Skip to main content
The Ashton Standard

SampleA sample house. The name is fictional; the standards are real examples from our library.

Sample manual

See what your property would get.

The Wrenhaven is a luxury hotel we made up. This is the manual we would write with a house like it: three of its standards, a lesson built from one of them, the knowledge check that follows, and the certificate at the end. Nothing to sign up for.

House Standards

The Wrenhaven

Front office and rooms

Edition one · 2026

Written with The Ashton Standard

SOP 1 · Front Desk

Checking In a Returning Guest

Make a returning guest feel recognised rather than researched, and honour what the property already knows without asking for it again.

Why it matters

A returning guest has already told the property how they like to stay: the high floor, away from the lift, the extra pillows, no turndown. Asking again is the fastest way to tell them the last stay went unrecorded. Recognition is also the one thing the desk can offer that a competitor with a newer building cannot buy. All of the work happens before the guest arrives, in the arrivals list, and none of it happens in the conversation itself.

The Wrenhaven · House Standards

The procedure

Role
Front Desk
Checked by
Front office manager
Section
SOP 1 of 3
Revision
Edition one, 2026
  1. Read the arrivals list for returning guests at the top of the shift, and again before the arrival peak, marking them on your own copy.
  2. Open the profile before they reach the desk: last stay, recorded preferences, the room they had, and anything that went wrong.
  3. Where the last stay carried a complaint or a recovery, read it and hold it. A guest whose bathroom flooded expects it mentioned once, briefly, and not at all after that.
  4. Put the return in the first sentence: "Good afternoon Mrs Hale, welcome back." Do not add the number of stays, which reads as a screen being recited.
  5. Assign the room against the recorded preference during the morning block, not at the counter with the guest watching.
  6. Confirm the preference as a statement, then leave one beat for them to change it: "I have you on the eighth floor away from the lift, as before."
  7. Shorten the transaction deliberately. A returning guest does not need the lift directions or the breakfast hours, and the full script undoes the recognition it followed.
  8. Offer one thing that is new since they were last here, and only one: a refurbished floor, a restaurant, a change to the breakfast room.
  9. Where a recovery is still owed from the last stay, do not raise it at the counter. Tell the duty manager the guest is in the building.
  10. Add whatever you learn at the desk to the profile before the guest has reached the lift, because you will not remember it at seven o'clock.

Common mistakes

  • Reading the stay count aloud, which turns recognition into surveillance.
  • Asking a returning guest for preferences the property recorded eight months ago.
  • Delivering the full orientation to somebody who knows the building better than the agent does.
  • Learning something useful at the counter and never writing it down, so the next stay starts from zero again.

The house standard

The guest is greeted by name before they speak, welcomed back rather than checked in, and told the room they are in rather than asked what they would like. The preferences are already met, the transaction takes ninety seconds instead of four minutes, and the one thing they are told is the one thing that has changed since they were last here. Nothing is read out to them, and nothing they have already said has to be said again.

Manager's checklist

  • Returning guests identified from the arrivals list in advance
  • Profile, preferences and previous stay read before the arrival
  • Return acknowledged in the first sentence, without a stay count
  • Recorded preference honoured in the morning room block
  • Transaction shortened rather than run in full
  • New information added to the profile within the same shift

SOP 2 · Concierge

Taking a Guest Request and Setting an Expectation

Take a request completely enough to act on it alone, and give the guest a time by which they will hear back whether or not it has worked.

Why it matters

Almost every concierge failure is a failure of the first two minutes rather than the work that followed. A request taken as "a table tonight" becomes four telephone calls that all ask questions you cannot answer, so you go back to the guest, and the guest concludes the desk was not listening. Worse is the request taken well and never given a time: the guest waits, then chases, and the desk has turned a favour into an anxiety. A request is complete when you could hand it to a colleague and they could finish it without finding the guest.

The Wrenhaven · House Standards

The procedure

Role
Concierge
Checked by
Chef concierge
Section
SOP 2 of 3
Revision
Edition one, 2026
  1. Listen to the whole request first with the pen down, then pick the pen up and take it properly. People edit themselves when you start writing too early.
  2. Establish the six facts every request needs: what, when, how many, where from, the guest's name and room, and the one thing that would make it wrong.
  3. Ask the constraint questions out loud rather than assuming them: how far they are willing to travel, what they are dressed for, whether anyone at the table has a dietary need, and whether there is a price they would rather stay under.
  4. Ask what the request is for. An anniversary, a client, a child who will not sit still for two hours, and a first night in the city are four different bookings with the same words on the pad.
  5. Read the request back in full, in their words, and wait for them to correct it: "A table for four at eight tonight, within walking distance, quiet enough to talk, and no shellfish at the table."
  6. Set the expectation with a clock time and a promise to return either way: "I will come back to you by half past two, whether I have it or not."
  7. Ask how they would like to be reached and get the detail: room telephone, mobile number written down and read back, or in person at the desk.
  8. Open a line in the open requests log before you start work: date, time taken, guest name, room number, the request in one line, the time you promised, your initials, and the status set to open.
  9. Do not promise the outcome. Promise the effort and the time: "I cannot hold that table until I have spoken to them, but you will hear from me by half past two."

Common mistakes

  • Writing "dinner, 4 people" and discovering at the third telephone call that nobody knows what time.
  • Promising the result rather than the callback, so a full restaurant becomes a broken promise instead of a second option.
  • Giving a soft time such as "later this afternoon", which the guest will read as two o'clock and you will mean five.
  • Starting the telephone calls before the log line exists, so a shift change loses the request entirely.

