CustomerMoments with Airbnb — pursuit of perfection

Being Customer Experience practitioner I am always particularly interested to observe, assess and take learnings of customers’ experience with brands. Checking in a hotel, reserving a table in restaurant or when booking a flight — it has become my passion to walk in customer’s shoes and identify their pain points. Similar to my profession as journalist — once I learned the methodology how to lead an interview, I cannot close my eyes any longer to assessing how others are doing it.

Customer journey with Airbnb

As a business traveler I had a special use case — needed to change details on my receipt from personal data to business related information to get reimbursement by my company. As I could not find how to do it online, I dialed a phone number for Airbnb’s footer (Website).

I called from my landline (Phone) while I was accessing my Airbnb account details via desktop (Website) — a fact that the call agent does not know.

Before I got directed to the call center agent, I received an outstanding automated guidance by the call center. Being CX practitioner for many years, it felt that the information architecture was conducted thoroughly for the relevant interface.

I was asked to validate my account, received a message (SMS) to click on. Within seconds the phone was picked up and a friendly call agent Mari greeted me. First things first — she asked how I was accessing my Airbnb interface — she checked my preferred channel and device. Why? 90 per cent of multiple-device owners switch between screens to complete tasks, using an average of three different combinations every day, it was essential to know my device to walk in my shoes.

The receipt could not be changed as it has already been issued, but related details could. So I said that I will try to figure it out with my company. Mari’s reply: “Based on our research with business customers, they all told us that it worked out in their companies.” Being equipped with relevant data, Mari could back up her answer and establish credibility and trust. Plus she always addressed me with my first name. Did you know that employees only ask for the customer’s name 21% of the time.

Experience by the book

Let’s evaluate my experience in regards to its omnichannel excellence under the prism of 5 core elements of omnichannel customer experience that I learned with Aurora Harley from NNg.

Every interaction regardless of my preferred channel was consistent and optimized in regards to its core functionality, workflows, data availability and messaging. The tone of voice and visual language were always appealing, human centered and reflecting the brand purpose. Being on the phone, Mari asked for my device so that she can perform her tasks on the corresponding device and guide me by my screen, not hers. While performing my account validation, getting sms, clicking on link, the journey was reflected both on mobile and desktop. No friction, no gaps. This journey had multiple transitions from one channel to the next but involved minimal overhead. The transition was so seamless that I was not even aware that it was happening. Mari addressed me proactively and acted contextually enabled by full access to my profile, preferences and account information — my experience was not designed for the channel (call center), but rather for an orchestrated journey. Lastly, she followed up with me two days later to be re-assured that I could achieve my ultimate goal — a true pursuit of perfectionism towards collaborative CX.

Kudos to Airbnb’s Customer Experience team. Keep pushing to be the world’s most loved hospitality brand — the vision that Mari mentioned to me in the chat.

Having experienced my interactions with Airbnb, I felt why integrated and intuitive experiences are becoming the standard on how users want to be engaged. The success of the business is no longer determined by the 4Ps, but by how well we serve customers and what needs to be done to generate value for them.

Are your already empathizing with your customers? Connect with me if you want to exchange on how to pull your organization towards Omnichannel CX maturity and take care of your people and customers in a way that differentiates you in the marketplace.