotte:
'Keep in mind that if a guest arrives at your property, then decides to leave and then leaves a review, we won’t remove their review provided it’s relevant to their experience at the property and the reason they decided not to stay'
I had a guest who left review and was marked as non show since the same never arrived and did not even provide proof of stayment. Now your team is sending me answers that review does not include Swear words, sexual references, hate speech, discriminatory remarks, threats, etc... what is not the real problem, but scoring property facilitis, staff, location where non show guest never entered.
Second
We believe the guest is using the review to attempt to blackmail the property (we need written evidence in order to remove a review for this reason)
You need written evidence?!! What are you? FBI?!! We had burglar (guest who canceled reservation)who picklocked in our apartment and was arrested by police! We sent even scan of police record and believe or not that lunatic wrotte review and its still online!
Since you changed the Review process for guests to leave reviews, my Score has decreased and, most importantly, when I ask guests why they scored how they did (to get further feedback about how to improve), 9 out of 10 of them are surprised the overall score is what it is! The use of the smiley system brings down the quality of the scoring as guests will very seldom score the happiest face as an overall 'score'. They've even admitted this. I am keeping examples of scores and guest reactions to their scores so that I can share these with you. Also, I FREQUENTLY have 10 out of 10 in all areas but can receive an 8 or 9 out of 10 for an overall score. The new review system is failing and is very disappointing for many owners.
I completely agree with Melany as I have the same experience. The new review system is very disappointing for owners.
Sandra
Agreed 100%
Dears I still would need to understand how I can receive feedback on my WiFi from guest's reviews...Has guest to answer to every question of a standard review or can he skip the question he doesn't want to complete?
Thanks
The rating system is very broad spectrum. When guests rate bed comfort and cleanliness or other it is difficult to identify why there is a score less than 10 if we are providing excellence in cleanliness and bedding etc. A more identifiable descriptive would be of great assistance. It may be that gardens need attending to and this has reduced rating or cleanliness may be rated according to the standard of a product ie: whether an older or new microwave etc as so much of it is open to interpretation when we are being rated by the guest, and in turn we have to try and interpret their reasoning. It is impractical to be able to contact every guest after every stay to further identify and improve the rating based on this system. I also do not understand how they can have an enjoyable stay and then have a sad stay but comment nothing to complain about. This is totally contradictory.
I thank you for yout reply; I agree. My post was only in order to understand why it's not always mentioned WiFi in my guest's reviews. Isn't it a mandatory field to fill-in into each review? Thanks again
Guests always use the review system as a weapon against the properties, especially in case of cancelation fees or no-show fees. it is not fair to let the guest make reviews when they even did not come to the place.
Sometimes guests want to get a bonus from bookin.com and they try to ignore the question and the select first option which is the lowest point.
The guest only complete the review for because of the discount.
The review system is not fair at all.
Hi!
Very hard to please guests!!!
Surely, guests that don’t stay in property shouldn’t be allowed to leave a review…
Wish everyone a nice day!!!
AGAIN TOPIC BELIEVE OR NOT
Proof review 3199654494 and 2748733223
Property Id 6234445
1. After being removed 3 times, booking again let back review of burglar who illegaly entered in our property and who canceled reservation before his arrest!
2. Non show guest who never arrived neither in our CITY nor apartment, left review because of rule that non show guest can leave review, BUT booking asked him/her for and proof of her/his stay or even arrival in apartment, what guest did not provide and review its still online!!! SO,
@Tarundeep Singh @Evana Ghidinelli
Arent you feeling a bit sorry or even ashamed that there are colleagues who dont care about their partners (us) who are paying their salaries via commissions we pay?!
Booking.com review process helps no one. Guests must be required to explain their scores on each category, so the host knows what they need to improve. Hosts should be able to reply to all reviews not only the ones with comments. This will be a good start.
Guests that break the house rules or don't show up shouldn't be allowed to leave a review. These disreputable people cannot be trusted to leave a truthful review.
Hi Marcos how does BDC know if a guest arrived at your property or if it's a no show. Because if you forget to mark a guest as a no show you are charged commission and guest can write a review but as far as I know every no show guest that I've had hasn't left me a reply so I'm guessing if you mark them as no show they aren't able to write a review. Beside I don't ask for credit card to make a booking so I always waive the no show fee.
Mark as no show, charge guest: pay commission & can get review
Mark as no show, don't charge guest: don't pay commission & can't get review.
Very well said!
We have set an automatic reply telling the property location, condition, facilities etc and if guests still keeping their booking, it means they agreed and fully understand the situation. However in reality, it's not. Our property located in a midst of tropical jungle and guest could write a bad review telling that there's a mosquitoes, insects, ants, critters etc.... OH COME ON. It's like you're complaining about a very cold weather in antartica or south pole. The review system is fairly illogical for us. Guest who disagree and break the house rule or check-out before the date musn't be able to write any review. And yeah, as a property we should have right to review the guest as well to make other property cautious because lot of guests are abusing their customer power during this day by keep simply telling "i WiLl wRiTe a BaD r3Vi3ew"
To improve current review system which is terrible these changes must be done (pls add/comment).
1. No stay - no review
2. Guest review should be added
3. Total score for the review = average of the sum of the several categories. Only figures, no smiles, bananas, stars or sausages.
Ex.
Cleanleness 10
Staff 9
Comfort 10
Accuracy 10
Overall experience 9
So average is 9.6 and this should be the total score.
I'd like to mention categories like amenities, facilities, value and probably location. My opinion is the shouldnt be in a list:
Amenities and facilities - usually guests are giving a bad score for the lack of ones. However they are not liste/offered. If a budget hotel offers b&b without a SPA and it is good, why should a guest give it a bad score for not having one? He chose this hotel himself. He knew there is no SPA. He paid less for not having SPA! Or very often there are low scores for the room size. It is mentioned in the room description. If it is 15 sqm it cant be less or more when guest checks in! Guest knew the room size during booking process. Why disappointed? Expected the room to grow in size? And yes there are mosquitos in the jungle! If description is not accurate then theres is accuracy score!
Location - almost same here. Nowadays it is not complicated to find out some details about a place you are booking. District, neighborhood, distance from certain points etc. This scire is useless, because the only way to get a high score is if hotel is situated on the main square of the city! But even in this case it maybe too loud or there is another square with a better fountain! Again guest knows the location before he books. He pays corresponding fare for the location. Location differs from the description - you have accuracy score!
Value - this is most sensitive and mostly emotional score. It is like comparing children. Mine is always better. So my money which I earned so hard is always better than what you give me for them. Most people are unintentionally unfair innthis case. Overall experience score would make the job better.
Besides, there could be additional categories which can be added automatically if facility or service exists. Such as meal, gym, spa etc. And the can be included in the total score calculation.
For the hotel overal score I would recommend not to use just average of every score for past two years, but exclude top 5% and bottom 5%. This will be real average score.
4. Change the policy for deletion. Just no to be absurd like it is now.
But! We all now we are only wasting our time. Nobody cares!
l couldn't agree more
3. Total score for the review = average of the sum of the several categories. Only figures, no smiles, bananas, stars or sausages.
1. No stay - no review
2. Guest review should be added
Yesterday I wrote a fine example on this forum of how bad guest who are removed from properties then go ahead and write the most disgusting reviews just to get back at the property owner. 6 hours later i get an e-mail from Booking.com telling me my post as been removed.If only booking.com were as prompt at removing vindictive untrueful reviews.
This Booking.com Partner Hub is a setting for hosts to vent their frustration. It doesn’t mean Booking.com has any intentions of fixing or listening to what host have to say. They control all the strings, and they side with guests because that’s who pays them. Hosts opinions don’t count as much. It is the same way in Airbnb.
All your design flourishes are useless because of the review system!
It's broken!
• «Location» should be completely eliminated! You saw the location at the time of booking – and the hotel remains there. If the address was correct – you have nothing to complain about.
• «Facilities» should be eliminated: you saw the list of facilities, you saw a zillion photos – and chose it. There are even search marks! If you need some special facility – just mark it during search!
• «Value for money» should be eliminated: you saw the location, the rooms and the price. You saw other hotels prices and chose this one. If it's too expensive for you – stay home!
• «Comfort»... What does it mean at all? How are you supposed to rate it? «I was comfortable for 73%»???
• Do not allow reviews after 2 weeks. They can't remember the actual hotel and leave meaningless reviews! I had reviews that are for 4 months old stay!!! How can they remember what was there 4 months ago???
• Filter out the reviews that are ±2 of the average! If a 100 people think that «location is great», but 1 er... let's call him «JustEqualResponseKlient» leaves «1»... – that means he is wrong!
Personally, I've lost at least 0.5 score due to that «new review system»! All the hard work ruined!
You ask us to provide better service, but give us lower scores...
• Let us rate guests and leave comments to each other! It's vital to know who is coming!
•• «This guest have booked another hotel for the same dates» = «charge their card NOW!»
•• «This guest was marked as «no show» 3 times over the last year» = «charge the card or sell the room to a walk-in guest while it's possible»
•• «This guest was marked for misbehaving 5 times over the last 3 years» – warn security!
•• «This guest leaves an average review of 10». Thank you!
•• «This guest leaves an average review of 5» = «It's better to get rid of him at the first possibility»
•• «This guest's rating is 3.8»... H'm... What have you done to get such rating?
•• «Likes to drink large latte macchiato with an ice cube and a drop of cognac; and leaves generous tips» – thank you, fellow hotelier!
•• «Drunk driver»... H'm...
•• «Wheelchair» – really! I had guests who «forgot» to mention it during booking! My hotel is totally wheelchair accessible, but I have no bathrooms for wheelchairs. If you have a problem and know it – ask the hotel if it's suitable for your special needs!
•• «Brings his dog/child to a pet/child-free hotel»
•• «Sleep-walker» = warn security!
•• «Tried to sneak 2 more people to the room» – my real situation last month!
