Should You Leave a Bad Review for a Bad Airbnb Guest?

So, you just had a guest check out of your property. Let's say they weren't exactly ideal. Maybe they were just difficult to deal with. Maybe they damaged some things, or maybe they clearly broke your house rules. The time has come to leave them a review. So, what do you do? Do you just tell it like it is, or do you clean it up a little bit? There is an argument for both sides. The answer is a little more nuanced than you might think. And I get

this question all the time. So, today we're going to walk through the full picture. Welcome back to the Short Terminal Riches podcast. I'm happy you're here again. Before we get into the details of exactly how you should be responding, let's just talk first about how Airbnb's review system actually works. First off, neither the host or the guest is going to see the other side's review until both of them have left a review or the 14-day window has passed. This is intentionally set up this way, of

course, by Airbnb. It's a blind review system so that when someone leaves a review, the other person can't see it and retaliate. This blind review system isn't perfect, but it is better than a lot of review systems out there. Essentially, neither side can leave a review that's retaliating. Yes, some guests could do this in advance of what they think the host might write, but the reality is it's actually a pretty fair system. It makes it so that each side is leaving a review independent to what

the other person is writing. And so when it comes to leaving a review for a guest that was less than ideal, maybe they just really ticked you off. Maybe they broke stuff. Maybe they were incredibly difficult to deal with. All of those things are frustrating. What do you actually do though when you have a bad guest state your property? There's really two sides. Do you just be fully transparent and tell it like it is or do you kind of clean it up a little bit? Let's

talk about the first case, the case for the host community. Of course, the most obvious one here is that if you're fully transparent in that review of your guest, then it warns all future hosts. Let them know, hey, you need to be really careful about letting this person stay at your property. Reviews travel to guest. So, whatever you say in your guest review is going to live with that guest profile for the life of that profile. Of course, this really helps out the community, and this

isn't retaliation. This is just being transparent, just being honest so that you can warn future hosts. Reality is though, a lot of hosts don't do this, or maybe they just don't leave a you at all. We're going to talk about the best way to write your guest review in a second. Really a framework for whether you should even write it or not. But before we do that, let's talk about the other side. If you leave a negative review for your guests, well, it shows up on

your profile and future potential guests can read your profile. So, you got to be really careful about how you explain the situation, how you talked about that bad guest. We got to put ourselves in the guest shoes and just read through the lines here. If we see a bunch of negative reviews about other guests, then we might be concerned that we're going to stay at your property, be perfectly clean, follow all the rules, but we might not just fit with your perfect guest profile. And that's

really not going to lead me to want to book your property. So, this isn't a reason not to leave a bad review for a guest, but it is definitely a reason to make sure you know the best way to leave a review for a prior guest. So, what's the best way to make sure that we can still leave a review, but also have one that doesn't jeopardize future bookings? Well, the first rule is just be factual. Don't have generalizations in there like this guest was terrible

or they were awful to deal with or they never stopped complaining or whatever it happens to be. Just be factual. Maybe you got a noise complaint from the neighbor at 11:00 p.m. Just tell the facts. Just be transparent. Of course, we want to stay professional. So, there is no excuse for writing a bad message these days with Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini. Pick your favorite AI tool. They can recreate any message you want in a really nice way that's not going to jeopardize your profile.

Focus on what future hosts need to know. Maybe they brought too many guests. Maybe they brought pets when they weren't supposed to. And don't make it personal. And just another note on this, I know it's not easy to not make it personal. If you are managing your property yourself and you put in a lot of love into getting your property ready and someone doesn't treat it the way you want them to, which is bound to happen, believe me, then it becomes personal and you really need

to just take a second. Don't respond when you are upset because if doesn't come out right, you're not going to have the chance to edit it. If that's something you just can't do and you want a little help with it, well, our team at Cororsy would love to be that support for you. We're working in over 50 cities now with hundreds of properties. We've managed over a 100,000 guests. We've learned a lot and we can be that barrier between you and a potentially bad guest. We're

also going to be that person that helps prevent that bad guest in the first place. That's the real way to go about it. So, a couple tips on writing your review. And remember, this isn't the review response. This isn't a response to review your guest left. We actually have a full separate episode on that. I'll give you the brief summary. We always recommend having the sandwich method. What is the sandwich method? Well, if a guest left not a not so great review about your property, you

again want to address the facts, but you want to start on a positive tone. You want to address the facts in the middle for future guests. So when they're reading your review, they know that, hey, the AC was fixed or whatever the issue happened to be is not going to be an issue for them. And then you want to end your review response with something positive. Again, we're glad you really enjoyed the pool or we're glad you enjoyed our private lakefront, whatever it happens to be.

It leaves in a positive tone so future potential guests can envision themselves in a really great space with a really great host. So, when should we be leaving a bad review for our guest? And when should we just forget about it? Well, if they broke the rules, if they damaged something, that's clear grounds. And you want to make sure that you're warning future host. So, if they broke a rule, make sure you leave a response. If they didn't necessarily break a rule, but there was just

maybe they sent a lot of messages or something sort of subtle, well, I'd really recommend that you think that through before you leave a response because again, future guests are going to be looking at your profile and it can affect your bookings. When in doubt, just ask yourself the question, would I want to know what I know now after hosting this guest if I was another host? And if the answer is yes, then help out the community. Be transparent. Be professional. Get a nice message down.

But don't jeopardize your future profile. Hosting isn't always easy. Sometimes we have to deal with difficult guests. That's just part of the job. I hope this episode gave you a little bit of insight if you've been finding value in the channel. I'd really appreciate just a quick thumbs up or subscribe if you haven't already. Until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week.