Quality Management Report: Airbnb's Service Quality Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Airbnb's quality management, focusing on the issues the company faces, particularly concerning customer experience and service quality. It begins by defining the concept of quality management and its evolution, emphasizing the importance of satisfying customers in the hospitality sector. The report identifies specific problems experienced by Airbnb, such as the cancellation of bookings and poor customer service, and evaluates the impact of these issues on the company's reputation. It then assesses the application of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a technique to improve quality management within Airbnb, highlighting the importance of measuring performance and addressing both financial and non-financial aspects. The report recommends strategies to improve service quality, including focusing on customer satisfaction, employee training, and responsiveness, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of quality management for achieving business goals.

Prepare a report for
the Quality
Managers of Airbnb

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study based on the Airbnb organization which offer the lodging service in the
worldwide area. Company face the bad customer experience situation due to cancelling 1.1
million bookings at last minute. Further this report is about the quality management and how
organization need to adopt techniques to improve their service quality as well as customer
experience.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
1. Describe the concept of quality management..........................................................................4
2. Identify the problems which currently experienced by the Airbnb company..........................6
3. Evaluate one of the following techniques which help the Airbnb to deliver the consistency
or effective quality management..................................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Managing quality is very essential for the hospitality sector because they need to satisfy
their customers through providing quality services and it further helps in generating revenue for
the organizations. In the hospitality industry, constant delivery of services to the guest as per the
standards is required to achieve to satisfy them (Anne, 2019). Along with this, they need to
create value for the guest so they think that they are valuable for the organizations. This report
based on the Airbnb which is California based company and it was founded in 2008. This
company reported for the unreliable services to the holidaymakers and it will happen due to
ineffective quality management. This assessment cover the various topics such as concept of
quality management, what actual problem currently Airbnb faced, impact of following
techniques in order to deliver consistency or quality management and provide some
recommendation to improve quality services.
MAIN BODY
1. Describe the concept of quality management
Quality management is the process of reviewing all the activities which performed in
the business operations in order to achieve their organization goals & objectives. There is a
specific standard of quality which management need to achieve in order to maintain excellence.
Quality management include the process of formulating policies and implement the planning as
well as monitor that quality in order to improve overall operational services.
In the current business environment there are various quality management tools available
that is used by the managers of hospitality sector. But, it is also very important to know about the
evolution of quality and its gurus. Before the introduction of total management quality tool,
researchers has to work hard to reach this stage. Because organizations face various problem
such as technique issues, lack of training, defective goods, unskilled workers in the
manufacturing unit etc. After that, evolution of quality happen and effectively implement in
order to improve products & services quality in the organizations to satisfy their consumers and
maximise the demand.
In order to resolve these problems, management build separate department and allot chief
inspector that is a person who is responsible for all activities and taking charge of manufacturing
to manage other works (Chung, 2019). Through formulating new department, it will generate

various requirement as well as issues such as standards, provide training to the workers, record
data, measure the accuracy of equipment. Basically these are some roles & responsibilities which
chief inspector have to perform in order to address the defect prevention issues.
“Quality control managers” are the charge of quality control department and they ensure
that each functions will be performed according to the industry standard. Statistical theory began
in 1920 and implement for the control of quality and in 1924, Shewhart is the first person who
made modern control chart and later its work developed by Deming. Statistical Process Control
(SPC) is the techniques which was used by the manufacture companies in the late 1940s.
Reputation of Japan industrial system was destroyed because of cheap imitation of
products or unskilled workers (Dann, Teubner and Weinhardt, 2019). With the help of some
quality gurus Japanese found the issues and able to resolve it. After 1960, quality management
and quality control become the national business of the Japan country. Total Quality
Management (TQM) is the management approach which is used by the organizations in order to
improve quality of their products & services. It is founded by Joseph Juran who was quality
guru such as William E. Deming.
Total quality of management originally or initially introduced by the Japanese industries
in 1954 and it was used by every types of organizations such as schools, hotel management,
motorways and other industries. TQM also used in e-business as well as hospitality sector where
quality management will be consider in terms of customers satisfaction. Main purpose of TQM is
to improve operational efficiency, save time, improve work at the time of implementation etc.
This tool separately used by the organizations and perform as per the standards which formulated
by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) of the series of ISO 9000.
TQM used to build strategies, gather data, communication channels and some quality
management principles. In context of hospitality sector such as Airbnb, they need to implement
TQM principle in order to improve their service quality. These principles are focus on customers,
employees involvement, process centred, integrated system, strategic & systematic approach,
communication, decisions based on the actual facts and continues improvement (Joseph and
Varghese, 2019). In order to improve overall quality of operations, organizations follow quality
management which helps in improving quality of products & services which further
automagically enhance the productivity as well as profit margin.

