Airbnb Report: Quality Management in Hospitality MOD006059

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Airbnb's quality management practices, focusing on key issues impacting customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. The report begins with an executive summary and introduction to quality management principles, referencing the contributions of quality gurus like Deming and Juran. It then delves into the Airbnb case study, highlighting problems related to customer service, booking cancellations, and amenity quality. The report critically examines the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) tools and recommends improvements through benchmarking and customer focus strategies. Specific areas of concern include the need for improved customer service training, streamlined refund processes, and ensuring consistent quality of amenities across all listings. Ultimately, the report emphasizes the importance of quality planning, control, assurance, and continuous improvement in the hospitality industry. The report concludes with recommendations for Airbnb to enhance its service quality and maintain its competitive edge in the market.

Airbnb Report 1
AIRBNB REPORT
by <Student’s Name>
Course Name
Professor’s Name
University
Location
Date

Airbnb Report 2
Contents
Contents......................................................................................................................................................2
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Airbnb Case.................................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................................11
References.............................................................................................................................................14

Airbnb Report 3
Executive Summary.
In management, the aspect of quality is still developing. Consumers in the market will
strive to look for the best quality of services and products to meet their needs. This has called
most organizations to put quality on the forefront as a means of getting more clients. With poor
quality, a firm is most likely to plunge into a loss-making spree, something that is not healthy
business-wise. The quality gurus have identified different aspects of the business that each firm
needs to consider in order to remain competitive. For instance, Dr. Deming attributes a firm’s
competitive advantage to the quality of products and services it offers in the market. Juran on the
other hand expounds on the concepts of quality i.e. quality planning, control and improvement
on the success of a business. These are among the few quality gurus who peg the success of a
firm on the levels of quality of the services provided.
Airbnb Inc., as a firm in the hospitality industry, is being faced with several issues that he
seen most clients shy away from using their services. The issues raised span between amenities
and customer relations. In order to remain competitive, Airbnb needs to immediately look into
and provide solutions to these issues. Benchmarking is the way to go for the firm since the firm
will have the chance to improve the quality of service it offers by comparing it to other related
parties. The most reliable TQM tool to be adopted is customer focus since the customers’
satisfaction is the goal of all organizations and this is only obtained by offering quality services
to the customers.

Airbnb Report 4
Introduction.
The concept of quality management.
As a branch of social sciences, quality management is a discipline that seeks to ensure
that process though which results and benefits are achieved are fit for the purpose they were put
in place as well tally with the needs of all the stakeholders (Gitlow et al., 2008). In a business set
up the major stakeholders, include customers, management, financiers, government and non-
government agencies, etc. To all these stakeholders, the quality of products and services is the
major expectation and in many cases, it is always the profit and sales driver of a firm.
The main drivers of the evolution of quality are the dynamic competitive market, the
rising and changing consumer demands as well as preferences in relation to their level of
incomes. Today most businesses use and embrace the aspect of better quality. Quality
management has evolved from the past, the key participants who ensured that quality
improvement is as it is today are mainly referred to as the quality gurus (Kumar et al., 2016).
Quality gurus were those individuals with reputable and well outlined theoretical trends in the
field of quality. They played key roles in improving the modern-day quality management by
improving on the theories they developed to look into the aspect of quality and quality
management (Neyestani,2017). These theories have immensely contributed to the modern-day
quality management as each of the gurus provided a logical manner of looking into the aspect of
quality management.
These quality gurus included Dr. Edward Deming, Dr. Philip Crosby, Joseph Juren,
among others. According to Dr. Edward Deming, most of the issues faced by organizations are
systemic in nature and the management has the sole aim of improving the systems so as to
improve the efficiency and effectiveness of all their employees (Referenceforbusiness.com,

Airbnb Report 5
2020). In his arguments, Deming attributed a firm’s competitive advantage to higher quality and
higher productivity. He further argued that improvements in quality significantly lead to reduced
costs and increased productivity since there would be minimum reworks, fewer errors, fewer
delays and optimum use of time as well as other resources to meet the targets of the firm (Black
and Copsey,2014). With superior quality, subsidized prices, an organization is well placed to
have a wider market share and in turn, remain competitive in the market. To intensify his
research in quality, Deming developed several theories to explain most of the key concepts of
quality (Smith,2020). The system of profound knowledge was his essential theory. This theory
meant to encourage stakeholders to understand gratitude to the system, statistical knowledge as
well as knowledge of human psychology (Berry,2011). Much as Demings Fourteen Points are
famous in his theories, the guru taught them as a branch of his System of Profound Knowledge.
The System of Profound Knowledge breaks down into four major constituents i.e. the theory of
optimization, variation, knowledge, and psychology.
According to the theory of optimization, an organization is mandated to optimize all
systems in the firm but not individual subsystems. All the systems include all the stakeholders of
the firm i.e. employees, customers, the community, the management, shareholders, etc. the firm
should seek to create a win-win situation for all these parties. Subsystem optimization does not
create a win-win situation for all stakeholders and this might, in turn, lead to a suboptimal total
system.
The theory of variation, on the other hand, focuses on improving a products’ or services’
design in terms of variability and ambiguity in the manufacturing process. According to Deming,
product and service variation has a negative effect on quality, inconsistent services as well as

