Collecting reviews from your guests

Reviews are important as they give your property extra visibility and inspire confidence for your guests. They are also a way for you to give value to your guests' feedback.

When you use Smily, there are two different ways that your guests can review their stay.

1. Reviews collected by Smily

After each booking has finished, an automatic email is sent from Smily to request a guest review. The guest is asked to review their stay out of 5 stars and to leave their comments. 

Here is an example of the email sent:

5 - Excellent

4 - Good

3 - Fair

2 - Poor

1 - never again

The reviews collected in this way are displayed in the Reviews section of your Smily account.

2. Reviews collected by the booking channels

When a guest books through one of the online booking platforms (for example Airbnb or Booking.com), the platform sends an automated invitation to the guest to leave a review. This review is then displayed on your listing on that given platform.

You can check, and reply to, the reviews left on the channels in the Reviews section of your Smily account.

Currently, you can check the reviews from Airbnb and Booking.com.

Airbnb's cross-review process

The guest and the host have 14 days to review the other party. Here is how it works:

  1. Once checkout is complete, Airbnb will ask you to write a review and provide star ratings for your guest
  2. You have to submit your review within 14 days from the time of checkout—after that, you can’t edit it
  3. Reviews are only posted after a) both parties have completed theirs, or b) the 14-day period has ended—whichever comes first
  4. You can also leave private feedback, which will be shared once the reviews are posted

If a guest leaves you a review, Airbnb allows you to respond within 30 days of the traveler sending the review.

Booking.com review process

Booking.com invites guests to leave a review of their stay about 48 hours after they check out, and they have 3 months to do so.

Customers give an overall rating (between 1 and 10) of their experience at your property. They also have the opportunity to leave a rating in the following 6 categories:

Cleanliness
Comfort
Value for money
Facilities
Location
Staff

It is also possible (but not required) to write a comment.

You can only reply to customers who have written a comment.