Airbnb: improve the guest journey from confirmed reservation through checkout
Company: DoorDash
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Airbnb, and you have been asked to improve what customers experience after they have booked a stay. Explain how you would approach it: which customers you would focus on, which problems you would solve, what you would build first, and how you would know it worked.
```hint Walk the trip timeline
The period after booking runs from the confirmation through the stay to the review. Lay those stages out and ask at which ones a guest feels the most uncertainty or has to chase someone for an answer.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Does "customer" mean the guest only, or is the host's side of a confirmed reservation also in scope?
- Where does "post-booking" end: at check-in, at checkout, or once the review and any refund or dispute are settled?
- Is the main aim fewer cancellations and support contacts, higher guest satisfaction and repeat bookings, or more revenue from add-ons such as Experiences?
- Should the work cover every kind of stay, or one type such as whole homes run by individual hosts?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal for the period after booking that ties guest outcomes to what Airbnb's marketplace needs, such as trust and repeat bookings.
- A segmentation of guests, with a view on hosts, and a reasoned choice of whom to serve first.
- Pain points mapped to the stages between confirmation and the review, with the highest-stakes moments identified.
- Solutions prioritized by impact and effort, including how much new work each one puts on hosts.
- Success metrics with guardrails, and the main risks.
### Follow-up Questions
- A host cancels a week before arrival. Design what the guest experiences from that moment until they are rebooked.
- Most guests book only a few times a year. How would you test a pre-arrival change and measure its effect on repeat bookings?
- Hosts say they already receive too many messages. How would you improve the guest's experience without adding to the host's workload?
Overview: A product sense question asking how an Airbnb product manager would improve the guest experience after a stay is booked. It tests choosing a guest segment, mapping pain points from confirmation through checkout, prioritizing fixes without overloading hosts, and defining success metrics with guardrails.