Airbnb Report 6
lead to customers being frustrated, which might damage the organization's reputation in the
market.
The theory of Knowledge seeks to create a blend between knowledge and experience as
these constituents for the success of a firm cannot work independently. For both experience and
knowledge to work to the advantage of a business extensive benchmarking practices need to be
conducted since the adoption of a new practice without understanding the theory behind it may
be disastrous rather than successful (Martin et al., 2019). The theory of psychology helps in
understanding people, their interactions amongst themselves and the system. This revolves
around employee motivation and job satisfaction; generally, the organizations need to create a
good blend between the intrinsic and extrinsic elements to motivate the employees.
Juran’s Quality Trilogy as far as quality is management is concerned, highlights the roles
of the concepts of quality i.e. quality planning, control and improvement to an organization
(Yang,2017). Without quality planning, a firm is most likely to incur a lot of waste. Generally,
quality management comprises four key elements i.e. quality planning, assurance, control, and
continual improvement. Quality planning constitutes the development of a quality control plan
and goes ahead to designate all the processes and procedures that will be used to achieve a
specific goal or target (Beckford,2016). For a harmonized quality plan, all stakeholders in a firm
need to agree on a particular plan and work as a team toward meeting the goal of the plan. For
this to be effective, a quality plan needs to conform to the values, norms, organization culture as
well as the processes of the firm (Ip, 2009). Quality assurance, on the other hand, seeks to
provide sureness to the organization that the adopted processes and programs be under good
management (Fox, 2013). It authenticates the processes, job knowledge skills and attitudes

Airbnb Report 7
employed by its workers to meet their targets are in conformity with the current industry
standards. Each project, process or program must have its own quality assurance. Quality control
mainly constitutes of assessment measurement and analysis. It seeks to see to it that the output
conforms to the requirements, is up to standard and meets the stakeholder’s expectations.
Quality can be costly, according to Crosby’s book, Quality is Free, firms need to spend in
order to achieve quality but if the quality is not achieved, more money will be spent
( Zairi,2013). In this book, Crosby articulates the approaches a firm can adopt in order to make
quality cheap.

Airbnb Report 8
Airbnb Case
Upon its founding, Airbnb was the world’s leading community-driven hospitality
company. Its services then met the demands of its always readily available consumers. As its
market base widened, its services unluckily started to fall short of the demands of the consumers.
Ideally, the services rendered to the consumers need to be reliable, top-notch and should meet the
demands and expectations of the market. Airbnb, however, failed to meet such prerequisites as
outlined by most of the travel magazines. Most of the issues reported are usually experienced,
before, during and after being hosted by Airbnb. Among the most prevalent issue that most
customers complained about was the issue of poor customer service. This usually is experienced
before or /and after their stay at Airbnb. In many organizations, the customer service desk
usually is the face of the organization. It introduces the nature of workers and services that the
organization has to its current and potential clients (Lai et al.,2018). Most clients complained
about the manner in which they were handled by the staff of Airbnb. Some staff were apparently
rude and failed to give vital information that the clients required. This information included the
availability of space in their respective hotels, the rates charged by the different hotels as well as
the convenience of travel to these hotels from specific locations. Such information is usually
vital for the clients to make decisions in terms of the best hotel to settle for in order to meet their
demands. Question is, how reliable is the customer service experience offered by the customer
service agents of Airbnb? From the samples of data collected from different customers, it’s
evident that there is a loophole in the manner through which Airbnb clients are treated. For
example, in a case of cancelation, the client needs to be refunded his or her money back within
the shortest time possible, however, it noted that there are many unnecessary procedures that
need to be followed before a refund is made. To the organization's end, the standard operating

