Does AirBnB Need A Lobby Boy?

It’s no secret AirBnB wants to go from managing one part of travel, the room, to the entire experience, but can they deliver?

While AirBnB’s main growth driver is booking their more than 2 million worldwide listings; expanding into additional services will help them keep customers they grab - both Guests and Hosts.  

This year my wife and I became AirBnB Hosts, so far it’s been great; but we’re still newbies, learning as we go.  Case in point, this summer while in Sardinia we tried an advanced move: back-to-back bookings of our home in SF, having to coordinate:

• check-out/key drop-off,
• house cleaning, restocking,
• welcome gifts,
• check-in/key pickup

all from six thousand miles away, no sweat? yeah, no!  

With beginner's luck, a diving save by our neighbors, it all worked out.  But the experience brought to light opportunities for improvement around core Host Use Cases.

We're obviously stressed.

Let’s take a closer look at how adding basic hospitality services can help AirBnB go beyond the room and enhance their offering, creating an unfair competitive advantage over hotels.       

HELP THE HOSTS

At the heart of the AirBnB experience are Hosts; without them, there are no rooms, no guests, no stays.  Airbnb will never be as consistent as hotels, but that’s the point, right?  there’s charm in a unique experience, not the same monotonous room in every city; all powered by their robust Host community.  While this works, there’s still room for improvement.  I’m not suggesting turndown service, yet, but let’s start with a few thoughtful and much needed tools to help Hosts, well, be better hosts.   

1. Check-in/Key Pickup

2. Cleaning/Restocking

3. Local Insights  

Check-in/Key Pickup

In the time between starting and posting this blog (it was a busy month) August Smart Locks announced integration with AirBnB, so now guests can receive an August Smart Lock code for dates of their stay.  If you don’t know, August adds a cover plate to your door’s deadbolt lock to control remote access and with AirBnB access the code guests receive is active for Check-in and expires upon Check-out.  This, is progress!  

AirBnB Message Center With Pillow and August Alerts

Clean & Restock

As my wife and I soon discovered, when it comes to AirBnB related stress, Cleaning & Restocking is top of mind.  This includes cleaning, fluffing pillows, replacing fresh towels and linens, restocking shampoos, welcome gifts.  It’s great AirBnB gives an option to add in a cleaning fee (ours is $100) but it would be even better to completely take this off our hands.  

AirBnB should offer tight integration with vacation rental services like Pillow (www.pillowhomes.com) so I can schedule cleaning & restocking services through the AirBnB app and then receive reminders and notifications related to these services.

Locals Rule!

Beyond the room, there’s the setting, the sense of place.  

Locals Map To Guide Guests

AirBnB offers guests to feel like a local; it’s touring without being a tourist.  

Along with our House Guidelines (my wife’s handy work) including our favorite local spots from restaurants to grocery stores, a list of “must” things to do in our neighborhood.    

The AirBnB app should allow Hosts to curate their Locals Map for guests to get acquainted with the area; local spots not in tourist maps or guidebooks.  The Locals Map should be situationally aware and two taps away for say an espresso macchiato emergency.

BOTTOM LINE

As AirBnB continues to disrupt the travel industry; hotel incumbents are not going down without a fight; AirBnB will have to answer by expanding further into the travel experience.  A great place to start, their core asset, Hosts and tools to empower them while being situationally aware and not getting in the way of the core experience.  Integration with August Locks is a great start, it’ll be interesting to see what’s next, as they try to go beyond the room.   

AirBnB, Regulators Mount Up!

With listings in over 34,000 cities throughout the world, AirBnB is on target to clear 80 million bookings this year, but will regulators soon run them out of town?  

Which side are you on?  don’t hate? or regulate?  The AirBnB backlash has come in three forms, we covered Trust and Safety in the previous blog, if you haven’t already, check it now and come back; here, we’ll dig into the third, Regulations, and later take a closer look at ways they can hold customers they grab and offer a more complete travel experience.   

 

REGULATIONS

If you haven’t heard, AirBnB has been the target of regulators... not these regulators... but city regulators wanting to reign in their disruption of the travel industry.  In my city, San Francisco, next month, we’re voting on a ballot measure attempting to add even more regulations on short term rentals.  But beyond SF, the crux of the issues center around:

1. Taxes - hotels cry foul and cities want their share

2. Dwelling Laws - who can rent what when?

3. Safety - who decides if an AirBnB room is unsafe?

While keeping focus on product, and not on politics, let’s take a closer look at ways the AirBnB Mobile App can address these issues.  Add your thoughts in the comments, it’s what we do here.

