How To Improve Your Airbnb Guest Reviews (Cleaning Edition)

If your Airbnb listing has been stuck in the mid 4.7s for a while, the property is usually not the problem. The cleaning consistency is.

Guests write reviews about very specific moments. The smell when they walked in. The bathroom on the first morning. The state of the kitchen after they cooked. Almost every one of those moments is shaped by your cleaning team.

Here are six simple things we see top hosts do across Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and the rest of the UK to push their listings into 4.95 plus territory.

1. Use the same checklist every single time

The biggest cause of cleaning slip ups is doing things in a different order each visit. Something always gets missed.

Build a simple room by room checklist for your property. Same rooms, same order, same products. If you use a professional Airbnb cleaning team, ask to see their checklist. If they do not have one, that is your answer.

2. Ask for photo reports after every clean

A quick photo of the made bed, the bathroom and the kitchen takes thirty seconds and changes everything.

It keeps your cleaning team honest, gives you proof if a guest complains, and lets you spot issues before the next check in. Every Top Notch Cleans turnover comes with a photo report sent straight to the host.

3. Treat linen like a hotel does

Cheap linen is the fastest way to lose a star. Guests notice rough sheets, thin towels and visible stains within minutes.

Hotel grade, hotel laundered linen lifts how clean a property feels more than almost any decor upgrade. We manage linen as part of the turnover service so hosts never run short on a busy weekend.

4. Restock the basics every visit

Running out of toilet roll on day one is the easiest way to earn a four star review. Same with no coffee in the morning or no hand soap by the sink.

Build a small restock list into the cleaning visit. Tea, coffee, toilet roll, kitchen roll, hand soap, dish tabs, bin bags. It costs almost nothing and protects every review.

5. Book a deeper clean once a month

Turnover cleans focus on what guests see. Over time, the things they do not see start to build up. Limescale, oven grease, dusty extractor fans, marks on skirtings.

A rolling monthly deep clean keeps the property looking newer for longer and stops small issues turning into review damaging ones.

6. Have a backup plan for every clean

Even great cleaners get sick. Cars break down. Traffic happens. If your turnover relies on one person with no backup, sooner or later you will get caught out.

Professional Airbnb cleaning teams like ours always have cover ready. If something goes wrong on the morning of a turnover, another team picks it up. That is the difference between a hobby cleaner and a real service.

Cleaning is the easiest five star upgrade

You do not need to renovate to lift your reviews. Get these six cleaning habits in place and your nightly rate, your bookings and your peace of mind all move in the right direction.