Service Standards & SOP Design
Designing service standards, SOPs, and rituals that scale across a property.
- Price
- Consulting · from €3,750 per department
- Duration
- Depends on the departments
Most properties either have no written service standard, or have one nobody opens. We build yours. We watch how your property actually runs, write the standards for what the guest experiences, refine them with you until they fit your operation, and then put them on the floor one person at a time until they are simply how the shift runs. Your technical procedures are not touched.
The outcome
Your property has a written standard of its own, specific to your building and your guests, and performance can be scored against it from that point on.
Who we work with
This engagement involves:
- Owners and general managers deciding how the property should feel
- Heads of department who will hold the standard on their own
- Frontline teams who deliver it in live service
- Properties with no written standard, or one nobody uses
- Properties preparing for a brand or classification audit
- Properties where service varies noticeably between shifts
What you have at the end
When we finish, your property has:
- A written service standard specific to your property, not a generic manual
- SOPs for every guest-facing touchpoint, arrival to departure
- Defined rituals for the moments that decide a review
- A checklist and scoring method to audit against
- Frontline teams delivering the standard in live service
- Heads of department able to hold it without us
- A version you own outright, ready to use in onboarding
What your team can do afterwards
Your team is able to:
- Deliver the standard consistently across every shift
- Explain the standard without reading it
- Score their own service against a defined scale
- Induct a new starter into the standard
- Keep the standard current as the property changes
Stage 01
We analyse
- Live service observed across shifts, including nights and weekends
- Every guest-facing touchpoint mapped, arrival to departure
- What your guests already say in public, read by theme
- Existing documentation reviewed: what exists, what is used, what is ignored
- Comparable properties used as a reference point
Stage 02
We write the standards
- Your service identity set down in plain language
- Values turned into observable, checkable behaviour
- SOPs written to be followed at peak, not admired in a binder
- Rituals designed for the moments that decide a review
- Structure, versioning and ownership settled from the start
Stage 03
We refine them with you
- Draft presented to owners and heads of department
- Worked through line by line against your operation
- Adjusted for your staffing, your building, your guests
- Anything you would not enforce taken out rather than left in
- Finalised and handed over as yours
Stage 04
We put them on the floor
- One-to-one with each guest-facing team member, in live service
- Practised with real guests rather than in role-play
- Corrected in the moment, not reviewed weeks later
- Every shift covered, including those that run without management present
- Adherence scored against the standard we wrote together
Stage 05
We make them hold
- Checklists and a scoring method your team can run without us
- Heads of department shown how to observe and correct
- The standard built into onboarding for new starters
- A rhythm set for reviewing and updating it
- A final scored audit, with the gaps closed before we leave
You'll see it in your own numbers
- Time from hire to independent competence, since a written standard is what makes onboarding transferable
- Audit performance, if you are assessed against an external framework such as LQA, which scores more than 1,000 standards across departments
We measure this
- Whether a defined standard exists for every guest-facing touchpoint, and whether staff can describe it without reading it
- Adherence scored against your own standard, which is what makes every later measurement repeatable and comparable
What it won't fix:
A standard with no routine to sustain it. Writing it down is the first half; the reinforcement rhythm is the second.
Every DolceVita programme is individual and tailored: one participant at a time, online or at your property, in live service. Content, pace and case material are calibrated to the competencies and the role of whoever is being trained.
From €3,750 per department, not per person
The subject here is the department rather than the individual: from €3,750 for each department. It covers writing the standards, training the team to apply them every day and training heads of department to hold them. The final price depends on the size of the department: how many rooms, how many outlets, which services.
What these standards cover
We write the standards for what the guest sees and feels: how they are greeted, how a request is taken, how a problem is put right, how a departure is handled. We do not write or change your technical procedures: maintenance, safety, food hygiene, IT, accounting. Those stay exactly as they are.