How to use reviews on iGMS

The Reviews section in iGMS allows you to manage guest reviews and host reviews across both Airbnb and Vrbo in one centralized location. You can view incoming guest feedback, monitor your property performance, send reviews to guests, and automate the entire review process with customizable templates.

The Reviews section is divided into four tabs, each serving a distinct purpose in your review workflow.

You can find the Reviews section in your main iGMS menu. Click on Reviews to open the section, which will display the Reviews by Guest tab by default.

If you still have not enabled auto-reviews and would like to do that, please refer to the following article.

The Reviews section contains four main areas:

Each tab addresses a different aspect of the review process, allowing you to both receive feedback from guests and provide feedback to them efficiently.

The Reviews by Guest tab centralizes all guest reviews from both Airbnb and Vrbo. When a guest posts a review on either platform, it appears in this list along with the rating details and review text.

At the top of the Reviews by Guest tab, you can filter reviews by star rating or view all reviews together. The filter buttons display the number of reviews at each star level (5-star, 4-star, etc.).

On the right side of the screen, you'll see statistics based on your current filter selection for the month.

You can search for reviews using the guest name or the reservation code. The search field at the top of the list accepts both these inputs.

When you click Show from the three-dot menu next to any review, you'll see the complete review text the guest posted to the platform and the host’s response if it exists. Below the review text, iGMS displays the detailed feedback across six standardized categories:

Both Airbnb and Vrbo provide category-level ratings, though each platform may use slightly different category names. iGMS maps these platform-specific categories to the six standard categories shown above, ensuring consistency regardless of which platform the review came from.

If the platform allows you to reply to a review and if the review still does not have a reply, you'll see a Reply button in the three-dot menu. Click Reply to open a text field where you can write your response.

Your reply will be sent to the platform and displayed publicly alongside the guest's original review.

Note: Both Airbnb and Vrbo have time limits for replying to reviews. If the reply period has expired, the reply option will not appear in the menu. On Airbnb, you typically have 14 days from when the review is posted to submit a reply.

The Performance tab provides an overview of how your properties are performing based on guest ratings. This view aggregates all reviews for each property and calculates average scores across the six rating categories.

For each property, you'll see:

Overall Rating is the average rating across all categories and reviews for that property.

Total Reviews shows the count of reviews used to calculate the averages.

Category Breakdown displays the average score for each of the six categories: Cleanliness, Accuracy, Check-in, Communication, Location, and Value.

You can filter the performance view by property using the property dropdown. You can also filter by overall rating to focus on properties within a specific rating range.

The address search field allows you to find properties by their location.

The Performance tab uses pagination to display your properties. Use the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom of the page to navigate through multiple pages of results.

The Reviews by Host tab shows reviews you plan to send to guests who have stayed at your properties. This includes both automatically scheduled reviews (based on your templates and automation settings) and any unscheduled reviews you might want to send manually.

When auto-review is enabled, iGMS automatically schedules reviews to be sent after each guest checkout. The list displays:

The system randomly selects a template to send to the guest from your positive templates.

Click the three-dot menu next to any review to open a preview of the review that will be sent, including the selected template text and ratings.

Disabling the Auto-Review toggle allows you to modify the review text or ratings before sending. You can use the Useful Elements dropdown to insert placeholders like guest name or property details. You can also select a different template to be sent instead.

After making changes, you have three options:

Review templates are pre-written review messages you can reuse for different guests. Templates allow you to maintain consistency while personalizing each review with guest-specific information through placeholders.

Click Create Template to begin creating a template. To edit a template, you can simply click on it.

Give your template a descriptive name and write the review text. You can use placeholders to automatically insert information like the guest's name, property name, or checkout date from the Useful elements dropdown.

Templates support multiple languages. Click Add language to add translations of your template in different languages.

When you send a review to a guest who has a preferred language set in their iGMS inbox thread, the system will use the matching language version of your template. If the template does not have a version in the guest's language, the English version is sent by default.

Important: Auto-review requires a minimum of three templates to be enabled. If you have fewer than three templates, you'll see a warning message in the settings. This ensures variety in your automated reviews and prevents sending identical reviews repeatedly.

The settings panel controls how auto-reviews are sent for each platform. Click the Settings button in the Reviews by Host tab to access these options.

You can enable or disable auto-review separately for Airbnb and Vrbo using the toggle switches.

Your existing settings from the previous review section are migrated automatically. The Vrbo auto-review toggle will be disabled by default, allowing you to enable it when you're ready.

The delay setting determines how long iGMS waits after guest checkout before sending an automated review. This delay applies to both Airbnb and Vrbo.

For example, if you set a delay of 4 days, the system will schedule reviews to be sent 4 days after each guest checks out. This gives the host enough time in order to make sure that the property is thoroughly inspected and there's no damage found after the checkout.

Note: Although the delay setting currently appears under the Airbnb section, it applies to both platforms. The interface will be updated in a future release to make this clearer.

Both Airbnb and Vrbo impose time limits on when you can reply to guest reviews and when you can submit reviews of guests.

For host replies to guest reviews, Airbnb typically allows 14 days from when the review is posted. After this period expires, the reply option is no longer available.

For host reviews of guests, both platforms allow 14 days after checkout to submit your review. After this deadline passes, you can no longer review that guest.

If you see a review in the Reviews by Host tab without a scheduled send time (shown as a dash instead of "in X days"), it means either the review window has expired or auto-review has not been configured for that reservation's property.

Vrbo handles host reviews differently from Airbnb:

1- Guest reviews of hosts on Vrbo work similarly to Airbnb. Guests can write a text review and rate you across various categories. You can reply to these reviews from the Reviews by Guest tab.

2- Host reviews of guests on Vrbo are limited to category ratings only. You cannot include text in your review of a Vrbo guest, only ratings across the available categories.

Your review templates in iGMS can still include text, but when sent to Vrbo, only the rating portion will be transmitted to the platform.

The Reviews section currently supports: