So, what do you do when you get that review for your short-term rental, that just makes your teeth cringe? And you know, it’s not true, it’s just not fair. You got to get it removed and you’re in luck because I’ve got some great tips for you, my team and I have removed a lot of reviews and I want to tell you how stay tuned.

Welcome to short-term rental riches will 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.

So, it’s never fun to get a negative review. Now, sometimes it’s warranted if you drop the ball, right? But sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s not accurate, it’s just not fair. And the reality is these negative Reviews can really impact the performance of your short-term rental.

So, we’ve got to do everything we can to get them removed and you are in luck because my team and I have removed a lot of reviews. I want to break that down for you this week. I’ll give you three reasons, why reviews can be removed questions. Ask yourself if it’s worth trying to get the review removed. The importance of having proof, how to proactively handle, a negative review. And then Stay in a nutshell how our team does it. So, there’s three reasons, why Airbnb this specific day Airbnb, will let you remove a review. Now, when I say let you doesn’t mean you can just personally remove it yourself. You have to involve them but there’s three reasons. Why?

The first one is, if it’s in violation of their content policy, the second one is, if the review is biased, and the third one is, if the review is irrelevant. So, if the author, the Guest who is writing the review does not actually have any relevant experience with the review that their own well then you can have it removed for that as well.

So, let’s dig into some more specific reasons why you can have your reviews removed one of those and this is an easy one. Is if I guessed demand something in exchange for not leaving a bad review which kind of like blackmail, right? So maybe they say, if you don’t give me the discount for the cleaning fee, I’m going to leave you a bad review something. Along those lines, you can have that removed as long as you have proof. So hopefully you’ve got that in writing.

Another one if a post reveals the exact location of the listing. That’s not something that is allowed. And so, you can have that review removed if your guests never actually stayed in the property. That’s another reason get that bad review out of there. If they never stayed, they don’t have relevant experience. They can’t be writing that review. Another reason if they mention an open resolution, A.

So, let’s say the guests stayed with you. They broke a table. You file the resolution, and they put that in the review, like the stay was awful. The guest tries to charge me for breaking a table and file the resolution. Well, you can have that one removed and then the last one here is if they just straight-up lied in your review. So, if you missed last week’s episode, go back and check that out, we talked all about lying, how your guests might be lying to you, how a lot of hosts might be lying too their guests and why lying? Just like we should never be line.

So go back and check that one out. If you missed it, three questions to ask yourself. If the review is worth pursuing, is the damage from the review enough to where you want to go through the effort and have it removed if it’s a four-star, you know, I know four stars can be damaging. They really can. If your average score reality is if your average score for your short-term rentals of four-star, like you’re not going to get booked right? 4 point 8 and above What a super host would be and so you really want to strive for 5, but if you’re trying to argue a four-star review and you’re probably not going to have as much luck. So, questions you’re going to want to ask yourself if it’s worth pursuing trying to review the review. It is it worth your time? Did someone leave you a four-star? And I know as damaging as a four-star review can be is it really worth your time to go through all that process? I would say maybe it is especially if it’s dishonest because a four-star review can really be damaging to your short-term rental. If your average scores of four star that’s really not good at all. Super hose. For example, have an average rating of four point eight or higher.

So, we always want to strive for the five. So first take into account if it’s worth your time pursuing but I would say if there’s any dishonesty and all on, it’s not a five-star, I would go for it. The other thing we want to think about when before we pursue trying to remove a review is if there’s actually some truth to it again for trying to have. Review removes the truthful while, then you are being dishonest and the likelihood of you actually getting it removed is not going to be very high, right? Because it’s an honest review.

We covered a lot of topics on this podcast and a quick action will bite size format. So, you have the tools to acquire and improve your short-term rentals on your own. But if you want to go deeper, I have a special invite for you. Join us once a month that are rested Investor Clubhouse where we go in-depth on an individual topic. Everything from Analyzing properties to improving operations and our bottom line, we cover it all the clubhouse members and myself are sharing best practices to earn. The most Revenue with the least amount of headache and I would love to have you there as well. That’s restmethods.com forward slash Rich. Our lives are shaped by those. We spend the most time with. So, if you want to take your STR to the next level, come join us. I hope to see you on the inside.

So those are a couple questions. You’ll definitely want to make sure asking yourself before you spend the time and the effort trying to get a review removed. Now, there’s another thing we want to be careful of. We want to make sure that we have proof that we have evidence against one of these reviews if there is evidence, you know, and it’s not going against one of those other content policies or straight out lie or something like that. The more evidence we have the better.

