Community : Discussion List - Reviews

Are others having trouble with guests not leaving reviews?

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:48:48 GMT

We have been finding that after years of guests happily leaving reviews, they are no longer. One guest wrote that it was because of the new requirement that guests register and create a password. Others have not told us why they are not leaving reviews - but we are quite sure that it is because of this new system that HA has implemented requiring guests to register before leaving a review. I have written to HA twice, but receive a boilerplate reply that the new system is supposed to "protect us" from fraudulent reviews! We are customers of HomeAway, VRBO and VacationRentals.com and feel that they should listen to our opinions. I know we can enter our guests comments ourselves, but I do not like owner listed reviews for a number of reasons. It seems to me that, as someone else on a forum said, HA should treat us, their customers, the same way that we treat our guests and try to improve our experience. Guest reviews are hugely important and their new system is keeping people from wanting to leave one!

Getting Reviews

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:33:31 GMT

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get guests to actually write a Review? When they leave they tell us how much they love our place and will be back, but then I send them the request for a Review and never hear back! Any ideas? Thank you

Anyone provide incentives for reviews?

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:53:17 GMT

I'm thinking about contacting past guests who wrote nice things in our guest book with a copy of their comments and saying I'll give them a gift card if they'll enter it in our reviews. Is that considered unethical? Another incentive ideas would be to do a drawing for all reviewers to win a free off-season weekend or an Amazon card.

My thought is that I would encourage everyone to be as honest as possible and everyone will be eligible for the incentive whether they give 5 stars or 3, so I don't think it's dishonest, but wanted to get others' feedback.

Sort by Number of Reviews Not Working Properly

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:19:52 GMT

Position of listing on HA when defaulting by number of reviews is wrong. Does anybody know what's going on or is this another programming error?

Reviews on alternate sites

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:54:14 GMT

I have multiple good reviews on VRBO.com and wanted to get some of these reviews posted to Flipkey.com, where I have zero reviews, since I have never had a single booking from that site. I think that if I have my reviews posted on the alternate site, I could get some more business from them, since people would know I am legitimate. Although I do get inquiries on Flipkey.com, I have yet to make a booking, whereas I have no problems booking on VRBO.com. I figure that positive reviews would help, especially since they transfer over to Tripadvisor.com. I hate to keep bugging my previous renters to bulid my business by continuosly reviewing my property on various sites. Anyway that I can take a legitimate review and transfer it over to Flipkey.com that anyone knows of? Also, what about Tripadvisor.com?

What determines the order in which reviews are listed, and can I change it?

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 15:28:49 GMT

I've noticed that one of my oldest reviews (from 2009) seems to always be the first review listed on VRBO and HA. It's a great review, 5 stars and nice comments, but it is from an off-season rental, so it may not speak to travelers who are looking for a high-season rental. Also, because it is 3 years old, it may not be taken as seriously as some of my newer reviews. I don't understand why this review always is on top because it is not my very oldest review -- what determines the sort order for reviews?

I don't see any way in the dashboard to change the order of the reviews on the ad page. Do any of you know how to do this?

It would be nice to be able to place this review on top when my off-season requests are coming in and another review on top when high-season requests start to arrive. However, if we can't control the order, may I suggest that HA sort the reviews by date so that the newest reviews are always on top?

VRBO Reps: Escapia reviews are out of hand

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:16:00 GMT

I brought this up in a prior thread and a vrbo rep (shannon?) basically said hey, Escapia is our software that property managers use and these are valid comments that the vrbo system has ported over. Well owners work hard to convince a guest to take their time to go to vrbo.com and fill out a guest review and their patience when vrbo rejects their review for having a certain name in it, saying they had stayed at airbnb etc.

I check to see how the reviews for other properties are and I keep seeing more and more property manager properties show up with 40 or more reviews. A joke. The "reviews" from Escapia are comment card notes, not reviews meant for their peers.

You are letting the property managers completely dilute the OWNER advertising with all their listings and now you knee cap the owners by making it so difficult for a guest to leave a review for a real owner but you let the property managers hit the system with 40+ reviews at a time that are not reviews at all, comment cards.

Please do something about this. If you are going to let the property managers do this, atleast mark the reviews differently than true "5 star guest submitted" reviews. Make a new category, property manager submitted, comment card submitted, something...

Here are examples:

http://www.vrbo.com/303005

http://www.vrbo.com/373027

http://www.vrbo.com/457963

http://www.vrbo.com/450071

These are all taken from the top 10 properties when sorted by reviews in my area.

