Airbnb made a feature to increase business travel. How would you measure it's success?

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Noble
August 9, 2024

Airbnb made a feature to increase business travel. How would you measure it's success?

Category: Asked at: Airbnb Difficulty:

Question Explanation

This question is asking you to put yourself in the position of a product manager or a data analyst at Airbnb, imagining they have just launched a new feature tailored towards attracting more business travelers. The interviewer wants to know how you would assess whether this feature is achieving its intended goal - is it successful or not? When approaching this question, remember that measuring success could look at a wide range of metrics. This question tests your knowledge of analytics, your ability to think critically, and your understanding of business needs. Key points you might want to cover include: Defining clear success metrics: This could be an increase in bookings by business travelers, more repeat bookings from these users, or more positive reviews from business travelers, for example. Method to measure these metrics: This might involve tracking tools or data analysis techniques. A timeframe for measuring these metrics: If you are launching a new feature, itʼs crucial to measure the effect over a stated period.

Answer Example 1

To measure the success of the new feature that Airbnb made to increase business travel, one approach would be to look at the activity and engagement metrics. Specifically, the metrics to consider can be: Feature usage: This involves tracking the number of business travellers who are using the feature. Conversion rate: We would measure how many business travellers who visited the site ended up booking a stay. Engagement: The amount of time a business traveller spends on the Airbnb's platform relative to other users can also be a good success measure. Finally, Customer Satisfaction: We can gather feedback via surveys or online reviews from business travellers to measure how they are perceiving this new feature. To gather this data, we could use tracking tools within the Airbnb platform as well as customer surveys. It would be important to measure these metrics against a timeline, perhaps quarterly, to assess improvements and make necessary changes.

Answer Example 2

The success of Airbnb's new feature to boost the business travel segment could be evaluated through a few important metrics. Primarily, I would focus on: Increase in bookings: Measure the increase in bookings received from business travelers, which is the key success factor here. Retention: How often are these business travelers coming back to use Airbnb for their travels? Customer lifetime value: This helps me understand if the new feature makes business travellers more profitable over time. 1Share Referral rate: Are our business travelers referring more users from their professional network? Analytics tools integrated into the Airbnb platform can help get this data. However, itʼs also important to have a relative measure. We should compare the figures we get with a similar time when the feature didn't exist. This comparative analysis helps better understand the impact of the feature. Besides, we have to continuously observe these numbers over a suitable timeframe. Our focus should be on achieving sustainable growth rather than short bursts.