And so, it’s best to make sure that we’re always doing everything via writing, right? If it’s a phone call, well then that’s going to be a lot harder to have evidence from. Although our phone system, for example, we record all of our calls so we could even use that. So how do we proactively handle a negative review? We always want to make sure we’re responding to it. And actually, I did a whole episode to this episode number 46 of how exactly we want to respond to these negative reviews, because it’s super important. But I’ll just break it down in a quick nutshell. Again, first of all, we want to thank the gas for their feedback. Remember if we get a negative review, that means that any of our future potential guests are going to see that review and if we respond to it appropriately, it’s really going to help our chances of them. Not, you know, maybe taken that review with a grain of salt and seeing all the other really positive reviews and not letting it really affect their booking decision.

So, first of all, I want to be polite, we want to thank the guests for their feedback. We want to apologize for the fact that we didn’t meet their expectations. And that their trip or their stay with us, wasn’t quite what they had hoped for, we want to address future concerns. So, you know, if this was something that was our fault, like the AC went out will then we want to state that in there. We want to say that we fixed it. Now if this was something that was just a straight-up lie. Well, then we want to address that as politely as possible.

Remember, if we go back to last week’s episode, we can be honest. And lots of different ways we can be brutally honest, which doesn’t always come across as best as it can, or we can use our communication skills to address a concern, to be honest, in a way. That’s a lot, a lot softer, I guess we could say. So, the last thing is that we want to hope that they come back and stay with us again or that we can make it up to him next time in the future. Remember, we are addressing future potential guess when we respond to review. So, make sure you respond to the review and if you want a lot more detail on this, you can go back. Check out episode 46.

Okay, so some quick tips on how and why we can Have a negative review removed. Now, I want to break down how we actually do it. My team, and I, in fact, we have one of our virtual assistants who’s designated to get the reviews removed. So, this is how we go about it. First of all, we want to check the review to see what rule it actually violated. So, did someone act Millis? You know, they demanded a refund or they’re going to leave a bad review to. They not actually stay there. Did they straight up lie? Go back. And check out those reasons, make sure that the reviewer trying to remove you can actually have removed afterwards. We’re going to want to report it to Airbnb, we want to provide them with as much details as possible copies of the transcripts. Any sort of proof, anything that we have to help our side of the case that could include photos. Any sort of documents, anything, communication, we receive from our housekeepers, anything like that. And then we want to wait for Airbnb’s verdict. To see what they have to say now. This is the thing they might get back to you and say, sorry, Tim, this did not go against one of our rules, even though you may still think that it did.

So, this is what we do. Are you ready for it? Well, they deny review, we wait a little bit and then we do it again. Yes, we do. Because we really want that review off, if it really isn’t accurate, we fight for, right? A lot of times, we get other Airbnb, support agents and they have a different opinion and they get a removed. So, we try these multiple times until we get that Review removed and that really helps our overall score. It also just helps us feel better. I know that there’s not information out there, that’s totally fake or false about something that we’ve maybe put so much time into like our short-term rentals. So that is it in a nutshell? Just because you get a negative review, doesn’t mean it has to stay on your profile. Make sure to recap these reasons and Airbnb’s content policy to make sure that the reviews you have on there are Legitimate.

And make sure that if there’s some way you can have them removed, you fight for it and you get that review removed and if you get denied try it again, this will really help your performance getting rid of those bad reviews, even if it’s a four-star. Remember, even if that reviews of for stock.

So, hopefully that gave you some good Insight, I hope that you are able to get some of your reviews removed that aren’t honest. Until next time, have a fabulous week.

Want to get on the fast track to Financial Freedom through short-term rentals. What all starts with the Properties you acquire. But you want to make sure that you acquired the right properties, I want to give you my eBook. That will show you how to do just that. There is no charge. It’s my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. Just go to restmethods.com. That’s REST methods.com

RELATED PODCAST EPISODES

• Episode 143: Outsourcing your guest communications 24/7
• Episode 109: Get more repeat guest (Increase Your Revenue)
• Episode 46: How to Handle Negative Reviews?
• https://strriches.com/how-to-get-rid-of-bed-bugs-in-your-airbnb/
• Episode 31: Your Recommendations = Excellent Reviews = More Bookings = More $‪!‬