Introducing Checkout Chores — making AirBnB checkouts a breeze

This is not an actual AirBnB Press Release, yet

Are you short on time or don’t relish cleaning up? Maybe you like to leave a place nicer than how you found it. With Checkout Chores — guests can see what they’ll need to do at the end of their stay — before they book their next AirBnB.

To keep things simple for AirBnB hosts, they can pick from standard checkout chores, and even add a custom chore if needed.

On the checkout date, guests can use the checkout checklist to mark items complete — and even attach photos of their completed items.

AirBnB’s new Checkout Checklists keep guests and hosts on the same page, ensuring that a delightful stay is completed with a stress-free departure.

Where I came at this from

Over the past decade, I have stayed at dozens of short-term rental properties; last summer was the first time I’d received negative feedback about the cleanliness of the place on my departure. As someone who sees ‘cleanliness’ part of their identity — it bothered me to no end. When I mentioned this to some friends, many have had similar experiences, and similar reactions. And we’ve all read posts like this and this, complaining about ‘cleaning duties’ requested of guests at checkout.

This got me thinking about what sort of product enhancement might address this problem.

Problem Assessment

Given how surprised many guests are when asked to perform certain cleaning duties or worse getting a bad review in spite of their cleaning - there seems to be a mismatch between guests’ and hosts’ expectations with regards to what cleaning should be done prior to checking out.

Solution Design

While some hosts I’ve rented from do provide checkout instructions (start dishwasher, empty trash, etc), they normally do so after booking, and their requests are not always clearly articulated.

Feature 1 — Provide hosts a list of clear and concise checkout chores they can select from

While the guest experience is important, broad host adoption is need to make this successful - the onboarding checklist approach, using existing UI patterns, lets hosts pick from existing items, making checkout chores as simple as clicking on a few items.

Stretch goal: It would be great to show hosts a ‘complexity score’ that gets updated when they add & remove chores — encouraging them not to go overboard adding chores.

Feature 2 — Provide guests the list of checkout chores at time of booking

When someone is searching for an AirBnB — they should be able to see what a host wants them to do before checking out — prior to booking the place.

After booking — the booking confirmation email should include the checkout chores — to reaffirm what guests will be expected to do at the end of their stay.

Feature 3 — Using the Checkout Checklist prior to finishing checkout.

On the last day of a stay, the AirBnB app will show guests a ‘Checkout’ button — clicking on it, will show them the chores checklist. This interactive checklist lets guests mark items complete, and attach photos to share with the host. This may seem over the top — but photos can help to reduce misunderstandings between host and guest — which would undoubtedly help AirBnb resolve any disputes.

When the guest is finished, they can click on ‘Finish Checkout’ which notifies the host of their departure, and allows the host to review the completed checkout chores and any attached pictures.

Other Backlog Items:

Housekeeping fee

I’d love to see a rating like Google Flights has, comparing the cleaning fee for similarly sized places in the same area.

Recycling

I was surprised at how few places in Europe had recycling, I’d love for hosts to be able to designate whether their rental provides recycling bins.

What do you think?

Have you ever had this type of misunderstanding with a host? Do you think checkout chores would help prevent these issues from occurring?

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Addendum:

A day after I published this, AirBnB announced that they were delivering improvements to increase transparency of both cleaning fees and check-out requests — this is by far the fastest any company has implemented one of my enhancement requests. Joking aside, I’m very happy that AirBnB will be delivering these changes.

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Thanks to www.vecteezy.com for allowing me to use their art for my chore icons.