The best way to deal with difficult Airbnb guests

Generally, most Airbnb guests you will host in your Airbnb will be lovely. However, there will always be a few apples in the bunch that are just a bit off.

Regardless of how you operate your Airbnb, I’m sure you’ll run into someone sour during your Airbnb career.

Now we’re not talking about guests complaining about you failing to deliver something you’ve promised (which would be a genuine reason for them to complain), we’re talking about those Airbnb guests who just seem like they want to complain about anything and everything.

Whether the Airbnb isn’t what this guest expected, they are just in a sour mood, or they don’t seem to like you, you need to prepare for future complaints.

So how should you handle difficult guests?

Turn off Instant Book

Airhost Academy says that turning off Instant Book is a great way to prevent possible problem guests from booking. Turning off Instant Book allows you to screen every guest that wants to book your Airbnb.

So here are a few things you should look for when you are screening potential guests:

Check whether their profile is complete!

If a guest’s profile is missing crucial information, eg. the guest’s full name or verifications, then this may mean that the profile is not legitimate. Other signs of this are a blurry profile picture or short description.

If you want to double-check the legitimacy of this guest, then you could ask them to fill out their profile and do an I.D profile check so you can be comfortable accepting their booking.

If they agree to this, great. If not, run for the hills!

Read this guest’s previous reviews

Before accepting a guest’s booking, you should check their previous guest reviews so you can identify any patterns of repeatedly bad reviews (3.5 stars or below). If your investigation provides numerous bad reviews of other Airbnb properties, this should set off alarm bells in your head.

Offer solutions and never play the blame game!

As Hostaway says, the best way to deal with guest’s issues is to face them head-on and offer solutions to these problems.

When the guest complains, make sure you listen to their complaint, stay calm, and offer solutions to their problem.

You could also offer to cancel the guest’s booking if they would like. This offer puts pressure on the guest, and they will often backtrack their complaint (especially if it is an unreasonable one) when faced with the option of having nowhere to stay.

But whatever you do, NEVER play the blame game! Always try to offer solutions to guest’s problems (however ridiculous they may be) and above all, NEVER blame the guest.

Give a level-headed reply to a bad review

If this Airbnb guest does leave you a bad review (which is pretty likely), then try to mediate this with a polite response.

As Bnb Duck suggests, keep your response to their review polite and friendly. You should also apologise for not providing the experience your guest wanted.

But remember that the best thing for your Airbnb profile is to respond to all the Airbnb reviews made for your property. Otherwise, if you only reply to the bad reviews, then these will be highlighted.

Conclusion

So there you have it, some great ways to deal with those difficult Airbnb guests. Hopefully, you don’t have to deal with many bad guests (and if you do, then you might be the problem) but it's always best to be prepared for this.

So with these great solutions, you'll hopefully be able to prevent future difficult guests from booking, and manage difficult guests when they do complain.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our previous Zodiak article on 'How to deal with demanding Airbnb Guests.'

And if you take just one thing away from this article, take this, keep calm, and offer solutions to guests' problems above all else.

Have you experienced a difficult Airbnb guest before?