How can we recover bookings after a very poor holiday let review?

[holidaylethelp]

Any advice very welcome and am prepared to be flamed! We have a holiday let in Norfolk near Cromer, quite a long way from where we live. We have always loved it there and put everything we had into buying a small holiday let about 3 years ago. We got a agent and cleaner and it is rented out for about half the year, in quiet times we go and let family and friends use the house. Our cleaner has always been a little hit and miss, at the start of the summer the feedback we had was good mostly 5 star reviews, but as the summer has gone on we have had some really negative feedback saying that the kitchen and bathroom were dirty. We offered compensation and spoke to the cleaner - the guests were happy. We told the agent we wanted to get a different cleaning company and they said they would start looking for alternatives. We have now had an absolutely dire review from the next guest posted on the booking website, saying items in the house were broken and it was very dirty. The agent is annoyed as they contacted the guests on the day they arrived to see if everything was alright but they did not respond. My wife went to see the house today and it was dirty and items in the house had been broken - for example broken scissors, dvd's snapped in two - of course items do get broken and we expect that but we would never leave broken items in the house and always replace items and never charge the guest for breakages, Sometimes guests hide damage (probably thinking we would charge them) and we do not have the chance to replace the item quickly. This guest of course has a right to complain, holiday time is very precious and I am upset that their stay was not perfect. We have sacked the cleaning company, but I am so sad that we put so much into the property, have had many happy guests, and now no one will rent the house going forward because of this awful review. Any ideas how to approach this?

Tbh it wouldn't satisfy me. A guest can expect more of renting a holiday home.
I really don't care a lot about the owners' issues of keeping the place up to date.

OP - you need to step up or don't rent out.

But they didn't put it right. There were a run of negative reviews and nothing was done. Others are right. After the first negative review you go down and sort it.
A run of negative reviews make it clear the owner is slow to resolve any issues. Holiday let's are expensive to rent. Being clean is an absolute basic.

I don’t think it’s the cleaners responsibility to check from broken items… dirty yes but not broken. That’s the agent or owners job to go in and do checks. I think this is the issue with you essentially running a business where you have 1% input and leave the rest to likely minimum wage workers. Your agent or you should be doing inspections as the cleaner is likely hired to do a set series of jobs within a time space not a deep clean after weeks of usage. That will always build into a bigger job.

It would help future guests though knowing while there had been issues, these were dealt with and that the owner is responding to reviews.

People are so pathetic these days - expecting five star hotel level without paying that in prices.

No skin in the game myself - but all this review shite puts too much power in the hands of anonymous punters, who are blagging to get money off.

Mind you, I work in finance, and tell my staff never to apologise to anyone, ever, unless they have personally made a mistake..

Yes do post a response - and hire a management company that actually ‘manage’ not just a bookings taker - I would also contact people yourself by mobile whijst guests and be really upfront - explain you had unsatisfactory cleaners and ask about anything unclean or broken -

Most airbnb prices are hotel prices around here. We do hotels 9/10. It's so much less faff.

I am looking for somewhere to stay for a short break in Cromer and would leave a fair review noting all positives.

Being clean is not five star levels. It's what I expect anywhere. And broken items should be removed and replaced. Your expectations are incredibly low.

How many other reviews do you have?

befire this review what was your average rating?

Renting a place out as a short term let when you live so far away is never going to be simple or easy. You have to place your trust in agents, cleaners and tradespeople - none of which are considered greatly trustworthy generally. Unless you have personal connections and relationships it’s always going to be completely transactional with them doing the bare minimum they think they can get away with. I suspect this won’t be the last 1 star you get if you carry on like this. So probably best to rethink your set up and how you’re managing it. More regular visits at a minimum are needed.

You have sacked the cleaner on the basis of this one review despite supposedly all others being positive?

I agree. Hotels are professionally run and it shows. You can't run an air BnB and expect all the work to be done by minimum wage cleaners and expect to have no issues. Places need maintained and inspected along with occasional deep cleaning.

It's not one review. Other reviews were negative but this latest review is dire.

A friend has a holiday home quite far from home.
A neighbour is paid for looking after the home. To make it shine and take care of the things the cleaner doesn't get paid for. But it costs money.

Oh dear

This Op shouldn’t be in the holiday letting business!

i would have a public reply that may help and i would not rely on an agent for the cleaning company. i would ask around and interview companies myself. as it is only one property maybe be worth asking around to see if there is a local person who does cleaning who may take it on? often there are ladies who do quite a few properties so you might be able to go by other peoples work

I was looking at places in Cromer recently and there was one place we really liked but had a couple of bad reviews about cleanliness (not sure if same place!) The letting company responded on the reviews saying we will look at the issues and update you (but never actually said what they did). There were later reviews giving 4/5 stars but never mentioned the actual house/cleanliness which made me a bit suspicious.

Because we liked it I contacted the letting company to ask what action had been taken, and although they did eventually confirm it had been deep cleaned, we chose somewhere else in the meantime. Didn’t want to pay £1500 for somewhere that wasn’t clean.

My daughter owns a rental property near Cromer and although it is a three hour journey, she does every changeover herself. She says it is the only way to assure her standards are met. Always 5* reviews.

Believe me cleaners are not on minimum wage. I'm in Cornwall and cleaners charge £20-£35 an hour here. I do my own cleaning but I'm trying to find someone to do one changeover a week. I can't find anyone, they're all booked up. Last week I was quoted £75 to clean my shepherd's hut plus £95 to do the hot tub. Even they now haven't got any space!

I had a cleaner for a while. She earned £48k a year cleaning, way more than me.

Yes - I think OP should offer a couple of 3 or 4 night stays for very low cost ( maybe 30%) of usual cost - and ask for a very honest opinion and post it - space them out too

I agree with PP that you need to go there yourself more regularly to check how things are.

If all reviews are good and it is running smoothly you can visit less regularly, but when you start getting poor reviews you cannot outsource these checks to an agent or cleaner, you need to do it yourself. If you don't, you risk things going wrong again.

You should of gone down there after the first bad review. Not the cleaners fault items are broken that isn't their job to check.

Airbnbs in the UK can cost £2-300 a night. Thats similar to the price of a room at the Waldorf in off season. I’d expect it not to be dirty…

Good for them. Most likely they know you can't run your airbnb without them. Work smarter not harder.

Cleaning here is minimum wages and hard work.