AirBnB Credits

Host Profile With AirBnB Credits

One way to relieve the Host’s tax burden is to not pay them.  Say what?  As a Host, I want the option to not accept payment.  AirBnB would still charge their fee to the Guest, but the Host’s portion would be converted - tax free - to AirBnB Credits, used at a later date, when the Host is a Guest.  Similar to airline or Amex reward miles, I could book my next AirBnB stay with AirBnB Credits.  I admit in advance, this may need more research into tax law, but it’s worth considering.  And this is AirBnB we’re talking about, so disrupt now, ask for forgiveness later.    

Charge Occupancy Tax

Hey here’s an idea: automate this already, com on!  At this time, AirBnB collects occupancy tax for just 18 cities throughout the world (and all of India).  If a city has hotel occupancy tax, AirBnB should pass it through to its guests; remove this from the conversation.  Because, eventually, the tax man cometh, ask Amazon.

Automate Regulations

Message Center, Regulated

If Google can map every street in the world, AirBnB can keep track of legal restrictions in all 34,000 of their cities.  At least start with major cities, like Paris, with over 60,000 AirBnB listings.  The AirBnB, self help, host community is nice, but not enough.  These rules must be built into the user experience, with logic to, say, prevent me from breaking the law. okay!  The stakes are high enough; since their Hosts hesitating to list would be a sea-change difficult for AirBnB to navigate.

Here’s some example rules for the San Francisco Law:

• Countdown timer for the 14 tax-free days per year

• Prevent the 91st rental day within each year

• DocuSign or other digital proof of landlord approval

These rules should guide the user experience with regulations related reminders in the Message Center.   I mean, you can be laissez-faire about this when you're a startup selling cereal, but if you want to be worth the $40 billion price tag, time to deal with these less fun issues.  

Safety Inspections

Listing Page With "Inspections" Section

To spruce up your online listing, AirBnB offers professional photographers - it’s a great service and it free!  AirBnB should offer the same for safety inspectors.  This option would give Guests and Hosts piece of mind and maybe reason to offer these listings at a premium.  Also, categories, like “childproofed” could be used to help parents filter listings.

BOTTOM LINE

AirBnB is an awesome service and the mobile app is clean, well designed.  But there’s an opportunity to carefully address regulators while instilling in Hosts a sense of confidence that they’re keeping up with short term rental regulations, improving their user experience.  Otherwise, fear, uncertainty, and doubt will creep in, causing Hosts to rethink listing and with them go AirBnB’s room inventory.  

AirBnB: Host With The Most

With nearly 17 million guest stays this summer, AirBnB is creating an industry out of thin air but can it overcome political and social hurdles to continue disrupting the travel industry?  

Are you an AirBnB host?  I am.  There’s nothing like your first time, the trepidation: which valuables to lock up? will they trash our place? or even worse: will they not love our home? give us low ratings?  

AirBnB, there’s so much to discuss, let’s unpack the product over a few blogs, starting with how AirBnB should address the backlash while refreshing their mobile app for hosts.  

My wife and I decided to give it a try: set up profile; arrange professional photographer; book first stay; check, check, check.  So, remind me again why we’re letting complete strangers have our home for a weekend?  sleep in our beds, wash their naked bodies in our showers, co-habitate our space with our precious little beta fish!  why?  We want to be part of the sharing economy.  We put great care in making our home a stylish, comfortable space and love opening it up to others; oh yeah, and they’re paying us.  

While my AirBnB experience, so far has been good; the mobile app missed my expectations and there’s room for improving it for hosts, like me.

Also, if AirBnB is going to extend their stay atop the industry, they must address political and social concerns: Trust, Safety, and Regulations and it makes sense to do this while sprucing up their mobile app.  For now, let’s focus on Trust and Safety, we’ll get to Regulations later. 

THE GOOD

I like the aesthetic of AirBnb’s mobile app.  It offers a clean design: crisp, intuitive iconography; snappy pics; without excessive lines or superfluous UI elements.  Other standouts:

• Help Center is well organized and full of useful information
• Host/Guest toggle for context switching between hosting and traveling, great!
• Edit Listing is clearly presented with obvious anchors and a handy preview  
• Groups are easy to find and follow  

OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT

Quick Rant: The AirBnB app should be situationally aware.  What do I mean? 

AirBnB Landing Page, Meh.

Without reservation requests, the landing page, the entryway into the app is a bland, colorless, dull message screen: “No Reservation Requests.”  This from a team that prides itself on design?  it’s the oatmeal of landing pages.  