The house standard

The guest says what they want once. It is repeated back to them exactly, including the part they were slightly embarrassed to mention, and they are given a clock time by which they will hear something. They then stop thinking about it, which is the whole point, and the desk goes to work holding a request complete enough that anyone on the team could finish it.

Manager's checklist

  • Whole request heard before writing began
  • What, when, how many, from where, name, and room all captured
  • Occasion and constraints asked for rather than assumed
  • Request read back in full and confirmed by the guest
  • A clock time given, with a commitment to return either way
  • Log line opened before any work started

SOP 3 · Housekeeping

Entering a Guest Room

Get from the corridor into a guest room in a way that gives anybody inside every chance to answer first.

Why it matters

This is the most repeated act of the shift, thirty or forty times a day, and the one with the shortest distance between routine and a serious problem. A guest who is asleep, undressed or in the bathroom when a door opens is a complaint the property cannot recover from, and the system that prevents it is nothing more than knocking three times and waiting. The status on the board can be wrong: a departure who decided to stay, a guest who came back for an hour, a second occupant nobody registered. The knock is the only thing that catches it.

The Wrenhaven · House Standards

The procedure

Role
Housekeeping
Checked by
Executive housekeeper
Section
SOP 3 of 3
Revision
Edition one, 2026
  1. Park the cart against the corridor wall beside the door, not across the corridor, with the open side facing the room you are about to enter.
  2. Check the door for a do not disturb sign or a service light before you touch it, and if one is showing, stop and log it.
  3. Knock with your knuckles, three firm knocks, and announce yourself clearly: "Housekeeping."
  4. Wait a full five seconds. Count it rather than estimate it, because the wait is the whole point of the procedure.
  5. Knock and announce a second time, wait five seconds again, then a third time.
  6. Open the door slowly to about a foot and announce yourself once more into the gap before stepping in.
  7. If a guest answers at any point, apologise, step back, and ask what time would suit them for the room to be serviced. Write the time on your board.
  8. Once inside, hold the door open with the wedge or the cart to the property's procedure, so the room is never a closed door with you inside it.
  9. Take five seconds in the doorway to read the room before you start: occupied or empty, luggage or none, anything that changes what the board told you.

Common mistakes

  • Knocking and turning the handle in the same movement, which is not knocking at all.
  • Announcing "housekeeping" quietly, so a guest in the bathroom never hears it.
  • Using a key on a door that is showing a do not disturb sign.
  • Letting the door close behind you, so a returning guest finds a shut door and a stranger's voice inside their room.

The house standard

Three knocks, three announcements, five seconds each, every door, every time, whatever the board says and however far behind the shift is running. A guest who is in the room hears a calm voice and has time to answer before anything moves. A guest who is not in the room never learns the routine exists, which is exactly the point of it.

Manager's checklist

  • Cart parked against the wall beside the door
  • Door checked for a do not disturb sign before knocking
  • Three knocks with a clear spoken announcement each time
  • Five seconds waited between each announcement
  • Door opened slowly with a final announcement into the gap
  • Door held open for the whole time staff were in the room
“A guest who is not in the room never learns the routine exists, which is exactly the point of it.”
Housekeeping · Entering a Guest Room

The lesson

Every standard becomes a lesson.

Each procedure in the manual turns into short lessons your team reads on a phone, then a knowledge check. This one is built from Entering a Guest Room, the housekeeping standard above.

The Wrenhaven2 min read

Lesson 1 of 3 · Entering a Guest Room

The knock

This is the most repeated act of the shift, thirty or forty times a day, and the one with the shortest distance between routine and a serious problem.

The board can be wrong: a departure who decided to stay, a guest who came back for an hour, a second occupant nobody registered. The knock is the only thing that catches it.

Key points

  • Check the door for a do not disturb sign before you touch it.
  • Three knocks and three announcements, with five seconds counted between each.
  • Open the door slowly and announce yourself once more into the gap.
Continue to the check

The knowledge check

Then they show they know it.

Three questions from the same standard. Pick an answer and you will see the right one, and why. Try it: nothing is saved.

Entering a Guest Room · Knowledge check

Sample. Nothing is saved.

  1. 1.The board shows the room as a departure. What do you do at the door?

  2. 2.How long do you wait between knocks?

  3. 3.A guest answers from inside. What next?

0 of 3 answered

The certificate

And the record stays with them.

A pass issues the certificate to the person, not to a file in the office. The Wrenhaven can see who is certified on what, and the record goes with them when they move on.

Sofia Reyes

Housekeeping · The Wrenhaven

Certifications

Room Entry and Guest Privacy

Issued by The Wrenhaven

Earned · Sep 18, 2026

A sample certificate for a fictional member of staff, shown as it appears on their profile.

What a house gets

Your standards, written down and taught.

  • A manual in your voice.

    Written with the people who hold the standard now, department by department, so it reads like your house and not like a template.

  • Training from every page.

    Each procedure becomes a short lesson and a knowledge check, assigned to the people who need it, with a date on it.

  • A record of who knows it.

    A pass issues a certificate. You see who is trained on what, and your people keep what they have earned when they move on.

Want your house's standards written like this?

Tell us what you run and which standard your team relearns every season. We will come back within a business day.

Talk to us