2. Identify the problems which currently experienced by the Airbnb company
Overview of the company:
Airbnb is an lodging based company which providing renting or short term dwelling
services. It is situated in San Francisco, California and it is founded in 2008 by three people that
are Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. This company served in worldwide area
and the services are lodging and hospitality.
Problems that Airbnb faces:
There are various problems faced by the Airbnb company due to controversial activity
where they accused of cancelling 1.1 million bookings of holidaymakers at the last minute.
Because of this, many people walk on street in the unknown or unfamiliar place. In 2017, million
of holidaymakers reported Airbnb as a fraud company. It is also analyse that, company unable to
help those people, they rude with their customers and unable to refund booking amount.
According to travel blog, it is observed that more than 1000 stories come out and it shows
bad customer experience and what happen with the holidaymakers when things go wrong.
Airbnb take step and identify the issues related to the security and try to end fraudsters which
occur by using its websites (Maxim, 2019). In order to resolve this issue, Airbnb appoint the
deputy chief of staff as a global head and risk management to identify the problems. In addition,
company build new guilds for the guest which help them as well as protect host. Also complied
with the group of internet safety that “Get Safe Online”.
Airbnb is an service sector organization so they specially need to focus on customer
services and its quality. In order to measure the service of Airbnb, they implement 5 dimensions
strategy which included reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. In the first
dimension, company should be reliable where they should have ability to complete their promise
and deliver the services time and accurately. Such as Airbnb, they offer lodging services to the
holidaymakers. But in 2017, around 1.1 million bookings were cancelled which affect company's
reputation. Company should be reliable for their work or services what every they offer to their
guest. It is very essential aspect for the customer satisfaction and they need to perform their
promised services
Another one is responsiveness where organizations should have willingness to help their
guest and offer relevant services in order to improve their customer experience. As per the
report of Airbnb, it is also found that customer experience was not good even very bad because

every four customers in five members claim that, they had bad experience because company
unable to do something as well as they rude to their customers. Along with this, they unable to
refund booking amount properly (Moon and et. al., 2019). After analysing this situation, it is
recommended that business should be responsiveness regarding their actions or customers.
Because of them, clients faces many problems and they does not get any solution for this by
company's side.
Assurance is the another dimension which is used to build trust between clients and
company which helps in providing quality services. Along with this, it is the employees
responsibility to assure their customers and provide confidence to use their services. There are
various factors which required to consider such as safety, basic standards etc. Such as, Airbnb
company unable to provide safety to the holidaymakers. These people walk on streets because of
cancelling their booking at last minute. Due to this situation, people not trusting Airbnb and they
also unable to assure customers to give them another chance due to lack of safety & security.
Empathy means showing care and attention to the people who are their customers
because it is the most important factor which required to analyse. If customer feel that they are
valuable for the organizations than they satisfy more, or if they find that customers are not so
important or they does not give any special attention on them. It negatively affect the business,
similarly this happen with the Airbnb where company was unhelpful or rude. In this situation,
company need to take all the possible actions which help their customers to recover from this
situation but their employees rudely behave with clients.
Tangibles is not so important factors but also helps in improving quality of service such
as employees present, work area, equipment etc. Basically how this dimension factor help the
consumers to satisfy with the company's services (Nenakhova, 2019). In the case of Airbnb,
company need to be with their customers and provide assurance through showing such activities
which calm the guest. Employees need to present and help them through providing valuable
solutions.
In the services sector organizations, in order to improve quality of their services they
need to follow above mention five dimensions to improve service quality. It will further helps in
improving productivity as well as profitability or make them able to achieve business goals &
objectives. Airbnb should focus on service quality and further formulate strategies accordingly.

