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Reply's to reviews
I would like an opinion on our reply to reviews on our properties.I understand the guilds given.
if a guest has published a review and out reply is not accepted but there is no other to make it more pleasant, it means that often the truth of the matter at hand is never published.
A recent guest complained about things that were just not true and my reply was not accepted.
I am not sure why the guest gets given preference especially since we are paying the commission?
Obviously it cannot be rude, but surely the truth counts?
It seems as if the guests can do no wrong, and we all know that this is not always the case.
I feel we should be able to voice our side as well.
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We are an agency and we manage a lot of holiday homes. This means we get a LOT of bookings across multiple platforms and we also get a LOT of reviews. We don't have the time to reply to every review, so we don't normally reply to any.
Because we manage so many properties, we see much more of everything - the good, the bad and the ugly - than most property owners. And that includes good guests and bad guests, and good reviews and bad reviews.
We understand that people are different. 10 people can love your property, love the service you give, but there is always 1 guests who for some reason, is unhappy. Maybe everything was perfect, but they had a bad day. Who knows.
If we get a bad review, which does happen sometimes, we don't worry about it - there will be another booking next week and another the week after and another the week after that. The bad review will soon be buried.
Not many people look at reviews before they book. You can prove this yourself. Find the worst ranked property in your area, check the review scores - even with reviews of <5, they still get bookings.
So .... don't worry too much about a bad review. It's just someone letting off steam. It won't really hurt your business. If you can post a good reply, then do. If not, don't worry about it. Pay attention to the comments and check if there is anything wrong with your property or service. If so, fix it. If not, carry on as before.
guests write things without thinking about what they are writing.
My advice is do not reply like Ian at Numurka does in his replies. Just one example how you do not do it:
Review
"The apartment was in an excellent location. However, we were promised a “breakfast basket”, which never arrived. We were also constantly harassed by the host during our stay. He would often enter the yard unannounced to carry out “garden maintenance”. He also made contact to comment that the air conditioning was turned up “too high” on an over 40 degree summers day. He also complained about us “interfering” with a security light which needed “to be left on”. I booked the property on behalf of my parents who stayed for a week over Christmas as I had a baby. Ian was well aware of this fact but harassed both my mother and myself via text message through out their entire stay. When I made comment that I had complained to E____ and was actually thinking of taking it further, Ian attempted to cancel the booking and kick my parents out. Then once my parents had left the property, Ian again contacted them accusing them of stealing a barbecue lighter and plastic containers, this was definitely not the case. Ian is one of the most overbearing, interfering hosts I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. Disappointing really as Numurkah is such a great little town but accommodation like this give the town a poor reputation."
His response (14 Oct. 2020):
"what can i say as apart from them being idiots..? the 3rd party booker did not tell the guest about the rules of stay - its why we had so much trouble. the house rules were not followed."
That's really low and unproffesional from a host.
attacking people in the forum does not help....
marcos reviews....from his BDC site
Breakfest was a big disappointment. No fresh brad and no real fresh caffee.
The internet was very unstable, it did not work most of the time. In addition, the room was very dark, very different from the pictures.
The heating in the building was not good, it was cold.
Never made it because you can not have breakfast under an open structure with 10 degrees of temperature.
The room we booked had only a small skylight with stairs. no view. For an extra charge, we were able to sleep the second night in a normal room with windows.
I suggest that you treat people better and you won't get reviews like this ---geez, i though we were bad, these are just terrible. LOL....
i come to the conclusion that all hosts get not so favourable reviews...
have a nice day Marco.
The negative reviews from guests are not a problem. They are here so that we as hosts can improve. The problem is how do you RESPOND as a host to a negative review. And naming your guests idiots is not the proper way even if they deserve it. No respect whatsoever.
Also I have 700 reviews in total (ofcourse you will find also negative reviewes) and you have just a few and already in so many conflicts just because of your "weak" communication. Since your low score is only for staff. I am not surprised as to why.
Another example how yo do not do it:
Review:
+The beds were comfy and the unit very spacious
- We ran out of coffee milk tea and toilet paper so had 2 go and buy more
Ian reposnded:
"This is a conflicted review. They are self contained apartments. (not a serviced hotel). The guest did not request more provisions from us. (tea coffee and toliet paper) There were 4 rolls of toilet paper supplied and more spare toilet paper in the cupboards but they failed to have look. We only supply an initial complimentary breakfast basket, 1 litre milk, 1 dozen eggs, loaf of bread, large packet of bacon and tomatoes and cereal. Plenty of breakfast and other provisions were provided in the apartment before the guests arrival. The booker sent a third party person to check-in to the apartment without our prior authorisation. And the guest failed to follow house rules on checkout. The guests were playing tennis for 4 days so we fail to see how they ran out of adequate supplies when they were not there most of the time. Plenty of coffee, sugar and tea and toilet paper was provided for the 4 guests. Sorry."
