The CX Podcast · 2024-04-26 · 7 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
23 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Brian Chesky's approach to customer experience at Airbnb offers a counterintuitive framework for how to think about ratings and growth. While Airbnb's listings consistently score above 4.8 stars, Chesky interprets this not as exceptional delight but as meeting expectations - a crucial distinction that shifts focus from vanity metrics to actual satisfaction. Rather than celebrating near-perfect scores, Airbnb internally runs workshops imagining 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-star experiences (ranging from airport pickups with wine to hypothetical SpaceX trips), using this exercise to stretch thinking beyond baseline satisfaction. Chesky builds empathy through two practices: spending months per year renting properties on his own platform to experience customer friction firsthand, and renting out his own San Francisco apartment to understand the host perspective. Most notably, Airbnb's scaling philosophy prioritizes creating 100 deeply satisfied customers who become ambassadors before expanding to thousands - the inverse of conventional growth obsession. This approach means starting with experience and efficiency comes second, ensuring that as the platform scales, customer-centricity remains embedded rather than compromised by efficiency-focused decisions.
A 4.8 rating at Airbnb means the experience met guests' expectations - not that they were delighted or excited. High ratings indicate alignment with expectations rather than exceeding them, which is why Chesky focuses internally on imagining 6-10 star experiences to drive genuine enthusiasm.
Chesky spends months per year personally renting properties on Airbnb to experience customer friction firsthand, and also rents out his own San Francisco apartment to understand the host perspective, keeping him close to both sides of the marketplace.
Airbnb started by creating an amazing experience for 100 people who became ambassadors, then scaled to 1,000 and 10,000 by iterating on what worked - rather than optimizing for efficiency from day one, which would have prevented customers from becoming marketing channels.
A 6-star experience could include the host picking you up at the airport with wine or a limo ride; a 9-star experience might involve your favorite artist performing at the venue you rented.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode surfaces a few genuinely useful ideas (rating inflation on 5-point scales, the 'stretch to 6 - 10 stars' ideation exercise, ambassador-first growth), but these are shallow summaries of already-public Chesky talking points with no additional analysis or layering. The 7-minute runtime is padded with filler and a merchandise plug.
if everyone almost gives a five out of a five point scale that doesn't mean that they are super excited it means a five star on airbnb means means that the residents, it met the experience, the expectations of those guests
if you begin with scaling from day one, you will choose things that focus on efficiency. And because of that, you will never have people that actually love you
The '6-to-11-star experience' framework and the '100-person ambassador' growth story are well-circulated Chesky anecdotes widely covered in startup and CX media; the host adds no contrarian angle, first-principles reasoning, or original synthesis - just secondhand retelling.
what could a six experience look like What is a seven-star experience? What could an eight-star experience be?
start with 100 people that really love you and you grow it from there on
There is no actual guest - this is a solo host summarising a third-party podcast he was sent by a friend; Brian Chesky is only referenced, not present, and the host himself appears to be a minor CX consultant with no demonstrated operating experience at scale.
Thanks to my friend Sam, I was guided to a podcast a few weeks ago and it was a podcast from Brian Chesky, the CEO and founder of Airbnb
A lot of people are asking me if they can get this t-shirt that I've been using in my videos
A handful of concrete details appear (6 months in 2023, 100→1,000→10,000 user stages, 4.8 rating threshold), but all are secondhand, unverified, and unsupported by data, citations, or any original metrics - most descriptions remain illustrative and anecdotal.
in 2023 he stayed for six months in residence that he rented on Airbnb
A six-star experience is then, for instance, you're being picked up by the host at the airport and they give you a great bottle of wine
This is an uninterrupted solo monologue with zero interview dynamics, no probing questions, no pushback, and no tension; it closes with a merchandise promotion, indicating the format is closer to a promotional vlog than a substantive podcast.
This was my monthly CX video guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got inspired by these great ideas and concepts of Brian Chesky.
Thanks again for watching. Please share the video, like the video, subscribe to the channel
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In my recent deep dive into Airbnb's customer experience (CX) philosophy, I've been particularly inspired by the innovative approach of its co-founder and CEO, Brian Chesky. Here are three critical lessons from Airbnb's CX strategy that exemplify why Brian is revered as a formidable leader in customer-centric innovation, a true "Customer Leader" as described by experts Rudy Moenaert and Henry Robben. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Hopefully you have found new inspiration to improve your customer experience and customer service. If you want to learn more about me, check out I’m a keynote speaker, author and entrepreneur in the field of customer experience
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Hey everyone, welcome in this new episode of CX Update, your monthly update on customer experience. This video is going to be a special episode. Thanks to my friend Sam, I was guided to a podcast a few weeks ago and it was a podcast from Brian Chesky, the CEO and founder of Airbnb, where he shared his vision on doing business and there were some really diamonds in there in terms of customer experience tips. So I want to dedicate this episode to what we can learn from Brian Chesky.
