Case Study: Airbnb - Capturing Every Step of Your Travel

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.
Airbnb Case Study: Customer Value Proposition
AIRBNB:
CAPTURING
EVERY STEP OF
YOUR TRAVEL
LHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL
1

INTRODU
CTION.
In our newest Case Study, we would like to present Airbnb and
list it’s selected activities aimed at bringing value to their
customers - both the hosts and users. Airbnb promises access to
unique travel experiences and world-class customer service and
experience and it is being manifested through all activities: core
product innovation, added-value services, shopping
experience and communication. We believe that any business
or brand can create value for its customers in those four
interrelated but distinctive areas.
Explore our latest Case Study and get inspired on how to deliver
a seamless customer experience and innovate on Customer
Value Proposition.
Companies tend to act, react and form strategies with their
competitors in mind. At LHBS, we believe that companies should
pay less attention to the competition and more attention to
customer needs. How a company ranks against its competitors, is
increasingly being deﬁned by how close a company is to its
customers.
Fabiola Lewandowska
Consultant
lhbs.com | ﬂ@lhbs.com
INTRODUCTION
2

CONTENT.
CUSTOMER VALUE
CANVAS
TAKE-
AWAYS
ABOUT
AIRBNB
CONTENT
3
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

ABOUT AIRBNB
UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW. 4
Chapter 1

55%
45%
UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.Source:
Number of Airbnb guests
ABOUT AIRBNB
5
100%
60+
million
Source: Airbnb

55%
45%
Number of Airbnb hosts
6
100%
640,000
Source: DMR
ABOUT AIRBNBLHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

55%
45%
Number of countries Airbnb is active in
7
100%
191+
Source: Airbnb

8Source:Source:
Airbnb’s summer
reach in 2015 was
353 times
what it was ﬁve years
before
Source: Business Insider

55%
45%
Airbnb’s total valuation
9
100%
$30
billion
Source: DMR

CUSTOMER VALUE CANVAS
Chapter 2

11
Driving customer value is becoming the core of the business model and
a proﬁt driver. By delivering superior value to customers, companies can
better derive value from customers.
It’s a simple exchange between value. Companies create value for
customers and charge them for the value they create. We believe that
any business or brand can create value for its customers in four
interrelated but distinctive areas: CORE PRODUCT, ADDED-VALUE
SERVICES, SHOPPING EXPERIENCE AND COMMUNICATION.
Source: LHBS on Medium
CUSTOMER VALUE CANVASLHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

Core
Product
Shopping
Experience
Added-value
Services
Touch Points &
Communication
Customer
Value
Proposition
Do you facilitate and
deliver services that enrich
and simplify the lives of
customers around your
core business?
Do you create products
that meet a real need? Are
your products designed to
solve real customer
problems?
Do you make searching,
shopping and interacting
with your products and
services a uniquely positive
experience?
Do you create content that
people like to consume and
share rather than
advertising people want to
escape from?
LHBS Customer Value Canvas
The better a company manages the interrelation between their products, services,
experience and communication the more value it will create for its customers.

13
How is Airbnb adjusting their offerings in the four
areas to best meet emerging customer expectations?

Airbnb - Customer Value Canvas®
CORE PRODUCT ADDED VALUE SERVICES
COMMUNICATION & CONTENT SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
CUSTOMER
VALUE PROPOSITION
CONNECTING PEOPLE TO UNIQUE
TRAVEL EXPERIENCES WITH WORLD
CLASS CUSTOMER SERVICE AND
GROWING COMMUNITY OF USERS
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
- Airbnb “Classic”
- Airbnb Trips
- Airbnb Business Travels
- Airbnb & Tesla
- Airbnb & Nest
- Airbnb Local Experiences
- Airbnb & Qantas
- Neighborhood Guides
- World of Trips
- Airbnb Magazine
- Airbnb’s Floating House
- Airbnb & Berlin Wall

CORE PRODUCT
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire or impact the
performance or quality of your core product?