Also, my wife and I share Google Calendar, Google Drive,  iTunes Library, bank accounts, Amex Cards, but I have to log into her AirBnB account to help manage our listing.  Be situationally aware.  
Rant over.  

The AirBnB app was pitched as the “Host Home” for managing listings; and since launch the world has changed, hosts need more tools to feel at home. 

Tools to help them address concerns related to: Trust, Safety, Regulations.  

TRUST

Trust is built on verification of reputation; and the AirBnB App must support use cases which build Trust. 

Guest Star Ratings
AirBnB guests should be rated, just like Uber and Lyft passengers.  Guest reviews are good, but a Guest Star Rating is more concise: 

Guest Start Ratings In Profile

Host Screenings
Verified ID links your AirBnB profile to your online identities, like Facebook.  It’s great, but AirBnB should take the next step and perform background checks on participating hosts.  Background checks of hosts would help alleviate Trust issues and even prevent those with a spotty past from becoming hosts. 

Matchmaking
Matching goes beyond the room; AirBnB should be matching hosts and guests, creating harmony by pairing lifestyles.  Familiarity builds Trust.  And, yes, there’s even a host out there for the 22 year olds in town for Outside Lands, Coachella, whatever festival (that host most likely doesn’t have light colored rugs).   

The matching algorithm should include attributes for both hosts and guests: 

• Star rating 
• Number of identity verifications
• Background checks
• Amenities 
• Safety features
• Lifestyle details  

Host/guest matchmaking would further differentiate AirBnB from hotels; and enhance their unique experience. 

Conditional Approvals
Hosts have 24 hours to respond to guest queries and make a booking decision, or approval ratings will suffer.  Even if waiting for guests to... ah, let’s say prove they’re not a serial killer!  This is stressful and would be streamlined with conditional approvals.  If the only thing preventing me approving a booking is the guest missing reviews or Verified IDs, let me add these as conditionals for approval, turn it back on them, 24 hours to book.   

Hosts have 24 hours to respond…. Even if waiting for guests to... um, let’s say prove they’re not a serial killer!  

Conditional Instabook  
Instabook is removing approvals from your listing, so anyone can book it.  Yeah, right!  “No, we ain’t do’in that.”  While we’re not about to let just anyone stay in our home, I would entertain the idea under certain conditions, like: 

• Limit four guests
• Five star guest
• Background check

• No smoking
• No children
• No parties

Otherwise, Instabook is a nonstarter. 

SAFETY

Safety is assured with adequate precautions and a plan, in case of emergency.  

Message Center
The landing page would be better suited as a Message Center to help communications between hosts and guest and timely, safety reminders.  The app should know when, say I have active guests, their messages go to the Message Center, the rest can still go to the email Inbox.  Be situationally aware.

If I were the manager of a hotel this would keep me dialed into my VIP guests.  Some examples:

• Messages from active guest
• Reminder safety checklist before guests arrive
• Important alerts on local regulations where I have listings
• Breaking news near listings with my active guests 

Host Tips are great, but they’re buried in a one-and-done wizard.  To address Safety concerns the app needs to be more dynamic and, situationally aware. 

Safety Net
Life is uncertain, and when things go wrong in a hotel the staff has your back; at an AirBnB, not so much.  

AirBnB has an emergency contact, listed in the account profile, quite simply they should use it.  My emergency contact should be able to find out from AirBnB where I’m staying.  

Also, the AirBnB app should have location based Police and Fire contacts to contact local authorities.  Do you know how to call the fire department in, say, Beijing? 

FUTURE

The future is now, well at least we have a glimpse.  Between writing and posting this blog, AirBnB announced their Apple Watch App which could act like the Message Center I defined above.  Good to see we’re on the same page.   This could be a good start, but if it’s not situationally aware and focused on core use cases, it’ll be a miss.

BOTTOM LINE

The AirBnB app is clean, snappy, and well designed.  But if AirBnB is is going to overcome recent backlash it should address Trust, Safety, and Regulations and be a link between hosts and their guests.   With well appointed additions, the app could be a Message Center for specific alerts and timely checklist reminders while supporting features to address Trust and Safety.  Otherwise, the PR nightmares will continue to mount, which would burst their bubble.            

NEXT TIME

It’s no secret AirBnB wants to go from managing one part of travel, the room, to the entire experience.  Next time, we’ll take a closer look at how adding basic hospitality services can help AirBnB go beyond the room and hold the customers they grab.  As well as digging into app features which can help with Regulations.  Oh, and maybe take a closer look at the Apple Watch App.