Online Listing

When Airbnb Hosts Should Ignore Negative Reviews

There's a time to listen to negative Airbnb reviews and a time to ignore them

Sound Familiar?

Pesky Problem

You can’t get that one negative review out of your mind.

You’ve got the whole darn thing memorized. Every last snarky word. It’s stuck in your head like a bad song, going round and round on replay. Needless to say, it doesn’t feel good.

And logically you know you shouldn’t be ruminating. The truth is, as humble as you might, you know your Airbnb is great. Sure, we’re all walking through the world with our own subjective lens, but you know, deep down, that you’ve put in the effort and created something truly special.

Plus, you’ve got a sea of five-star reviews backing up your intuition. Guest after guest raves about your gorgeous space, the thoughtful touches, and how they can’t wait to come back. And yet somehow, that mountain of glowing reviews is overshadowed by this one disgruntled guest. So what do you do?

Let's Try This

Bite-Size Solution

Adopt this new phrase: It’s not for you.

Believe it or not, the solution here might lie in a short and sweet book about marketing. Several years back, we read This Is Marketing, one of the many books written by marketing guru Seth Godin.

In this book, Godin shared a small but game-changing phrase that has worked wonders for us personally in situations where we need to acknowledge someone’s negative opinion without letting it derail our own confidence in what we do.

Here’s the phrase: It’s not for you.

Godin writes: “‘It’s not for you’ shows the ability to respect someone enough that you’re not going to waste their time, pander to them, or insist that they change their beliefs. It shows respect for those you seek to serve, to say to them, ‘I made this for you. Not for the other folks, but for you.’ Two sides of the same coin.”

He goes on to say: “…it doesn’t matter what people you’re not seeking to serve think…We know that every best-selling book on Amazon has at least a few one-star reviews. It’s impossible to create work that both matters and pleases everyone.”

That disgruntled guest who left that cutting review? Your Airbnb is not for them. Simple as that. They’re not the latest data point in a string of reviews diagnosing a problematic pattern with your place. (By the way, that’s the feedback to pay the most attention to.)

This guest is just the inevitable outlier, sharing their opinion, which they’ve got every right to do. You didn’t do anything wrong during their stay, and you don’t need to do anything now. Give yourself permission to just say, “It wasn’t for you.”

No Airbnb is ever going to please every guest. That’s impossible. The brilliance you created just wasn’t made for them. You made it for all those folks that left five star reviews.

5 Minutes

Here's Your First Step

Write down why your place isn’t for this guest.

Here’s one of the fastest ways to reroute your outlook about this review. Grab a pen and paper, set a timer for five minutes, and write down all of the reasons your place wasn’t for this guest.

Maybe they were traveling with kids, and your place isn’t meant for families. Maybe they were looking for something more luxurious, and you’re intentionally a budget-friendly place with lean amenities. Maybe they needed constant attention and expected you to show up in person, but you live hours away. Get as specific as you can. (We promise, it will be cathartic.)

Finally, when the timer goes off, pull up your own Airbnb listing and make sure that you’re explicitly warding off these kinds of guests. Remember, a good Airbnb listing does double duty: it attracts the right guests while repelling the wrong ones.

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