Channel Reviews in Mangobeds: Booking.com, Airbnb

Channel reviews are the ones your guests leave on Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia. They arrive in Mangobeds with the scores behind them, and you answer them from the same screen instead of logging into three extranets.

This is one half of the Reviews app. The other half is Google reviews, which work on any plan. The overview of both is in how to manage your guest reviews in Mangobeds.

Before you start

Channel reviews are part of the Premium plan.
You need the Channel Manager connected, because these reviews come from the channels you sell on. If you have not connected it yet, the app tells you and links you there.
They must be switched on once. Open Apps > Reviews and click Turn on channel reviews. It costs nothing extra on your plan, and it switches on channel messages at the same time.

Your score per channel

The Scores tab is where the app opens, because it answers the question you came for: how is the property doing?

All channels is your overall score out of 10, across every review from every channel, with the category breakdown underneath.
One card per channel shows the same thing for Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia on their own, so you can see where you are strong and where you are not.
Airbnb reports per listing, so if you have several listings mapped to the property you get a card for each, identified by its listing number. This is normal and it is how Airbnb works, not a duplicate.

Categories differ by channel. Booking.com rates value, cleanliness, location, comfort, facilities and staff; Airbnb rates accuracy, check-in, communication, cleanliness, location and value. Only the categories a channel actually scores appear on its card.

Reading and replying

Open the Reviews tab and make sure the dropdown at the top of the list is on Channel reviews. It starts on Not replied, so what needs you is what you see first. Switch to Replied to look back at answered ones.
Click a review. You get the guest’s scores, what they liked, what they thought could be better, and the stay it came from, with a link straight to the booking.
Write your answer in Your reply and click Send reply. It is published on the channel under your property’s name, exactly as if you had written it in the extranet.

A reply to a channel review is public and cannot be edited afterwards, so read it once before you send.

Things you will see, and what they mean

“The channel’s reply window has closed” means the channel no longer accepts an answer to that review. Booking.com and Airbnb both stop accepting replies some weeks after a review is left, so there is no reply box on those. Answering while a review is fresh is the only way around it.
“Not published yet” on an Airbnb review means Airbnb is holding it back until both sides have written theirs, or the 14 day window runs out. You will see the scores before you see the words.
A review with scores but no text is a guest who rated the stay and did not write anything. There is nothing missing; most guests do this.
Private feedback on an Airbnb review is meant for you alone and is never published. It is often the most useful part.

Why a channel review might not be here

It came from a channel Mangobeds does not yet collect reviews from. Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia are covered today.
It was left on Google. Those are in the app too, under Google reviews, as a separate source.
Reviews and messages were switched off in the Channel Manager. Turning them off there stops new reviews arriving here too.

Why replying is worth the ten minutes

Booking.com and Airbnb both show your answer under the review, and it is written for the next guest reading it rather than for the one who left it. A calm, specific reply to a six out of ten does more for your bookings than a perfect score with silence under it.

Channel reviews come from the channels you connect. Read the channel manager guide to connect Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia and the rest.