Assume you are a product manager for Airbnb. There are two problems to solve: customers being unable to check-in, and customers having a dirty place. How would you prioritize these issues?

Questions for the interviewer

• How rampant are the 2 problems i.e. are they an issue of the same scale? - Would assume that both are problems of the same scale
• Are these problems that have existed for a while or are they problems that have recently come up? - Rationale for this question is that it might help us understand if something changed or has it been a problem from the onset? Would assume - something changed recently

I would look at it through 2 factors that Air BnB would be trying to optimize for. (1) Revenue - i.e. no of ppl who use the Air BnB platform and pay for it (2) Retention - ppl who come and use Air BnB again. 

Between the 2 options provided that we have to optimize against (1) check in and (2) customers having a dirty place, I would prioritize the first one. Reasons for doing so are

• If someone who has paid for AirBnB cannot use it or has long wait times before they can check in that would lead to a bad experience
• Booking another place at odd hours or last minute leads to a lot of hassles. Its better to be at a place which might be dirty than to not have any place to stay at all
• Between the 2 options provided, with either one of the issues customers are going to write bad reviews but atleast if they can get to stay at the place the damage is lower
• Overall, being able to check in also helps with the revenue metric for AirBnB and helps buy some time for fixing the cleaning issue
• Lastly, I would look at the cost of fixing the issues. Under the assumptions I made above, that something changed I would look at factors and associated costs. In case of check in (1) there might have been an issue with the app (2) maybe these are new Air BnB properties and they do not have figured out how to check in ppl in atypical hours or there isn't a conceirge. In case of dirty place would look at (1) is it because of operational issues i.e. hosts not investing in cleaning staff (2) previous stayers leaving the place dirty - less likely though under the assumption that something is prevalent at a large scale. Fixing operational issues seem to be a harder challenge in terms of time and cost involved. If it is an app issue it might be lower cost, easier to fix, and have higher impact 

There are two problems to solve: 

1. customers being unable to check in, 
2. customers having a dirty place. 

1. Do we have any data that shows which problem is happening more often than another? 
2. Did we get any customer anecdotes or recent complaints that caused us to look into this analysis?
3. Cleanliness is relative do we have any mechanism that will allow us to measure or review customer's complaints? 

As a product manager for Airbnb, prioritizing these two issues would depend on several factors, including the severity of the problems, the impact on customers, and the feasibility of solutions.

In terms of severity, being unable to check-in can be a more pressing issue as it can completely ruin a guest's experience and may cause them to lose trust in the platform. On the other hand, a dirty place is certainly an inconvenience but may not be as severe as being unable to check-in.

In terms of impact on customers, both issues are equally important. Customers expect a smooth and seamless check-in process, and they also expect a clean and well-maintained place to stay. Failure to meet these expectations could result in negative reviews and a loss of business.

Finally, the feasibility of solutions should also be taken into account. While there are several solutions that can be implemented to prevent guests from being unable to check-in, such as offering self-check-in options and improving communication between hosts and guests, preventing a dirty place may require additional effort from both the host and the guests.

 

Given these factors, my recommendation would be to prioritize the issue of customers being unable to check-in as it has a more significant impact on the guest experience and trust in the platform. However, addressing the issue of dirty places should also be a priority to maintain the quality of service and improve the overall guest experience.

1. Lets understand both problems from a customer lens.  Not available - Data on how big the problem is. We consider both are fairly big and equally distributed.

a. Unable to check In > Customer has booked a place, travelled all the way to the location and reached (potentially at an odd hour)

Impact - Customer will need to hassle to get help from customer support, worst case, drop the booking and look for a new place to stay in the nth hour.

Effort to solve -  Potentially, there could be limited set of reasons why checkin in not happening

- Application Issue (Tech)

- Hardware Issue (checkin requires authentication, through a QR scan/ Biometric / passkey etc which is not working properly)

Both usecases should be straight forward to solve and the solve should potentialy apply accross all AirBnBs

b. Dirty Place > Customer comes In, realized the room is dirty once he walks in and is disappointed.

Impact - Customer raises a complaint; Provides a poor review of the place; decies to book a new place to stay, but does have a place to stay till the time new place is booked

Effort to solve - There could be various reasons on why the place was dirty - no standardization; Staff shortage; operational miss; previous customer didnt leave it clean, local contraints etc.

Solution could be incentive + penalty framework (including poor rating and reviews) for customer complaints on Diirty place. however, it would still not solve the problem across and 100%

Hence, considering Impact / Effort metric, would recommend prioritizing a.