Mastering Guest Reviews in Homhero: Strategies for 5-Star Success

This post summarises key strategies for managing and improving guest reviews, as discussed in the recent Homhero webinar presented by Tatiana. High-quality, high-volume reviews are essential in the industry, as they build trust and boost listing visibility in algorithms, ultimately leading to more bookings.

While property standards are important, the focus should be on the entire guest experience, from the time of booking onward. Homhero can significantly improve this experience.

Key Touch Points for Guest Communication

Proactively communicating with guests at key points in their journey can streamline their stay and improve their experience, reducing the need for them to ask questions.

Touch Point	Timing	Recommended Communication
Confirmation (First Impression)	At the time of booking	Reassure the guest that the booking has been received and set expectations for their journey. Include payment and cancellation policies, and when they can expect to receive property access instructions. Proactively answer frequently asked questions (FAQs), such as whether beach towels are provided. For Airbnb, sending the confirmation via Airbnb messaging can positively impact your algorithm since it favors listings that respond within 24 hours.
Pre-Arrival	Closer to the stay (e.g., 7 days before arrival)	Proactively answer common questions to resolve issues before they arise. For example, remind guests that you only provide a starter pack of amenities. Provide useful information, such as the closest supermarket or where to hire equipment. Check their planned arrival time, especially if early check-in is an option. Remind them when they will receive access instructions.
Post-Arrival	During the stay	A vital touchpoint to ensure the guest is enjoying their stay and that everything is up to standard. Proactively reaching out gives you a chance to rectify small issues the guest might not otherwise mention, which could lead to an average review or no review at all. Emphasize that you strive for five-star service. Provide specific examples of what they can contact you about, such as cleaning issues, missing amenities, or appliance assistance.
Pre-Departure	Dependent on the length of stay	Remind guests of checkout instructions so they don’t have to search their correspondence. Include information on what to expect for bond release. Note: For short stays (three or four nights), this information may be better included in the pre-arrival message or a property compendium/online guidebook to avoid over-communicating.
Post-Departure	After the guest has checked out	Request a Review: Send a review request to all your Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and to direct/website bookings. For direct/website bookings, Homhero provides a built-in, customizable review form with a merge field that links guests directly to the review page. Host Review (Airbnb): Review Airbnb guests, which often prompts them to review you in return, helping to increase your review count and build a trustworthy profile. Bond Release: Include confirmation of the bond release in the review request message, which may help guests feel more inclined to leave positive feedback. Automated Response to Reviews: Set up automated schedules to notify yourself, thank the guest, or flag a negative review to a manager for instant address. Respond to Reviews: Respond professionally to all reviews (both good and bad). A professional response to a negative review shows future guests that you take feedback seriously and are committed to improvement, thereby building trust.

Managing Automated Correspondence

Homhero allows you to automate these messages. There are two ways to prevent a guest from receiving specific automated schedules:

1. Remove a Specific Schedule on a Reservation: Go to the Correspondence tab, then Schedule Status for an individual reservation, and select the red trash icon. This is useful if a guest has already reached out, and you don’t need to send a post-arrival check, for instance.
2. Flag a Guest as “Bad Guest”: By default, all guests are considered “good”. On any reservation, you can toggle the Bad Guest option on and leave a note for context, which will prevent them from receiving certain schedules, such as a positive review request. This flag is specific to the reservation and does not carry over to future reservations.

You can set up filters on your correspondence schedules based on Guest Type (e.g., to send a review request only to “good guests”). You can also filter schedules by Review Rating. For example, a schedule can be set up to trigger a message to both the guest and an admin (manager) instantly when a review rating is less than three stars.

Customising Direct Website Review Questions

You can customise the built-in review questions for your direct website.

1. In Homhero, go to Property Management.
2. Click the Properties tab.
3. Double-click your company name to edit.
4. Go to the Booking Fields tab, where your review questions are located.

Options for Review Fields:

• Rating: Asks for a score (e.g., out of five) for categories like value or cleanliness.
• Text Box: Allows guests to write their comments.
• Checkbox: For yes/no questions (e.g., “Would you be happy to stay here again?”).
• Select One or More: Allows you to add pre-selected tags (like “neat and tidy” or “great communication”) for guests to choose from, similar to Airbnb or Uber. This encourages positive tags rather than negative feedback.

You can also choose to make fields optional rather than mandatory to make it easier for guests to leave feedback.

Finding and Managing Reviews in Homhero

Homhero displays reviews in a few places:

• Booking Engine > Reviews: This central page under the left-hand menu contains the Guest Reviews tab (reviews left for you) and the Host Reviews tab (reviews you leave for guests). Reviews are color-coded based on score: green for good, yellow for three stars or less, orange for two stars or less, and red for one star or less. Reviews from Booking.com, rated out of 10, are converted to 5-star ratings.
• Listing Page: Go to a specific listing and click the Reviews tab to see all guest and host reviews for that listing.
• Dashboard: Shows pending host reviews for Airbnb guests who have departed but have not yet been reviewed by you.

Key Review Management Features:

• View Details: Double-clicking or using the green pencil icon opens the full review, including the overall rating, individual category ratings, comments, and private feedback.
• Reply to Reviews: You can reply to guest reviews from within Homhero, and this will feed through to the OTA (for Booking.com, you cannot reply if only a rating was left). Note that replying directly on the OTA will not feed back to Homhero.
• Filtering: You can filter reviews by listing, source (Airbnb, Booking.com, direct/website), score, and whether they have been replied to.
• Add New Review: You can manually add reviews received from external sources, like Google or a nice email.
• Website Publication: Direct and website reviews may be published automatically or require manual approval. Note that OTA reviews (Airbnb, Booking.com) are restricted by the OTA and will not publish to your website.

Bulk Submitting Host Reviews for Good Guests (Airbnb)

Homhero offers a new feature that lets you bulk submit host reviews for your “good” Airbnb guests.

Setup (Requires Super User Access):

1. Go to Settings.
2. Navigate to Online Bookings/Quotes and then Host Reviews.
3. Default Tags: Choose the default positive tags to be applied (e.g., “kept in good condition,” “respectful”).
4. Comments: Provide five different templates for public and private feedback. This cycles through a range responses to create variety and make them look more personal. Use merge fields (e.g., first name, listing name) to populate appropriate details. You can also use the AI Agent feature to generate responses if it’s enabled.
5. Save your changes.

Bulk Submission:

1. Go to the Host Reviews tab under Booking Engine > Reviews (or on the dashboard).
2. Click Bulk Submit Good Guests.

This will submit reviews only for reservations not flagged as “bad guest”. You can still review bad guests manually.