Airbnb Host and Investors Forum General Complaints 1 2 Next » A Short Term Rental (STR) Forum Community

[DELLAS]

Occasionally I get complaints from a guest after the stay and here is what I have come to realize:

1. if you respond and apologize they just get angry and request a refund and likely leave angry review. Guests tend to ‘pile on’ and it just gets worse.
   
2. if you ignore their complaint, they forget about it and this seems to have the best results. May or may not leave a bad review.
   

Basically, I’ve had little to no success mitigating guest complaints AFTER the stay, they are LOOKING for you to admit guilt and possible some sort of refund.. there was dust somewhere, or a piece of hair somewhere, you admit fault and say sorry , they instantly request the cleaning fee to be refunded or something like that.

[ProjectQuattro]

As someone who frequently uses Airbnb, some hosts text within 1-2 hour of check in period asking if the check-in was smooth or if the guest has any questions. This gives them ample of time to make sure they don't have any issues with the property. You can maybe use this tactic for your future guests to ensure they don't ask for refund.

[RatherBTraveling]

Occasionally I get complaints from a guest after the stay and here is what I have come to realize:

1. if you respond and apologize they just get angry and request a refund and likely leave angry review. Guests tend to ‘pile on’ and it just gets worse.
   
2. if you ignore their complaint, they forget about it and this seems to have the best results. May or may not leave a bad review.
   

Basically, I’ve had little to no success mitigating guest complaints AFTER the stay, they are LOOKING for you to admit guilt and possible some sort of refund.. there was dust somewhere, or a piece of hair somewhere, you admit fault and say sorry , they instantly request the cleaning fee to be refunded or something like that.

+1 to this.. we usually just leave the first guest complaint post stay "On read" as it is likely just fishing, especially if they didnt bring anything up during the stay.. If they follow up again that's when we will then engage.

[SunSeeker]

Are you taking alot of reservations from inexperienced guests? I feel like I've seen this problem with inexperienced guests. They assume you are like a hotel and you should be available 24/7 or have some other complaint which might make sense if they were in a hotel. We try to avoid booking to people who have just joined and have zero reviews whenever we can. We also avoid booking to locals -- they tend to be the biggest headache people. I even took off our instant booking. Ever since doing all of this it basically got rid of complaints, many of which came after the stay.