Airbnb new review system - update

[Laura Winters]

Hey guys, so I believe you guys saw that Airbnb just changed the review system without any announcement. 

There are 2 major changes and it is a part of Airbnb moving forward to AI system. 

1. Airbnb review removal is no longer handled by the support team or a human. 
This is critical for any review removal since now hosts can’t no longer convince support teams or continuously calling them until find a host-friendly support team member.  
When you choose to dispute a review, they give you 5 categories and the process is very straightforward. 

- retaliatory (bad review because we enforced the rule or charged)

- irrelevant (guest never arrived)

- guest was pressured to write a bad / good review (paid review)

- competitor

- content policy (usually name or address calling or bullying)

Anything that is outside of these 5 categories is not removable at all.!!!!
For example, usual challenging reviews such as complaining about noise, parking, neighbor throwing party, local event, weather…. Are now impossible to remove since they fall under the category of how guests felt during the trip.

This will break a lot of myth about the Airbnb review system such as hosts are not responsible for things that is outside of host’s control (Airbnb never said this in their policy) or Guests can’t write a review about nonfactual things such as BBQ grill or hot tub were broken even it was simply user error. (Airbnb doesn’t get involved in fact checking)

Once you request a review removal, you get the answer pretty shortly and they just tell you whether it was approved or not. They don’t tell you anything about why and you get only one more chance to appeal for that specific review. 

I tested with old reviews to see how easy it is and Yeap. It is not easy at all to remove reviews. (I tested with 1 outside of my control factor, guest’s car got vandalized in a public street and 1 complained about something we don't provide. )

So what happens if you fail to remove the review? It is really bad with the change 2.

2. Airbnb now uses relevant review first as default. (guests have to click the newest first to see reviews in timeline order We have no knowledge of how AI chooses which review to bring it to top but they definitely choose none-5-star reviews over hundreds of other 5 star reviews.
This is really bad since now every single guest will see that one bad review you failed to remove before making their bookings. Even after year and hundreds of successful 5 star stays! So imagine that review talks about they had a sewage back up or the neighbor had a huge truck and they couldn’t find a parking spot. (even if it was just one moving day, now everyone will see this first!)

This will be a challenging time for hosts. I only see that this is the start of AI era and everything will be strictly rule-based even if those rules are not perfect. Big players who usually choose to push bad reviews by volume tactic now really need to think about their strategy. 

Good luck everyone!  

[John Underwood]

Quote from @Laura Winters:

Hey guys, so I believe you guys saw that Airbnb just changed the review system without any announcement. 

There are 2 major changes and it is a part of Airbnb moving forward to AI system. 

1. Airbnb review removal is no longer handled by the support team or a human. 
This is critical for any review removal since now hosts can’t no longer convince support teams or continuously calling them until find a host-friendly support team member.  
When you choose to dispute a review, they give you 5 categories and the process is very straightforward. 

- retaliatory (bad review because we enforced the rule or charged)

- irrelevant (guest never arrived)

- guest was pressured to write a bad / good review (paid review)

- competitor

- content policy (usually name or address calling or bullying)

Anything that is outside of these 5 categories is not removable at all.!!!!
For example, usual challenging reviews such as complaining about noise, parking, neighbor throwing party, local event, weather…. Are now impossible to remove since they fall under the category of how guests felt during the trip.

This will break a lot of myth about the Airbnb review system such as hosts are not responsible for things that is outside of host’s control (Airbnb never said this in their policy) or Guests can’t write a review about nonfactual things such as BBQ grill or hot tub were broken even it was simply user error. (Airbnb doesn’t get involved in fact checking)

Once you request a review removal, you get the answer pretty shortly and they just tell you whether it was approved or not. They don’t tell you anything about why and you get only one more chance to appeal for that specific review. 

I tested with old reviews to see how easy it is and Yeap. It is not easy at all to remove reviews. (I tested with 1 outside of my control factor, guest’s car got vandalized in a public street and 1 complained about something we don't provide. )

So what happens if you fail to remove the review? It is really bad with the change 2.

2. Airbnb now uses relevant review first as default. (guests have to click the newest first to see reviews in timeline order We have no knowledge of how AI chooses which review to bring it to top but they definitely choose none-5-star reviews over hundreds of other 5 star reviews.
This is really bad since now every single guest will see that one bad review you failed to remove before making their bookings. Even after year and hundreds of successful 5 star stays! So imagine that review talks about they had a sewage back up or the neighbor had a huge truck and they couldn’t find a parking spot. (even if it was just one moving day, now everyone will see this first!)

This will be a challenging time for hosts. I only see that this is the start of AI era and everything will be strictly rule-based even if those rules are not perfect. Big players who usually choose to push bad reviews by volume tactic now really need to think about their strategy. 

Good luck everyone!  

 I don't think order of reviews is all that important. When I go to book a vacation rental I click on the lowest reviews to see what issues people had and how the host replied. Reading 100 5 star or 10 star reviews isn't all that important as a decent hosts will mostly have these top tier reviews.