I just finished a booking and gave them a 5 star just to be nice because they’re new on peerspace. They weren’t bad but cancelled last minute and rebooked for the next week. They also booked for one hour for a video shoot even though we have a 4 hour minimum. I didn’t think it was even possible to do anything like this in an hour with all the equipment they had. I ran a few minutes late to open due to an accident on the freeway but they were understanding so that’s why they earned the 5 stars. I also gave them an extra 15 mins at no charge for being nice but they said they felt rushed and gave us a 1 star and called me rude. I was shocked. I accommodated their every need and even gave them the last strip of tape I had so the singer can tape his boots tight. What does someone do about that? I don’t like that we can’t reply to their review.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. So unfair! And the fact that you can’t even reply pours salt on the wounds. But the good news is that as long as it’s only one review amongst other good ones, it should not really hurt you. I once also got an unfair one star review and received another booking almost immediately. The new guest told me that they had seen the review but discounted it. Still, I do know how upsetting it can be when something like this happens to you.
Thanks for commenting, Yvonne. I got someone interested right away also. I’m meeting them to show them the place tomorrow and hopefully they’ll book. It is upsetting especially because of how nice I was to them. I think they were hoping to get an extra half hour free but I told them I would also have to pay my staff extra and I apologized for not being able to give them extra time. I don’t know why I apologized when it wasn’t even my fault. I told them they can pay for an extra half hour but they packed and left.
I agree that there should be a reply option to reviews. It would not only help people who read the reviews understand them better, but it would also allow us hosts to resolve any issues that renters might of had and be able to retain them as customers better.
I, too, really wish we could reply to reviews–I want to say “thank you” to the people who give me great reviews and at least have a chance to respond to an unfair one. Also, when I am booking something online I often look at negative reviews received and see how the business owner responded–it gives me a good sense of how they do business. If they are rude and dismissive I cross them off my list, but if they are polite and responsive and give their side in a non-defensive way I think: this is someone I may want to work with.
I use to be a User Experience Director for a big ad agency in NYC. I’ve architected and designed websites and apps for everyone from Ford to British Airways to Nike. I’ve stopped suggesting features and fixes to Peerspace because, unless they result in more revenue for Peerspace (add-ons, etc), they never see the light of day.
However, the way reviews are handled makes me crazy!! There are a couple of best practices that would fix this issue. Some are hard to implement, but others can be done with minimal design and coding efforts.
1: Was This Review Helpful?
Adding a simple thumbs up and thumbs down under each review would allow guests who are browsing a listing to indicate if they liked a previous guest’s review. Logic can be added to move helpful reviews up in the list and unhelpful reviews down. This is done on countless websites today.
2: Host Responses
I understand why Peerspace does not allow this. It puts them in the middle and they have to dedicate resources to policing what would potentially double the amount of review submissions (guest and host). Still, other competitive platforms allow this. See my response to a bad review…
3: Review Bars
Amazon does this as does just about every other ecommerce site. It makes it really easy to see that while a host may have a negative review at the top of their list, it may be only 1 of dozens of great reviews. Amazon adds a lot of logic behind their calculations, but Peerspace wouldn’t have to program all of that. Just a simple summary would be all that’s needed.
Anyway… that’s the end of my rant.
Geoffrey: I personally am glad they do not have that totaling chart of percentages. As it is, a bad review can get buried under a whole bunch of subsequent good ones. With those charts, anyone can find a negative immediately. The one and only 1 star review I have had is currently pages and pages back. I prefer to leave it this way.
Bad reviews are a fact of life.
I guess you can’t make everyone happy. These things really bug me though. I sent an email to a 1 star review on Yelp for our business and thanked them for their feedback and said we appreciate both positive and negative feedback and use the negative to improve. They appreciated that and changed it to a 3 star.
I love the thought of being able to say thank you to a positive review. It’s good business and an opportunity for hosts to stand out and differentiate.
@Geoffrey_B Interesting suggestion. One thing to note: if we add this feature, then guests would also be able to reply/comment on reviews given to them by hosts. Does anyone have strong feelings about that aspect of this? As we continue to grow our CX team, would it be too cumbersome to reach out to CX to respond to reviews? We could then proof them and post if responses follow our community guidelines. Would love to continue this conversation and perhaps have more hosts jump in with thoughts/ideas.
Only if you enable multiple responses as a feature. See my example from [site who’s name you block]. They only allow the initial guest review and then a single response from the host. Your CX (or UX) team should be aware of this since they are one of the main competitors in your space.
I imagine this feature would only cause a slight uptick in moderation since hosts are only going to want to respond to the negative reviews.
~ G
Who were you dealing with? List the client so all of us can watch out for them or stay clear of them… There’s plenty of business out there. We don’t need to deal with shitty people.
Problem with that is, people can just create a new profile for themselves, and the negative review you give them is gone. We don’t have that luxury.
Problem solved. Peerspace team was awesome and removed the review and I’m really grateful for that.