Snapshot
Property: The Ritz-Carlton & JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes (500-acre luxury campus)\
Role: Alicia Hethcoat, Director of Service Excellence (Quality, L&D, Guest Satisfaction)
Catalyst: Outgrowing a repurposed construction auditing tool (iAuditor)
Problem: Standards fragmentation—multiple sets of standards, no centralized source, no reporting, no visibility across 1,500 employees
Solution: Yipy—the Hospitality Standards Management System
Outcome: A unified standards library, real-time coaching, scalable daily audits across 250 leaders, stronger service execution, and measurable impact on FTG, LQA, and guest satisfaction scores
The Situation: A world-class operation with world-class complexity
Grande Lakes Orlando is its own ecosystem:
- Two luxury hotels (Ritz-Carlton + JW Marriott)
- Nearly 1,600 rooms
- ~1,500 employees
- A shared service excellence & quality function serving both properties
Alicia owns the entire service execution loop:
- Onboarding
- Continuous learning
- Leadership development
- Quality assurance
- Guest satisfaction metrics
She calls it a “virtuous circle”—set expectations, train, inspect, coach, improve, repeat.
But one thing stood in the way:
There was no system built for hospitality to operationalize this at scale.
The property was using a digital checklist, a construction auditing tool repurposed for hotels. It created a familiar pattern:
- Standards scattered across FTG, Marriott, LSOPs, and internal documents
- No way to house everything together
- No data reporting
- No role specificity
- Manual compilation for audits
- Leaders doing their best—without the tools to do their job efficiently
Alicia describes the missing infrastructure clearly:
“We didn’t have a strong tool to inspect what we expect on a daily basis. ”
And without that, even the best service culture can’t deliver consistent excellence across 1,500 people.
The Break: When Yipy found them
Alicia didn’t go searching for Yipy.
“Yipy was the solution I didn’t know I needed. ”
They adopted the platform in late 2024—and became:
“The first Yipy user in Marriott… the first adopters and first promoters. ”
For a property of this size, that decision required clarity: Does this system solve a real operational problem? Yipy did.
It created the conditions for daily, distributed, leader-led coaching across two luxury hotels.
It gave Alicia exactly what she couldn’t build alone—at least not without hiring an additional three or four staff:
“It brought everything together… all of our standards in one place.”
The Shift: From scattered standards to a living operational system
Yipy replaced fragmented standards and manual auditing with a living standards loop:
Define
All standards—FTG, Marriott, internal LSOPs, departmental expectations—live in one single source of truth. Role specificity. Explanations. Photos. Training materials.
Distribute
Every leader receives the standards they need, in the structure that matches their operation. 250 leaders now have clarity, not chaos.
Do (on the floor)
Leaders perform a minimum of five audits per week. Housekeeping inspectors use Yipy constantly. Department trainers use it too.
Everything happens where service happens:
- At the front desk
- In hallways
- In restaurants
- Inside guest rooms
“I can stand at the desk, watch a check-in, complete the audit on my phone, and coach in real time. ”
Diagnose
Yipy’s dashboards reveal:
- Which standards are slipping
- Which leaders are coaching
- Which departments need attention
- How context (weather, occupancy, staffing) affects outcomes
No more anecdotal excuses.
“Now I can actually fact-check… validate what was happening. ”
Develop
Coaching becomes a same-shift activity—not a month-later memory. Employees want feedback while it still matters.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you help me?” This was the old problem. Yipy solved it immediately.
Culture change: Leadership accountability at scale
Alicia’s operation proves a truth the industry rarely admits:
Excellence isn’t an associate problem. It’s a leadership execution problem.
Yipy made leadership effort visible:
- Every leader is responsible for 5 audits/week
- Every audit triggers a coaching moment
- Every coaching moment has documentation
- Trainers and inspectors join the coaching rhythm
- Both hotels participate in a consistent, repeatable loop
Leaders now have:
- Instant recall of standards
- Photos and explanations for clarity
- Real-time employee conversations
- Exportable documentation for performance reviews
Employees get:
- Immediate praise
- Immediate correction
- A clear path to proficiency
This is how consistency scales in a luxury environment.
Proof of excellence (post-implementation)
Alicia sees direct, measurable performance outcomes:
- Higher guest satisfaction scores (above Marriott goal)
- Stronger FTG and LQA outcomes
- More confident leaders
- More consistent associate execution
- Better recoveries
- Faster correction cycles
- Clearer operational insight across both hotels
She is unambiguous:
“Internal auditing through Yipy is a big reason we’re meeting our guest satisfaction goal. ”
And the efficiency gains matter:
“I would have needed 3–4 more people to manage this without Yipy. ”
Instead, her existing team performs at a higher level—with greater visibility and less friction.
Why it worked (the playbook)
Unify standards: Bring every external and internal standard into one structured system.
Turn managers into coaches: Equip 250 leaders to give feedback on the same shift, not months later.
Role clarity: Use photos, explanations, and structured criteria to eliminate guesswork.
Context-aware diagnosis: Use occupancy, weather, and staffing metadata to tell the truth behind the numbers.
Make excellence visible: Track leader participation and impact across both hotels.
Build the virtuous circle: Continuous improvement in the platform → continuous improvement in the operation → repeat
Bottom line
Grande Lakes didn’t adopt Yipy to lower expectations or overhaul their culture. They adopted it because a high-performance operation needed a system that could match its ambition. Yipy gave them a unified standards structure, real-time coaching, and the visibility required to scale excellence across 1,500 people.
Alicia says it best:
“Yipy helps us execute hospitality better. ”
That’s what a living standards system does. It unifies. It trains. It reveals. It accelerates. It raises the floor—and the ceiling.
In an environment where every interaction matters, Yipy turned daily service execution into a repeatable, measurable, continuously improving habit.
Yipy Case Study: The Ritz-Carlton & JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes