Product design question
How would you increase the conversion rate of the Airbnb Reservation experience for first timers?
- Airbnb
- Product design
- Medium
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What this question tests
Tests funnel optimization thinking: diagnosing and improving a specific conversion step for a specific, less experienced user segment.
How to approach it
- Define the segment precisely: users booking their first Airbnb stay, who lack trust signals experienced guests already have.
- Map their funnel: search results, listing page, host reviews, and the final booking or instant book decision.
- Identify likely drop off points for first timers, for example uncertainty about host trustworthiness or unclear cancellation policies.
- Propose specific interventions, like a first timer trust badge summarizing host reliability or a simplified cancellation policy explainer.
- Define the metric: reservation conversion rate for first time bookers, segmented from repeat guest conversion.
- Confirm with the interviewer whether the focus is mobile or desktop, since first timers may skew mobile.
What a strong answer includes
- Identifies a specific first timer friction point, uncertainty about what happens if something goes wrong, and proposes surfacing Airbnb's guest guarantee earlier in the flow.
- Proposes a trust focused listing page module for first timers, highlighting host response rate and verified identity badges.
- Gives an illustrative target, for example lifting first timer booking conversion by a stated few percentage points within two quarters.
- Notes the guardrail metric, cancellation or complaint rate, so conversion gains are not won by overselling trust.
Common mistakes
- Proposing generic conversion tactics like discounts instead of addressing first timer specific trust and uncertainty.
- Ignoring guardrail metrics like cancellations that would reveal whether conversion gains hurt experience quality.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you identify a first time booker versus a returning guest in your data?
- What guardrail would tell you a change is hurting trust rather than helping it?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop