Earlier this month, Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, held a press conference in New York City purported to be real tweets from unhappy customers complaining about exorbitant cleaning fees, chores, hidden fees, and more. Started the conference.
“We heard,” Chesky said. “We’ve improved our service by starting with a design-driven approach.” This design-driven approach began by looking at Airbnb’s blueprints, mapping out the entire service end-to-end for both guests and hosts, and sifting through millions of customer service tickets and thousands of social media posts to improve the process.
With 300 million guests expected to arrive in 2023, Airbnb knows it needs to fix key issues about its vacation rental platform before it can move forward. Chesky indicated that Airbnb plans to launch “new crazy stuff” in 2024, but admitted that the influx of complaints on social media made him realize that, “We’ve got to set our house right and improve our core service.” Have to fix… [and] Transfer the balance back to the people at Airbnb.”
The number one complaint was the lack of transparent pricing some hosts require guests to pay after checkout. The result is 50 new features and upgrades for guests and hosts.
Here are some of what Chesky calls “the most comprehensive set of reforms we’ve ever done.”
Users can now toggle back and forth to see total price versus nightly rate with charges.
1. Price transparency now part of search
Users can now toggle a new total price feature on and off when searching. When it’s turned off, they’ll see how search results previously appeared with just the nightly rate without the cleaning fee and Airbnb service fee. When enabled, search results will show the total price including all charges before tax. (The price including tax will appear on the checkout page like any other online shopping experience.)
People can now review checkout instructions before booking.
2. Checkout Improvements
“We’ve heard that checking out can be kind of a pain,” Chesky said. 10-Step Cleaning List, $150 charge for condiments left in the fridge, etc.). To bring transparency to the process, hosts can list their checkout requirements on their listings under house rules, so guests know what to expect before booking. The day before a guest is due to check out, they will receive a reminder with a link to instructions on what is expected of them before they leave.
If guests feel these actions are inappropriate, they can also select “Excessive Checkout Actions” within the rating tool after the completion of their stay. Hosts who repeatedly receive low ratings for these actions will be removed by Airbnb.
3. Two-minute response time from customer service on the go
For customers who experience issues while traveling, Airbnb is aiming for its 24/7 support team to answer 90 percent of calls within two minutes. To find the number for this, go to the Trips tab, then click the tab Help, and you can call or message Airbnb about any urgent issues during your trip – like not being able to show up for your listing .
The new Airbnb Rooms category features more than 1 million private bedrooms with access to a shared space in the host’s home.
4. AirBnB Rooms
Airbnb began in 2007, when Chesky and his cofounder Joe Gebbia welcomed three guests to stay in their San Francisco apartment. To get back to the company’s roots—staying with a host and experiencing the city like a local—Airbnb just launched a new curated range of private rooms within a host’s home. (You can find it on its homepage, along with other categories introduced last year, like Tiny Homes, Castles, and OMG!)
“With Airbnb Rooms we’re coming back to the idea that started it all,” Chesky said. “People are back at the heart of Airbnb.” In addition to reconnecting with people after years of self-isolation due to the pandemic, the other advantage of Airbnb rooms is that they are very affordable (the average nightly rate for a private room on Airbnb is just $67).
To prove his dedication to getting the company re-focused on this core concept, Chesky once again listed a room in his San Francisco home on the platform (something he did last time so that the private room could be included). ease of listing and display of value).
The new Host Passport feature allows guests to learn about their host before they book.
5. Security Features and the New “Host Passport”
For more people to stay in Airbnb Rooms, Chesky said he knows “they need to be comfortable with the hosts.” Airbnb has existing security measures in place, such as verifying the identity of every guest and host through government IDs and a 24/7 security line. When setting up a listing, hosts will also be asked if their private room door has a lock—if it doesn’t, it will be noted in the listing.
In addition to information about a host’s rating, Superhost status and how long they’ve been hosting, a new Host Passport feature provides a more detailed introduction to help potential guests get a better idea of what Will they be compatible with the hosts during their stay? , In addition to basic information about what decade they were born in, if they have pets, and what languages they speak, Host Passports also include fun details like their favorite song in high school and if they had a biography. What do they say?
6. Long Lasting
To adapt to a new world where many people aren’t attached to offices, Airbnb is also moving beyond short-term rentals to focus on stays of a month or longer. (Chesky pointed out that at least a fifth of Airbnb’s business is now longer than a month.) Users can find a new tab called “Months,” where they can search for available listings ranging from one month to one year Are. They can now pay in monthly installments and directly through a bank account (which removes credit card processing fees). In the fourth month, Airbnb will also “significantly reduce” its guest service fee (but didn’t say exactly by how much).
7. New Wishlist Features
Airbnb has completely redesigned Wishlist—the feature that lets users create their own lists of homes for future trips—for a simpler interface. In addition to viewing larger images of saved homes, users can now also add notes to listings on their wishlist to add standout details, “hopefully making it easier to compare listings,” Chesky said.
8. Multiple upgrades for hosts
Hosts can now select checkout tasks from a prebuilt list of (reasonable) tasks within the app, so it’s easier for hosts to give checkout instructions to guests. To help set competitive prices, hosts can now see what guests are paying on similar nearby listings. Airbnb says this new tool will also show hosts their total nightly price including fees, so they know what guests are paying (which apparently didn’t happen before the listing went live).
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