What Airbnb Is Asking Your Guests | Airbnb Reviews | Tim Hubbard

There's a pretty easy way for us to know what Airbnb wants us to be doing, right? What they want us to be doing as a host, and that's by checking out the review system that we leave as a guest. So I want to dissect that this week. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. We'll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals, Quick actionable items to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio. I'm your host, Tim Hubbard.

Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. Happy you're here again. We're talking this week about the review system with Airbnb. We all know how important reviews are. One of the really easy ways to discover or uncover what exactly it is the Airbnb wants is to leave a review as a guest, right? And so I just got back from a real nice trip in Mexico, Playa del Carmen, and I rented an Airbnb. Of course, I met my family there and I had a fantastic stay. And now is the time for me to leave a review. So I thought it would be nice to just go through all of the questions that Airbnb asks and it's going to help us identify the things that are most important. Okay, so after you stay in a property in Airbnb, they want you to review, right? They send you a lot of reminders. It's sort of the lifeblood for every host and every short term rental is to make sure that we're getting reviews, good reviews, and that as guests, we're also leaving them. So I'm just going to run through this from start to finish. Everything at the time of this recording that Airbnb asks us to put in. They have a lot of things that are required, but they also have quite a few things now that are additional. You can skip them if you want. So the first thing here it says, we'll wait to publish your review for five days or until your host writes a review for you, whichever comes first. The first question they ask is, how was your stay? So this is pretty general, right? But they're asking us just based out of a five star rating system. Now, this is specific to, to Airbnb, and we know if you've been in the industry for a while that sometimes we think the five stars just really isn't that fair. I wish personally that we had 10 stars because the difference between a four star and a five star, that's 20%, right? That's a huge difference. So maybe one day they'll change that. But for right now, We've got five stars. So I had a great stay and I just marked this one a five star. The next question they ask you is, how was the check in? So this is really important, right? If you missed my episode on the biggest fail you can make as a host, it's all about the check in. And that was specifically about getting locked out. So the check in is really important. And this is the first question they're going to ask you as a guest after how was your stay? And again, this is out of five stars, but they've got a couple other little options down below as they do with this step and a few other ones. So they're asking, tell us what stood out. Was it responsive hosts? Were there clear instructions, easy to find, easy to get inside, felt right at home, Flexible. Check in something else. So they have these additional questions, these additional prompts under each section. We gotta kind of look at this and think about this on the back end, right? They wouldn't be asking these questions if they didn't think it was important. And based on how these other suggestions are filled out, you better believe that that's affecting your visibility with your property on Airbnb. The next question that they ask you as a guest leaving a review is, how clean was the place? How clean was the Airbnb you stayed in? Again, this is super important. And I would say this is probably the biggest reason why you're going to get a negative review. And that's just if your place was not clean. Luckily this place in Mexico was really clean. They did a good job. You can tell they were very professional about it. So again, five stars, two thumbs up. They've got some more questions underneath the five star rating, though, and those are what stood out. And they've got spotless furniture and linens. We know how important the linens and the furniture are. You can't have a stain on your couch and expect someone to think that your property is clean. It says, tell us what stood out. Was it free of clutter? Was there a squeaky clean bathroom? We know the bathroom is. You need to pay the most attention with the bathroom or your housekeepers need to, I should say, because everyone uses the bathroom in the short term rental, right? At some point during the stay, they're going to use it. And that's one of the places where, you know, we can't have a little hair laying around. We can't have anything. So we got to make sure the bathroom's spotless. And they've got that on here. Some additional information did it have a pristine kitchen or something else. So they've got these additional questions. Again, this is under the cleanliness rating, which I left another five star review. The next question Airbnb is going to ask is how accurately did they describe their place? How accurately did they describe the short term rental, the Airbnb that you're staying in? This is all about expectations, right? We've got to make sure that they're 100% clear. So, and we've talked about this before, but you got to make sure your listing is perfect. You got to make sure your pictures are perfect and if they're outdated pictures, well, you should update them. Again, underneath this rating they've got some more information that we can input. It asks, tell us what stood out. Did it look like the photos, did it match the description, had listed amenities and services or something else. So again, they just want a little bit more information. But this should cue you in to exactly what it is that Airbnb really wants and what we want on the guest side. So expectations super, super important. The next question here, where we can leave a five star rating or one to five I should say, is how good was the communication? We know communication is key. We can't have a perfect listing without great communication. This host did a good job. They were a super host, by the way. So we can't have an average of 4.8 or lower on our reviews and still be a super host. So that should that gives you a little insight. When you're booking an Airbnb, they've got to be nailing all of these different steps under the tell us what stood out section. So again, this is on the same question, but underneath for a little more information. Were they always responsive? Did they offer local recommendations? Were they proactive? Did they have helpful instructions? Were they friendly? So these are just parts of having good communication. We've talked about guidebooks before and having recommendations not just on Airbnb but we use hostfully. And offering some private recommendations or some local recommendations can go a really long way with your communication. Next question Airbnb is going to ask is what did you think about the location? Again, I left a five star for this one. That's actually something that I put a lot more priority on when I'm booking an Airbnb because I like to be able to walk to places most of the time, especially if I don't have a car there. So again, I left them a five star. They've got some more additional information we can input on here, though. They're asking what stood out? Was it peaceful? Was it. Was. Did it have beautiful surroundings? Was it private? Were there great restaurants nearby? Was there lots to do? Was it walkable? And then there's always this something else question that we can fill out. So we know real estate you hear all the time, location, location, location. Well, I would say when it comes to short term rentals, a lot of the time it's like you could add a fourth location on there. It becomes location, location, location, location. Right? Now, that doesn't always mean you're in a city, though. That location could be a nice cabin out in the middle of nowhere. But it's a location, in other words, that offers a really good experience. So the location just has to match the experience that we're offering the guest. And then the last question, required question that Airbnb is going to ask us before we can submit our review is about the value. So it says, finally, was the Airbnb you rented worth the price?

And again, I gave this one a five star. I thought it was a great deal. Now, this is one where you can nail all of the other ones. You can nail the communication, you can nail the location, you can nail the expectations, you can nail the cleanliness. And if you're doing all those things really well, most time you can charge a higher price, right? You should be able to charge a higher price because those are the most important things for your guests. That's why Airbnb asks. Ask them first. But this fifth one, I would say, remember the order here. This is the last question they're asking us because I feel like in this section we can charge a little more and maybe someone's perceived value is slightly less, but we're still going to get a good review overall. So now they're asking us to write the public review. Now, remember, this is different than the private ones. So mine says, you know, fantastic stay, thanks for everything, quick communication, clean place, great location. A lot of the things that they just asked me to leave a star rating for, and then at the end I just said two thumbs up. The next question they're going to ask you is to leave a private note. So this is really important for us as hosts to get this information from our guests. So we encourage our guests to leave this information for us all the time because it's not going to be on your public review, right? So if you were dropping the ball somewhere, but it wasn't really impacting the guests to where it didn't affect the review, but it could have made their stay slightly better, this is where they're going to put that. And so you gotta make sure that you're paying attention to these private notes because this is where you can make your short term rental perfect. So pay attention to the private notes. It's sort of like a free hall pass, right? We get to fix something with our property that doesn't show up in our public reviews. So make sure that you are asking for this information and also that you are reading it in. Take an action with it if there's something, some sort of actionable advice and that is it. That is the process as a guest in a nutshell, from the guest perspective, after staying in a short term rental, an Airbnb specifically. So it's just one other place where we can get direct input from Airbnb letting us know what's important to them. And they're asking these questions because they know it's important to the guests. So if you haven't stayed in an Airbnb before, definitely go stay in Summit. That is the best way to really learn about the industry and learn about the business process. And especially if you're planning on investing in another city that you're not really familiar with, I always recommend staying in at least one Airbnb in that area to just get a good feel for the competition around there. So I hope that gave you a little bit of insight from the guest perspective this time. So until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon.

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