Anyone doing review swaps?

If I may have a humble opinion, it would be better to diagnose WHY your listing has a low rating, rather than cover up the problem with fake reviews. Drop a link to your listing and maybe we can help by offering some suggestions on how to fix the root causes.

I would strongly advise against review swaps.

Beyond the policy concerns, it usually doesn’t solve the underlying problem. If a listing is consistently below 4.8, there is often a mismatch somewhere between guest expectations and the actual experience.

If you’re comfortable sharing it, post your Airbnb listing here. I’m sure several hosts would be happy to take a look and provide constructive feedback.

One thing I’ve learned is that your listing’s promise needs to be reviewed regularly. The market evolves quickly, guest expectations change, competitors improve, and what worked two or three years ago may no longer be enough today. I try to challenge my own listings at least once a year for exactly that reason.

A few exchanged reviews might improve the score temporarily, but understanding why guests are rating lower is usually much more valuable in the long run.

Ever the contrarian, Will here to confound the day!! 

I have rolled out the Tip Jar strategy in several of my businesses after learning from the psychology behind seeding the tip jar and some related behavioral psychology teaching points.

In order to build to a profitable standpoint we actively solicit discerning people to stay and play in our services and shred us.  When public reviews are possible we’d love a glowing one SO LONG AS you’re also willing to shrewdly guide us in a personal feedback form.  This has allowed us to not be “risky” for potential guests and such, and it has allowed us to Tee people up who understand that the task at hand is to find the flaws and by doing so help us get better.

We also do this kind of thing as a 3rd party audit now, because it can help illuminate the sticking points in a listing that a handyman, cleaner, or manager might not be able to.

I agree. I wouldn’t want to violate the policies either.

​@Will.Fraser you’re not being contrarian at all… what you’re describing is good business sense and is ethical. You’re inviting trusted associates to be among the first to stay at your place, and give their honest opinion in an effort to help you see things from a guest’s perspective and proactively report on any issues so they can be fixed without publicly blasting you for any early shortcomings.

To me that’s a totally different thing than booking a completely fake stay and leaving a completely fake review -- which is a “paid review” in the sense that you returned the favor for the other host without either of you actually staying at the others’ place.

Hi Alex

I hope this is not too obvious, but the best advice we received regarding how to address the ratings dilemma (Thanks to Brian) was to be open with our guest by stating the following ... 

Thank you once again for staying with us and it was a pleasure hosting you in %listing_city%. We hope you had a fantastic time and safe travels home.  If you enjoyed your stay, we'd appreciate you sharing your experiences on  %platform% and leaving us a review. 

Anything less than 5 stars can negatively impact our host status so if you have any suggestions for how we could have improved your stay please don't hesitate to let us know directly so we can put things right. 

We also mention earlier in the stay that they can message us directly concerning any issues and we will respond promptly. Appears to be working so far, with only 5 star reviews in the past 7 months. 

Hope this helps and good luck

That’s a great parsing out right there!  Keep thinking deeply good sir!

This is. a great tip. THank you Daniel!

I send a message similar to the above to encourage 5 star reviews and suggest anything less be sent via a private message so that I can know what to improve and overall I think it has helped. I had received all  5-star reviews (115 now). Unfortunately the streak was broken and I have now received three 4-star reviews. The frustrating thing is now knowing what the issue is/was. 
 

The first went on and on about how amazing it was, that she found it a little expensive and ended with “I would definitely recommend this spot to a couple looking to get away.” I guess she took a star off for price.

All the second review said was “A charming little spot to enjoy a peaceful vacation. I really enjoyed the windows and watching sunsets”.

Third said she loved everything but that she could hear neighbors voices when she was outside and they were also outside in their hot tub. I have it noted everywhere on the listing that there are three units on the property, spaced 40-60 yards away, noises travel, etc, but still 4-stars. It’s frustrating but sometimes I think all you can do is keep refining the listing and make property/operational changes when and where you can.

4 star reviews are indeed a frustrating thing. 

Sometimes its a relic from the erstwhile rating system that many (ahem . .. . VRBO travelers more than most) don’t realize we’ve moved on from, and sometimes it’s a new version of that.  The new version is reasoned like this “well, it wasn’t perfect so I have to knock it a star” and while that is pretty sound rationale it certainly hurts us, as anything less than perfection in the OTA ecosystems (and all search platform) is a negative.

What to do?