I mean really?
Another guest wrote:
"This house is well located, very comfortable and clean. However, the host is over zealous and pedantic to the point of being intrusive. We stayed three nights and I received a dozen texts and a phone call...."
Ian reposnded:
"Generally speaking, we don't like putting people down on social media. OMG. Do we have to explain ourselves through a public forum..? I don't have time for people being stupid on social media. No - not pedantic or over zealous. We don't recommend this guest to other hosts. The guests staying next door complained to us about this guest........"
I mean are the guests really the problem in your case or is it just you? You would like to change BDC system so that your behaviour would be more acceptable? As a potential guest I don't imagine after reading your replies to negative reviews and then book your place. Again the negative reviews are not the problem. But your RESPONSES and abviously the way you run your place is. You're lucky that this is just a hobby to you.
take a look at yourself. you earn no brownie points on here - no friends.
other people in the forum have told before that you should be be nice - you dont.
and 5 people run the apartments so stop pointing the finger at me and blaming me, get your facts right - there are things you don't know - only assume.
yes, the apartments have lots of repeat corporate guests.
your accommodation that you provide is a total difference and that means you cannot make comparison as you also have different types of guests.
how do you know i personally respond? and not another person that puts in the responses..? your assuming things.
keep ranting - rant rant - no one is listening to your rants.
Hi Pibomarco..............I always Love your comments...straight from the Front and I agree with what you say MOST of the time.............How is business during this awful time, we are having a terrible time in Aussie...No International Tourists/No Students Just locals so the price goes down........what to do but keep smiling and hopefully things will improve sooner than later............Take care and all the very best for 2021..........The Beast from The Pinnacle.
If I get a complaint or Low score (very rare) I just dont answer, its not worth the hassle and agro. I just say Thank you come again.!!!
I agree!!!
pibomarco is always on the point!!!
Life is too short for worries...we cannot please everyone...
I am learning from you guys...thanks for your valuable feedback and...
Sharing your experience with us is valuable!!!
Guests can be very unreasonable...but that's the name of the game!!!
we hosts have to do our best to earn their excellent reviews!!!
well well.
A manager from BDC contacted me about the matters in the reviews, and they have taken my comments and ideas on board about guest reviews,
with a suggestion that guest reviews (part b) can be direct to the host and not made public. hence giving the host the opportunity to respond to it.
the host could still leave a score and a quick comment.
it makes sense to have comments that don't damage the hosts business where the guest may be exagerrating the truth or just saying something silly without actually thinking what they are writing - via public.
lets see what happens from here onwards. ...
hoping that BDC management can see the sense here for some change.
have a lovely day xoxo
This would be great!
Thanks Ian for feedback!!!
Lets wait and see!!!
Have a sunny day!!!
Hello,
Sometimes guest books a room, and visits our property,
and due to some any reasons he doesn't want to stay , and doesn't check in ,
BUT STILL GUEST WRITES A REVIEW ... WHY ??????
i mean without staying with us how could he/she writes a review ?
ANY VOICE AGAINST THIS ?
THANKS SAM
No.
The guest has booked and (if you have followed all the advice in this group) the guest has paid. Whether the guest actually stays or not won't matter. If you've followed the advice in this group, you have their money and they won't be entitled to a refund, so let them post their reviews.
The only thing is how can you write a true review without having stayed?
That is like reviewing a restaurant and not eating there.
If they review without having stayed there, then we should be able to reply that the guest did not stay there.
You're right - nobody should be able to write a review if they don't stay.
However, it's the underlying problem that needs to be resolved first - the reason why people don't stay. For most of these bookings, no payment has been taken. When you take bookings without taking payment, people simply don't turn up - or they book multiple properties nearby, then take a look on arrival and choose which one to stay in and pay for. Eliminate this problem by taking payment at the time of booking and people will come and stay.
In addition to above I would suggest more strict policies...
Have a nice day.
I also raised a similar issue where a guest lied clearly despite everything that we had done including finding alternative accommodation to suit their incessant demands. The review was totally unfair and after complaining to booking.com, the response was that the guest review cannot be pulled down. All we had to do was to respond to that review but the damage was already done.
I think booking.com should adopt a fairer approach around this issue and ask for evidence to dismiss the review. It is beneficial to both Booking.com and the partner host who runs the accommodation.
We also had a guest who gave us a 1 out of 10. There was no comments by guest to say why they had rated us so low. We called the guest to ask why and that their actions were damaging our business. The response we got was " your accommodation was fine, I have no reason, I just felt like giving you a one" and that was it. Booking.com would not budge. They insisted that the customer had rated us the way they felt and there was nothing they could do about it. We felt let down