50% of users who RSVP yes to Facebook Events do not show up. What would you do?

Question

50% of users who RSVP yes to Facebook Events do not show up. What would you do?

Asked at Meta (Facebook) over a year ago

1.2k views

Problem Solving category

Asked at

1.2k views

How to answer Problem Solving questions

Interview Guide

Top Meta (Facebook) interview questions

What is your favorite product? Why?89 answers | 263k views
How would you design a bicycle renting app for tourists?62 answers | 82.5k views
Build a product to buy and sell antiques.54 answers | 66.8k views
See Meta (Facebook) PM Interview Questions

Top Problem Solving interview questions

Invite members
Invite by email

Add another

Santhosh Kumar · Answer 1 · 2021-11-10T05:29:40+0000

Approach:

1. Understand the problem better

2. Identify root causes/ Generate solutions to increase the RSVP %

3. Prioritize solutions

Understand the problem better:

Candidate: Is the started to happen recently or a systemic issue happening for a long period of time?

Interviewer: Started to happen recently

Candidate: Is the issue specific to any country or platform

Interviewer: It is happening across the board

Candidate:

Interviewer:

Root causes:

I will outline the user journey to identify the user pain points:

A) User receive the invite for a event

B) User send the response, going or not going

C) User shows up for the event on time

Factors causing fewer people following up as well as potential solution

1) User forgets about the event:

Solution: Send a reminder to the user using the app; interface the facebook events ambient computers to remind the user; nudge the user when to leave their current to reach the venue on time

Effort: Low to build the notification system

Impact: Simple solution that can lead to large impact

2) User had a recent conflict/User is not feeling well: Allow the user to reverse the RSVP note under extenuating circumstances

Effort: High to build the technical capabilities to build the undo feature

Impact: High to increase the % of the people actually showing up as of total that RSVPed

3) User's friend decided not to show up that user also decided not to show up: Remind the users just before the event, other friends that are participating in the event

Effort: Low to build the notfication system

Impact: Moderate; since users can already see this info when they land on the events page

4) User cannot make it due to bad weather: Create the option that user can join virtually

Effort: High, intergrate with facebook live or zoom or other video conference softwares

Impact: High, it will increase the attendence rate

5) User cannot find a convienient means of transportation: Interface with Uber and let the user schedule the uber ride to the venue

Effort: high, to interface with the ride sharing service

Impact: high, it will help to facilitate the logistics

Prioritization

If i were to prioritize the feature, I would prioritize that is the most promising and solves the biggest painpoint. Since logistics is the major part of the work to show up to the venue, I would make it easy for the users to schedule the ride sharing service that more number of RSVPed people show up to the event.

Ashwini Belur · Answer 2 · 2021-07-01T16:13:45+0000

Desc the product: FB Events is one of the applications that help users create events, share it, discover events and express interest in attending an event. You can invite users to an event, share it via your news feed, etc. You can also view events that your connections are going to or interested in.

Clarifying Qs:

When did this drop in event metric happen? - Just last week

Was it gradual or a did you see a sudden drop in the metric: - a sudden drop

Where is this happening( Desktop, Mobile Web, App?) - on the Mobile App, both IPhone and android devices

Is it impacting any specific geo? - All

What kind of events are getting impacted ? - Online events (why only online? we have the online data we do not have data for the physical event attendance)

To summarise so far, this metric drop in the Events is happening on Mobile app only, both iphones and androids, impacting Online events only and has been occurring since the past week as a sudden drop

Let’s look at Internal and external factors:

Internal Factors:

Has anything changed in the way we measure the metrics for Events? - No

FB Events sends notifications prior to the day of the event or even prior to the start of the event , per my understanding. Has anything changed with the notification triggers? - No.

Has there been any changes on other FB apps that might have impacted Events? - No new changes

Has there been any new iOS or Android upgrades on FB app recently on the app store - yes ,we had a recent update to the app store to fix some bugs. This might have prevented users from joining an online event. Needs to be investigated

Could there be a Timezone translation issue, that got users confused on the timings for their events.? - need to work with the engineering team to identify.

Was there a Daylight Savings Time change during this period? If so, Identify if there is a bug in the DST conversion.

External Factors:

Any negative press coverage on FB products that might have impacted Events? - No

Could it be possible that event attendees are not going via FB event but using other competitor platforms like Youtube, Zoom to get to that same event.- Not sure yet.

Were there any technical challenges in starting the event from FB? - need to be investigated.

Were there any other events happening at the same time conflicting with the online events? - Could be.

Was there any Network connectivity issue in the past week? - No

Summary: 50% drop off in the event attendance is happening on Mobile phones, both Andriod and iOS and based on the analysis above, here are my hypothesis on what could have happened:

Since it was uncovered that there were new upgrades made to the app store for FB app, it could be a possibility that the issue is tied to the app upgrades. We have to explore this further and troubleshoot with the engineering team.
On account of the app upgrades, it is possible that a bug is preventing users from joining/starting their event, although it allows them to sign up.
There could be associated notification bugs and hence users not getting timely notification.
It could also be timezone translation issue

Actions I will take is to delve deeper into the possible causes with my engineering team to figure out the root cause.