CORE PRODUCT
Airbnb “Classic”
Peer-to-peer online marketplace and homestay
network
Explore Sign
Airbnb trusted community marketplace for people to
list, discover, and book unique accommodations
around the world — online or from a mobile phone or
tablet.
Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a
week, or a villa for a month, Airbnb connects people
to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in
more than 34,000 cities and 191 countries. And with
world-class customer service and a growing
community of users, Airbnb is the easiest way for
people to monetize their extra space and showcase it
to an audience of millions.
16

CORE PRODUCT
Airbnb Trips
With the new initiative called Trips the company
expands towards a full-scale travel agency
Explore Sign
With Trips Airbnb is expanding it’s short-term rental
service and opens up the concept of hosting. The new
initiative focuses on three areas: Experience, Places
and Homes, with Flights and Services to be added in
the future. “Experiences” give hosts who don’t just
want to share their ﬂat with travellers but would also
like to offer experiences and to share their interests,
hobbies and passions.
“Places” refers to Guidebooks, that have been
curated by cultural experts and neighborhood
insiders, to Meet ups that lets fellow Airbnb
travellers connect and to Audio Walks that are
offered in an exclusive partnership with Detour.
17

CORE PRODUCT
Airbnb Business Travel
Portal speciﬁcally designed for business travelers
Explore Sign
Airbnb has created a portal speciﬁcally designed to
show lodgings that have the necessary amenities for
business travelers. For instance, when business
travelers search the platform, they will only be shown
listings that comprise an entire home or apartment.
Those listings will also all have WiFi and be available
for instant booking, among other things, and will have
to conform to a company’s expense policies to be
booked.
In order to ensure that listings match a company’s
expense policies, Airbnb is partnering with business
travel and expense management company Concur.
18

ADDED VALUE SERVICES
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire or inﬂuence
additional services to simplify or enhance that create added value
around the consumption or usage of your product?

ADDED VALUE SERVICES
Airbnb & Tesla
Making it easier for Tesla customers to travel
Explore Sign
Through a new partnership, Tesla will give free
chargers to select Airbnb hosts to better
accomodate drivers of the electric car.
Range anxiety is real, and it is deﬁnitely keeping many
people from purchasing an electric vehicle. Tesla's
recent development of a home charger is a major
step in the right direction– and now they are being
distributed free of charge to Airbnb hosts willing to
pay the installation fee ($200-$900). The
partnership with Airbnb should help give Tesla
drivers vacationing in the West Coast some peace of
mind, as the automaker is giving free chargers to over
100 Airbnb hosts in the region.
20

Airbnb & Nest
Helping Airbnb’s community of hosts and guests
conserve energy and continue to have a positive
impact on their local environments
Explore Sign
Airbnb is providing selected hosts in the US with the
Nest Learning Thermostat, free of charge. The Nest
Thermostat programs itself, automatically turns
down the heat when a host or guest is away, and can
be controlled from a mobile device. All hosts who
participate in the program will have access to
MyEnergy, a service that allows you to track your
energy consumption, learn how to save energy, and
be more efﬁcient as part of their energy plans.
21
ADDED VALUE SERVICESLHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

Airbnb Local
Experiences
Tailor-made city tours and exclusive experiences
Explore Sign
The accommodation marketplace is now also a
platform for people to host local experiences for
travellers.
As a host, users can earn extra money by offering
activities to travellers to show them the hidden gems
and local culture of their home city.
Hosted activities are things like “Paris like a Parisian/
Off the Beaten Track” or “Beer and Art with Locals”.
The hosts introduce their offered experiences and
travellers rate and review them afterwards.
22
ADDED VALUE SERVICESLHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire a smoother, more
pleasant customer experience in your omnichannel touch points.

SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Airbnb & Qantas
This partnership between Airbnb and Qantas
airline provides seamless booking experience
through Qantas website
Explore Sign
Airbnb and Qantas teamed up and award loyalty
members with Qantas Points for every dollar they
spend on Airbnb bookings.
To earn points, frequent ﬂyers choose an Airbnb
option on the Australian Qantas website, enter their
member details and complete their booking. The
program is geared towards increasing Qantas
passengers' loyalty.
24

Neighborhood Guides
Feature prefect and useful for visitors unfamiliar
with particular destination
Explore Sign
The Neighborhood product and guidebooks is a
feature with advice from people who actually live
there, not other travelers.
Guidebooks show you best spots around the city and
the whole content curated by local hosts is focused
on making your stay more enjoyable as well as the
booking and choosing process easier and more spot-
on.
25
SHOPPING EXPERIENCELHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

World of Trips
Owning more of the customer journey
Explore Sign
Airbnb has ambitions of becoming a bonafide “super
brand of travel” by combining all of their services into
a single travel platform.
Airbnb doesn’t just want to be an accommodations
provider or even an online travel agency. It wants to
be all of the above, as well as your go-to for
recommendations, finding new friends, making
restaurant reservations, booking car rentals, and
even booking flights, down the line.
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SHOPPING EXPERIENCELHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

COMMUNICATION
How might you create content that people like to consume and share,
rather than advertising that they want to escape from?

COMMUNICATION
Airbnbmag
Airbnb teamed up with global publisher Hearst for
their first printed travel magazine "Airbnbmag"
Explore Sign
The cooperation between Airbnb and Hearst is
melding old school publishing expertise with new
school content generation. The first issue of the
magazine has 28 pages and is entirely devoted to Los
Angeles. Content includes guides around LA curated
from hosts, profiles of Airbnb Superhosts, spotlights
on selected LA neighborhoods, and profiles of Airbnb
Trips (tours and activities) in the city. Airbnb wants to
promote its recent add-on of a trips feature.
Airbnbmag is the print embodiment of what Airbnb is
trying to do on its app with insider guidebooks.
28

Airbnb’s Floating
House
Experiential PR with free-floating house in London
Explore Sign
Airbnb has sailed a full-size floating house along the
Thames to celebrate new rules to support home
sharing in London.
The publicity stunt followed the passing of the
Deregulation Act, which meant Londoners were then
free to rent their homes for up to 90 days a year
without risk of fines or having to secure planning
permission before doing so.
29
COMMUNICATIONLHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

Airbnb & Berlin Wall
For the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall, Airbnb cherished this moment with a
magical story
Explore Sign
Since Airbnb realized that great content and
storytelling are imperative for brands, the
community marketplace decided to dedicate a
campaign to the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the heart of
it is a 75 second ﬁlm “Wall and Chain” that tells the
true story from two former border guards that met
years later thanks to Airbnb. What makes this project
truly brilliant is that it goes hand in hand with the
core of the platform which is “belonging anywhere.”
The little movie is embedded in a charming microsite,
that also hosts interviews of the protagonists, as well
as three beautiful wallpapers to download.
30
COMMUNICATIONLHBS // AIRBNB: CAPTURING EVERY STEP OF YOUR TRAVEL

TAKEAWAYS
Chapter 3

TAKEAWAYS.
One “Everything what Airbnb does
starts with the community ﬁrst”
Four Airbnb mastered and excels at
providing a truly seamless and great user
experience
Three Airbnb is so much more than
renting space - it’s about people &
experiences
REPORT TITLE // IMPLICATIONS. TAKE AWAYS
32
Two Everything what Airbnb does, gets
tested with real users ﬁrst

Need help in deﬁning emerging
customer expectations & bringing the
Customer Value Canvas to life?
Get in touch

Discover
ABOUT
LHBS. Define Develop Deliver
We are an unconventional strategy firm that helps clients to
better understand today and successfully shape tomorrow. LHBS
has extensive experience & expertise in business development,
brand building and customer experience. The firm works across all
major industries for clients from the FT Global 500, German
Mittelstand and fast growing startups.
http://www.lhbs.com
ABOUT
We work with legacy organisations to adapt their customer value
proposition to meet emerging customer expectations. Together with our
clients we discover business opportunities and deliver integrated customer
offers for products, services, experiences and communication.
http://www.lhbs.com

LHBS Put the Title of the Report here
HUB.
This case study has been created with the help of the LHBS
Inspiration-Hub.
The Inspiration-Hub is a service that gives marketing teams constant
access to the latest insights and inspiration, so that they can develop
more relevant marketing ideas.
http://www.inspiration-hub.com
INSPIRATION-HUB
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