Seriously,

Rick

www.vacationrentalhelper.com

Reviews: Why we need a system of accountability

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:29:15 GMT

We have personally been through some very traumatic circumstances from the result of guest reviews. This is a recent experience since running what is our second vacation rental property to a more aggressive NY clientele.

We are constantly told by the guests, HomeAway, and VRBO - “you have so many good reviews, one little negative one is not going to hurt you.” Actually - we have had a guest cancel an active invoice because of a bad review - so for the record - not true!

With the advent of “reviews” being so trendy at present - it seems that it is very clear everyone has their right to make a comment and the guests out there are exercising this right in what I see as a one sided attempt to permanently damage a properties reputation based on expectations, moods, or monetary concerns (feeling they paid too much for what they expected).

Here is what I find to be the problem. Guests have not read the descriptions clearly and have false expectations, guests have needs that are outside our capability of tending to, and guests lie and embellish. I had one guest write that my property is not safe for children when in fact he did not have any children (a very damaging speculation and false claim.)

I know that HomeAway loves their review system. That they feel very strongly that a reply to a review will settle the score, and that writing a response is good business practice. But really - seriously - I find myself perplexed at how to respond to blatant lies, speculation, and false claims. It honestly takes me hours and days to work on a strategy to handle these outlandish comments in a professional manner. It’s exhausting!

Then I realized why this system doesn’t work well. These guests have no accountability for any review they write. They remain anonymous - they have the freedom to write whatever they please - with no repercussions to the fact that they are ruining a small business with their false claims. I understand that HomeAway cannot chase claims back and forth - that is impossible. However, they cannot let these people crush the very businesses they helped build - HomeAway - you have to see what is happening here. I feel that if indeed we are building a community - then the community that needs to be built is one where (much like Air BnB - who I might add are just now learning how to “listen” to their clients) there is a community not only of renters, but of tenants too. I think John Doe will be a little less likely to make a damaging false claim if he held accountable and his “friends” or other renters on HomeAway see his behavior and have a chance to decline him as a guest by seeing this track record. These people just go on to rent to the next house in the area and frankly I wish I could warn my renting neighbors to watch out for the occasional sour (vindictive) grape we get.

I hope HomeAway hears us out and develops a new strategy.

In addition, I would love to hear how other hosts are handling these problems and any suggestions we can present to HomeAway as a group.

VRBO Customer Service is VERY slow regarding Reviews!

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:27:29 GMT

Hi Everyone,

VRBO Customer Service is VERY slow going regarding reviews. I had a review submitted on Fri. Feb. 8th. When I saw it that day before it was posted, I asked the renter to change something to it, and she was willing and so she went to try to change it and emailed me that she couldn't see "how" to edit it. That took a few emails back and forth.

So on Mon. Feb. 11th I emailed VRBO, including a c.c. to my renter, including her original email to me asking me how to edit it etc., and I was asking VRBO to LET her change it, giving her/them permission etc.

Wed. Feb. 13th VRBO emailed me back, said that she had write in to ask to change it, to send in a "replacement review."

So, Feb. 15th she used the link they sent, she sent in her updated "replacement" review, she asked for them to use that. And they did remove the post, and it has sat that way until now, lacking that review...

FINALLY on Wed. Feb. 20th they let me know "You Have a Review!" (the standard notification). And I am WAITING for it to appear! I do believe it will show up today, Fri. Feb. 22, but that means it took two full weeks for them (and us, to some extent) to change it to the corrected version! TWO WEEKS to CHANGE it. That is SLOW GOING. And I/We PAY for this "service."

Aloha, Stephanie

New Vacation Renter Seeks Feedback

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:58:33 GMT

Hello,

I'm new to renting my property and have recently joined VRBO and posted my vacation rental. Any feedback provided about pictures, information etc would be very helpful.

http://www.vrbo.com/455536

Thank you in advance for you time.

Kathy

No way to leave reviews from mobile device?

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:11:13 GMT

It appears that there is no way for to leave review a review from a mobile device. First, there is no "review" icon to click to leave a review and even if you have the link and type it directly in, you get an error page.

This is significant drawback for 2 reasons"

1- we find our guests prefer to leave reviews during their stay and ease of doing so on mobile

2 - We like to encourage reviews by providing direct link with a QR code. The closest we can get is the propertly listing page since otherwise it returns an error message -- even if you directly type in the URL on your mobile phone.

Anyone figuure out a workaround for this???