Enjoy. When you look at the customer satisfaction scores at Airbnb you will see that something is really remarkable. Almost everything they rent out has a score that is higher than 4.8.
So you say wow everything that you rent out on airbnb is amazing they filtered this out and it's it's just the platform with the happiest customers on the planet brian chesky doesn't look at it like this brian is the founder and ceo of airbnb and he's like i mean if everyone almost gives a five out of a five point scale that doesn't mean that they are super excited it means a five star on airbnb means means that the residents, it met the experience, the expectations of those guests.
It's in line with their expectations. It's like when you take an Uber. I mean, have you ever had an Uber driver that had a score that was lower than 4.8?
It almost impossible to find us That doesn mean they all exceptional It means that it was in line with the expectations And I love this vision of Brian Chesky because internally at Airbnb they organize workshops now where they think about what could a six experience look like What is a seven-star experience? What could an eight-star experience be? A nine-star, up to a 10-star experience. And they come up with crazy stuff, like a six-star experience is then, for instance, you're being picked up by the host at the airport and they give you a great bottle of wine.
A six star could be, oh, you're being picked up in a limo. A nine star could be that your favorite artist is performing in the venue that you rented. Maybe a 10 star, it means that Elon takes you back to the moon and back with a SpaceX rocket. So they go way into the crazy things.
But for them, it's a way to stretch what customer experience could look like at Airbnb. And don't just think that because almost everyone gives like a four or five that you're doing great. They want to stretch that. And I like that philosophy where you try to do whatever you can to come up with the next thing to make your customers happy.
A second learning that I want to share from Brian Czeski is how he builds empathy. I think he's one of those business leaders that really wants to be close to the customer. And there are two things he does. First thing is he stays in residences that he rents on his own platform a lot.
like in 2023 he stayed for six months in residence that he rented on Airbnb. Because of that, he goes through the customer process almost every single day. And by doing so he discovers the things that work that don work He discovers the frictions he discovers the successes but it gives him a sense of detail and understanding of the customer process that helps in the day decision And that actually builds empathy. Next to that, he also rents out his own apartment in San Francisco.
So you can basically rent the apartment of Ryan Chesky. So he's not just renting, he's also making sure that he's having guests in his own house so that he knows how that feels if you're an owner of a house that is on Airbnb. So he looks at both sides of the customer relationship that he has, which is an enormous strength in building empathy by being so close to the process that customers go through every single day. The third learning that I've got from Ryan Chesky, CEO and founder of Airbnb, is that when he started, they weren't thinking about how to scale that on day one.
And in his mind, too many companies are just only focused on how can we scale things. And if you start with the scaling, you don't create the best possible experience. So they had a different approach. They were trying to give 100 people, when they started with Airbnb, they wanted to give 100 people an amazing experience, made sure that they had the best possible customer experience you could ever dream of.
And because of that, those 100 people weren't just customers of the platform. They became ambassadors. They became the marketing channel for Airbnb. And once they achieved that they went for the next step which was trying to make 1 people become really really excited about the platform and make sure that those 1 people had a top experience so they would become ambassadors as well and then they went for 10 000 and and his vision is that if you use that approach after a while you will start to learn what works and doesn't work and you will learn how to discover how you can scale things but based on your experiences with your first smaller numbers and taking that experience into account make sure that if you start to scale that it's still in a way that it is customer friendly.
If you begin with scaling from day one, you will choose things that focus on efficiency. And because of that, you will never have people that actually love you. You never have people that actually become your ambassadors and you don't have that marketing channel that is a foundation of your growth. So start with 100 people that really love you and you grow it from there on.
That was my third learning that I got from Brian Chesky. This was my monthly CX video guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got inspired by these great ideas and concepts of Brian Chesky.
I'm gonna keep following him. I'm a big fan now. I think we can all learn a lot from a founder like that to improve our customer experience. So thanks for watching.
A lot of people are asking me if they can get this t-shirt that I've been using in my videos for the last few months. Yes you can if you go to my website stephenvambellegem.com. You can go to the shop and there you can find these t-shirts for you and your team to become beautiful shiny diamonds yourself.
Thanks again for watching. Please share the video, like the video, subscribe to the channel and I'm looking forward to seeing you guys back next month. Thanks for watching everyone. Take care.
Bye bye.
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