Airbnb Report 9
procedures have been adhered to, but on the end of the client, it's inconveniencing since they
need to seek an alternative source of money as they wait for the refund from the company. At
times, the clients have to push for the refund which, to begin with, was not as a result of the
clients’ mistakes.
Another reported issue complained by most of the clients is the issue of cancelations of
bookings made by clients at the last minute. This greatly affects the clients in the sense that the
clients have to reschedule their plans since their initial plans have already been messes up with
(Cook,2017). The question which most stakeholders ask themselves then s, why the last minute
cancelations? Does it mean that the management offers booking spaces that are yet to be vacated
by the initial occupants? Does the management offer rooms for booking with the hope that by the
time a new client checks in the old client will have left? It’s been noted that some clients
overstay in their rooms as such plans by the management often end up inconveniencing the
clients. Most clients have actually stayed up in the streets some in the airport waiting lounge
trying to figure out what’s the next step they need to take after being failed by the management
of Airbnb, where is the empathy in this? It should be noted beyond inconsiderable doubt that a
hospitality facility needs to have the needs of the customer at heart( Peters and Buhalis,2019).
Without these clients then the hospitality facilities would be nonexistent. As such, the
management needs to only list vacant spaces in their booking.
All hospitality organizations need to have running amenities. These amenities are the sole
source of service to their clients. However, reports claim that some of the Airbnb Inc. amenities
are not running as expected or fall way below the expectations of the clients. For instance,
showers need to be in place and running but some clients have giving unsatisfactory reviews

Airbnb Report 10
about the conditions of the showers, bath tabs, lighting system, security among other facilities
that these clients use in the hotels. Upon booking, a client is always assured to meet the heaven
on earth experience once they check-in into these hotels, this, however, is not usually the case
since the same clients have raised complains about the nature of such amenities, in summary, the
“what you see is what you get” clause is not satisfactory to the clients.
The levels of responsiveness have as well been put to question as most clients have
complained of the slow rate of reaction from the staff’s end. Some clients have admitted that the
staff take too long to give feedback to them before bookings and some staff during their stay,
have neglected some of their pleas. For instance, if a client reports of breakage or a lost item, the
staff responsible should first assure the client that the mess will be fixed and within the shortest
time possible fix the mess. Taking too long to fix messes makes the clients lose the interest of
ever booking a space with the firm the next time they are on vacation or have a meeting in that
town. This has adverse effects on the firm since the market base is most likely to shrink.
In delivering effective and consistent quality management, benchmarking is the most
suitable technique that Airbnb Inc. needs to apply. The firm needs to remain competitive in the
market, as such it needs to know what the competitors are doing to attract and retain more
customers. The loopholes that have led to the negative growth of the firm have already been
identified, the firm, therefore, needs to find the ways in which other related firms tackle such
issues to remain competitive. In adopting benchmarking as the way to turn around the problems
the firm is facing, the firm is most likely to introduce new ideas in the running of the business.
Chances are high that the amenities to be used by the clients are most likely to be improved and
meet the world-class standard. With benchmarking as well, positive healthy completion is most

Airbnb Report 11
likely to prevail as all the participants in the market will seek to be the best in the market. This
will call for better services in the market since clients will generally prefer the firms where the
taste of their money is felt. In order to remain competitive, the firm needs to innovate some of
the processes, though benchmarking, Airbnb Inc., is most likely to get a picture of how other
hospitality firms offer different services and improve on these services. The main motive of
running a business is usually to gain profits. Through benchmarking, Airbnb is likely able to
improve performance by conducting a SWOT analysis with comparison to its competitors.
Through this, the firm will make their strongholds stronger and work on their weaknesses in
order to generate them into strengths. Many customers are moved by the quality of products and
services that the firm offers to the market (Hill and John,2017). By choosing to benchmark,
Airbnb will get to know the types of services offered by the competitors in the markets, choose
to offer the same services or improve on the quality of the services in a bid to attract and retain
more clients.

Airbnb Report 12
Recommendations
In order to provide solutions to the concerns raised by the clients, several issues need to
be looked into thoroughly within the shortest time possible. First, the aspect of customer service
relations needs to be corrected. In order to have a better quality of customer service, recorded
calls need to be introduced in order to monitor the manner in which the staff communicates with
the clients (Burke and Hughes,2018). The reporting channels need to be adjusted so as to make it
easier for clients to get refunds on time. Communication by email is as well recommended and a
middle or top-level manager copied in the mails jut to see to it that the clients are served within
the shortest time possible (Halvorsrud et al .,2016).
The issue of last-minute cancelation as well needs a turnaround. Going forward, the firm
needs to advise the clients that the firm does not support late check-outs as this is inconvenient in
terms of planning and offering of services to clients. The firm as well will only list available
spaces for booking to avoid canceling of bookings because of late check-outs.
The maintenance department needs to be well equipped with the relevant tools in order to
check into the issue of amenity problems. The clients as well need to have a hotline number to
call in case of any amenity related issue. This is to ensure that an immediate response staff is in
place to assist the clients at whatever time.
Clients need as well to be encouraged to give reviews in relation to their stay within the
premise (Hassanien and Dale,2019). They need to give their views anonymously citing what they
liked and what they didn’t like. This will serve as a tool for improving the services the firm
offers to the clients.