Leaving Hostaway because of their booking fee?

Cut 'bad review' buffer from 20 to 5 minutes.

Status: Released 3 Votes
Joel P
Feb 15, 2024 11:00 AM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2009 141 posts

The "bad review" submissions are currently designed to submit within 3 minutes of the deadline. 

Miapartamentos
May 8, 2022 11:17 AM
Joined Nov, 2020 21 posts

Hello, I wanted to thank the team for adding the "bad review" feature, where the system will wait until the last moments to review a guest with whom we have had a bad experience.

To ensure that the review goes through, OwnerRez has set the time to submit such review, 20 minutes before since otherwise an error may prevent it from posting. However, this greatly increases the likelihood that we are retaliated against since this time period is plenty for the person to see the email that they got a review and craft their response.

If this is shortened to 2 minutes, then the person that wants to leave us a bad review in return has 2 minutes to see the email, open the link, write everything down, rate the stars and then submit in time, making it highly unlikely they will succeed.

The reasoning from OwnerRez is that by giving 20 minutes for the review to be posted, if there is a system-communication failure, there are 19 minutes left to retry until the review is posted. However, this may point towards a misunderstanding of our main concern as hosts. WE DO NOT WANT TO RISK the retaliation. We would in fact prefer to NOT leave a review if it means that we are opening ourselves up to being retaliated against. Our business is hurt when we do get a bad review.

Therefore, we need to choose between assuming two risks.

a) Shortening the time to 2 minutes, risking our review not posting and seriously minimizing the probability of being retaliated against.

b) Giving 20 minutes in the middle of the day, where most people usually are on their phones, to get their email notification that they were reviewed and have the chance to hit us back.

The worst case scenario is not our review not posting, it is being retaliated against. For those reasons, scenario a seems to be preferrable to b.

Or if anything, just add a third option to "post last minute" instead of waiting 20. Personally, and as much as I appreciate the feature, I don't feel comfortable using the 20 minute buffer.

 

Chris L
May 20, 2022 2:16 AM
Joined May, 2017 207 posts

Yep. Just had the guest from hell and I'll be posting the review manually a few minutes before the review period expires instead of trusting OR, because the guest is very responsive to Airbnb messages and will likely see that I've reviewed her and review me back well within 20 minutes. 20 minutes is too long and too much of a risk for retaliatory reviews. I'm not comfortable with anything over 5 minutes (and preferably fewer--2 is great).

Paul W
May 20, 2022 9:52 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jun, 2009 848 posts

Coincidentally, we discussed this the other day, and are planning to lower it to 5 minutes (for everyone).  Our research shows that that's a very good balance between "when the fastest guest would respond" and making sure it gets in before Airbnb slams the gate shut.

Miapartamentos
May 20, 2022 9:57 AM
Joined Nov, 2020 21 posts

5 minutes is much better than 20, indeed. If a guest is going to leave a nasty review, they usually write a lot, so that's at least 2 min, meaning they have 3 minutes to see the email, open it, type everything, plug the stars and send.. probs 1% would make it.

 

Please do it ASAP since I have a guest that will get a bad review soon lol

 

Thank you guys!

AmbroseBnB
Feb 15, 2024 10:56 AM
Joined Jun, 2023 13 posts

Hi all! Has there been any further discussion as to updating this feature to the 5 minute window? It looks like it's still 20 minutes. Thanks!

Joel P
Feb 15, 2024 11:00 AM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2009 141 posts

The "bad review" submissions are currently designed to submit within 3 minutes of the deadline.