3. Evaluate one of the following techniques which help the Airbnb to deliver the consistency or
effective quality management
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is the most essential or frequently used tool in order
to monitor or measure the performance of company in comparison to the industry standards. At
the time of measuring quality, it very important to access accurate or reliable data which helps in
generating fare results about the performance (Nguyen, Rintamäki and Saarijärvi, 2018). In this
tool, organizations measure their performance on the basis of financial or non financial KPI.
Financial KPI based on the information which is generated with the help of income statement or
balance sheet and with the help of this, business able to calculate the overall sales and profit
margin. On the other side, non -financial KPI focus on employees operations, customer
relationship, quality of services, supply chain etc. In context of Airbnb which is related to the
hospitality industry and there are some key performance indicators such as average room rate,
bedroom occupancy rate, revenue per available rate, labour cost ratio, average spend per
customers etc. Company should focus on these aspect and measure their performance
accordingly.
With the help of key performance indicators, Airbnb able to deliver consistent services
and promote effective quality management. In order to improve their overall performance they
need to treat every guest as VIP for them. Because when individual feel valuable then it make
their experience good or satisfy them. Organization need to provide timely training to their
employees not just for the single event. Staff should be well mannered, friendly and they have
ability to make their guest conformable or resolve their every issues in the minimum time period.
They should provide customize services to increase their loyalty as well as customer base. These
actions will help the Airbnb for the quality management as well as maintain consistency at the
time of delivering quality services to the customers.
This technique also has some advantages or disadvantages which is required to discussed
and it mentioned below:
Advantage:
 Results are measurable: main purpose of KPI technique is to track the progress and take
necessary actions to improve performance. It shows the accurate results in various terms
such as matrix, numbers, statistics etc. With the help of it, team members or managers
able to track the progress on daily, weakly or periodic basis. It help the managers to build

strategies accordingly and ensure that it will maximise the productivity as well as
profitability.
 Alignment: In an large organization where huge number of employees work, so it
become very difficult for the management to track single employee's performance or
progress. KPI help the business to aligned their goal and make the result of individual
who involved in the particular project.
 Future strategies: With the help of accurate results, managers able to formulate future
strategies and they need to more focus on week area of the operations (Pettit and et. al.,
2018)).
 Rewards: KPI technique also help the organization to identify the person who perform
well and provide rewards as per their performance.
Disadvantage:
 Decrease in quality: Due to focus on achieving short term goals on the business
employees loose their concern regarding quality. In order to meet with financial results
staff has huge pressure and they compromise with the quality.
 Short term oriented: This technique is beneficial to achieve short term goals but also
disadvantage for the long terms goals. There are various sources required to measure
success but it will not work in long term in order to achieve long terms goals.
 Loyalty: KPI represent the progress of overall performance but it is very difficult for the
organizations to track the work quality which further affect the customer loyalty.
RECOMMENDATIONS
There are various recommendations which help the Airbnb to identify problems and
further take actions to resolve the issues. Some of them mentioned below:
 Airbnb also follow total quality of management (TQM) tool in order to manage service
quality which they offer to the customers (Zhang, 2019.
 Organization should be customer focused because they are the ultimate people who
decided that quality of services satisfactory or not.
 At the time of making decision, they should involve their employees because their
participation helps in generating more creative ideas.
 Before making strategic decisions Airbnb should research properly because decision
should be fact based which is more authentic or accurate in providing results.

CONCLUSION
From the overall discussion it has been observed that quality management is very
essential for the organizations. In the services sector, customer satisfaction is the major factor
which help the business to getting growth and success. In order to improve overall quality, most
of the organizations follow the various quality management techniques such as key performance
indicators. With the help of this technique, business able track the performance as well as
progress and it will further helps in making strategies to improve their productivity as well as
profitability.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Anne, P., 2019. Implications for The Measurement and Management of Quality in the Emerging
Airbnb Sector in Jamaica.
Chung, H. P., 2019. Vacation rental company’s operation and strategy in relation to Airbnb:
Case: Catalunya Casas Spain SL.
Dann, D., Teubner, T. and Weinhardt, C., 2019. Poster child and guinea pig–insights from a
structured literature review on Airbnb. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management.
Joseph, G. and Varghese, V., 2019. Analyzing Airbnb customer experience feedback using text
mining. In Big Data and Innovation in Tourism, Travel, and Hospitality (pp. 147-162).
Springer, Singapore.
Maxim, C., 2019. Challenges faced by world tourism cities–London’s perspective. Current
Issues in Tourism. 22(9). pp.1006-1024.
Moon, H. and et. al., 2019. Peer-to-peer interactions: Perspectives of Airbnb guests and
hosts. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 77. pp.405-414.
Nenakhova, Y., 2019. Challenges and opportunities of hotels in Helsinki regarding Airbnb.
Nguyen, H. N., Rintamäki, T. and Saarijärvi, H., 2018. Customer value in the sharing economy
platform: the Airbnb Case. In Collaborative Value Co-creation in the Platform
Economy (pp. 225-246). Springer, Singapore.
Pettit, C. and et. al., 2018. How disruptive technology is impacting the housing and property
markets: An examination of Airbnb. In Real Estate and GIS (pp. 36-64). Routledge.
Zhang, J., 2019. What’s yours is mine: exploring customer voice on Airbnb using text-mining
approaches. Journal of Consumer Marketing.