•• «Don't talk about politics!» (or he will not stop until morning)
•• «Tried to exact a free dinner or leave bad review»
This rating and comments will be seen only by hotels – not guests!
They can rate us anonymously and we can't reply! That's unfair!
And the most important thing – finally switch to the hotel's side! WE pay your salaries, not guests! There are much fewer hotels than tourists!
It's only a matter of time when an OTA which listens to hotels will emerge...
P.S.: Yesterday, 14.10.2022, I got a meaningless response for my question dated 12.09.2022!!!
«Perfect» customer service, Booking! It took you just over a month to copy-paste an untailored response!
Brilliant, i also wonder why Booking.com do not cut our commission and start charging guest for using its platform but then remembered they would have no business.Booking.com please start listening to your so called partners we the people that create so much wealth for you.
l agree comfort is subjective, like beauty is
Do not allow reviews after 2 weeks !
Filter out the reviews that are ±2 of the average!
Rating guests is important that insures the guest also do their best not only the hosts.
BDC are what I call the 'Necessary Evil'.
The review system is so completely unfair, by way of the fact that it takes 1 - 2 low score comments to remove a point from you, and an inordinate amount of positive reviews to increase it.
Bang out of order.
BDC have to remember that you can't please all of the people - all of the time. Often, it is not the fault of the service provider for a nit-picky negative review. It could be something as simple as a traffic jam on the M6.
It's about time that the whole process should be reviewed. And maybe, like eBay, offer any guest who wishes to leave a poor review, an opportunity to sort this with the provider BEFORE being allowed to post, so that an amicable solution can be reached.
The review scheme was modified away from the average some time back, and that was simply a mistake.
Its makes no sense for a guests to score areas on a scale of 10 out of 10, and then a final score out of 10 which can often have no bearing what so ever on their initial scoring...
Yesterday for example we received a 7 (good), that guest scored us 10/10 in 4 areas, and 7.5 in the remaining 2 area.... the average then is 9.16, but we get a 7??? Where is the logic in that???
The answer is, there is no sound logic...
When I went to school , and took exams, you answered questions, dependant upon the the quality of your answers, you then received a grade...I.e they added up your correct answers, or subtracted your wrong answers (same thing really)...what they didn't do was give the person marking your exam the opportunity to score you down (or up) based on anything apart from LOGIC.
Im not the 1st person here saying this, plenty more above me, the current review system is totally flawed.
If I was doing this, I would revert to the old averages system, plus I would add the following :
Reviews cannot be submitted later than one month after a stay
No stay = no review
No comments = provider can still comment
The individual aspects of the stay are evaluated using an emoji system ......l would like to adres this.
I think if guests rate you with emojis, the emoji should show up on the hosts website. Otherwise they should rate cleanliness, staff etc. also choosing a rating system from 1 to 10. I spoke to a guest and they didn't know that the rating goes down by 20% with each emoji face they give.
While they think they give you a 4 out of 5 which is good, it shows up on your page as a fairly low rating (7.5) a rating that the guests never INTENDED to give.
It is confusing for us all and it's not fair. I hope we can see on our host profiles exactly what guests rate emojis should show emojis and 1 to 10 should show 1 to 10.
It is very sad when you do your best and get these kinds of confusing ratings that bring down all your hard work. l personally feel ill when that happens knowing how hard i try!
It could influence the host in rethinking using booking as partner. thank you l hope this will be addressed!
I think all this could easily be solved by removing the lowest and highest 5% of all review scores of every property to eliminate outliers and false/fraudulent reviews and get a true picture of the establishment. Booking.com would save staff time on their end by not having to deal with our complaints ref vindictive guests trying to rig the system.
Dear All,
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback about the guest reviews process. We understand your concerns and forwarding your suggestions to our product team.
At the same time, I'd like to mention that @Evana Ghidinelli is an employee of Booking.com who is just sharing information hoping that it might help you. She's not involved in the creation of our company policies on this topic. So, I'd like to invite everyone to be mindful while addressing her in comments please.
I appreciate your collaboration. Thank you!
And after all this feedback, 6 months later nothing has changed. No-show guests can still leave a negative review, guests can lie and threaten hotels and Booking will always side with the guest.
Maybe if you make your policies more strict you will have no-shows.
Just an idea!!!
Location - why can guests mark a property down due to Location? We are on a map, so they know where they are booking! It’s not our fault our property was built where it is, which is truly beautiful. But often we get 7.5!!! This then brings our average down. Please explain.
Hi Daniielle and welcome to the Partner Community!!!
Unfortunately, nobody in booking.com can explain this.
Many partners gave exactly the same problem including me.
Wish you a nice afternoon.
I had a guest 2 nights ago, that actually screamed at me because she couldn't open my door with her key. (There was nothing wrong with her key). It scared my son so much he burst into tears. l have marked this person for misconduct and banned them both from EVER staying at my home. But Booking.com after all this will still allow them to leave a review:(
Unfortunately guests sometimes are very demanding and write unfair reviews.