Snapshot
Property: San Ysidro Ranch, Montecito (Forbes 5-Star, Leading Hotels of the World member)
Role: Ian Williams, General Manager
Catalyst: Need for accountability systems outside the corporate infrastructure
Problem: Standards lived in binders, PDFs, spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge—with no modern way to drive manager participation or track execution
Solution: Yipy—the Hospitality Standards Management System
Outcome: Highest LQA scores in 6+ years (90%+), expanded use cases across housekeeping, engineering, landscaping, and health inspections—all while growing occupancy and restaurant covers
The Situation: World-Class Expectations Without World-Class Systems
San Ysidro Ranch isn't just any luxury property.
It's a 550-acre Forbes 5-Star hideaway in the Montecito foothills—where JFK and Jackie honeymooned, where Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh exchanged vows, and where Condé Nast Traveler consistently names it among the world's best.
The expectations are extraordinary. The margin for error is zero.
But as General Manager Ian Williams knew, being outside a corporate structure meant one thing:
No built-in systems for accountability.
“One of the things I spoke with Adam about is how do you really create a sense of accountability, especially in a small boutique hotel where you're outside the corporate world and you don't have those systems readily available.”
Before Yipy, standards lived where they always do in independent properties:
- Binders
- PDFs
- Spreadsheets
- Tribal knowledge
And chaos is what happens when "the standard" exists in five places at once.
Worse, the traditional standards testing process was administrative theater:
“In many cases for standards tests, it's just about filling out the form, giving it to your manager, but there's really never a feedback with that individual.”
Ian needed a modern way to get 22 managers—old and young—to participate in standards testing. He needed repetition without nagging. He needed visibility into what was working and what wasn't.
He needed a system.
The Break: When Yipy Found Them
Ian and his team became early Yipy adopters—now over three and a half years in.
“We've been in it for three and a half years. Right at the beginning.”
What drew him in wasn't a feature list. It was a philosophy:
Simplify day-to-day operations. Eliminate administrative friction. Free managers to actually coach.
“The system's there for you so you don't have to print up the form. You don't have to manually mark every form. It's there for you to eliminate that time and utilize that time that you were spending in the administrative process to actually sit down with a team member and go over what they did good and what they need to improve on.”
The Shift: From Scattered Standards to a Living Execution System
Yipy replaced fragmented standards and manual auditing with a living, adaptable system:
Define
All standards—LQA, Forbes, internal expectations—live in one source of truth. No more version confusion. No more "which binder is right?"
Distribute
22 managers across all departments now have instant access to what "done right" looks like—on their phones, in the flow of work.
Do (On the Floor)
Standards testing happens in real time. Managers complete audits on mobile devices while watching service happen.
“It's really easy and quick.”
And here's where the system gets smart: after a year or two of use, Ian's team started seeing patterns.
“We start to see what our staff does really well and we take that off the list. Instead of focusing on all 24 standards, we know we're good for 14—let's just focus on the 10.”
Diagnose
Yipy’s tracking reveals variance fast—by role, by shift, by individual.
“If you can immediately show somebody because the data is trackable and you can just show them with one click or bring them to this and look at it and show them what they've done over the last 10 tests. That's so much easier than saying, 'Hey, hold on one second. I need to go get your file.'”
Employees see the trend. Managers see the gaps. Coaching becomes data-driven, not anecdotal.
Develop
Feedback happens in the moment—not months later.
“Before it was a he said, she said. Now it really just kind of closes the loop.”
And when scores are posted, something remarkable happens:
“It didn't matter if they were 18 or 65. They would all look at the scores... and they all knew. They would start to look and go, 'Wow, I really do need to pick up my scores.'”
Human nature meets modern infrastructure.
Beyond Standards Testing: Unexpected Use Cases
What surprised Ian most was how far the system extended beyond traditional standards testing.
Health Inspections
“As soon as we looked at your system, we immediately said, 'We can use this and put in the health department checklist.'”
The AM supervisor now runs through temperature checks, door seals, broken tiles—every shift. And when the health inspector arrives?
“When you look at our health inspection scores, the health inspection scores are going up too.”
“We can go back and say, 'Hey, look, you're pressing the button that this is always getting done and you did this report 25 times in the month of January, but this person came on one day, the same day, and you missed it. So, we have to hold people accountable.'”
Housekeeping & Engineering
San Ysidro Ranch now runs:
- Arrival checklists
- AM stayover checklists
- PM turndown checklists
- Engineering room inspections
The result? Fewer rooms "not ready" at the last minute because maintenance issues are caught before guests check in.
“Before it was a he said, she said. Well, that person was in here. Okay, let me check the key logs if that makes any sense. Now it really just kind of closes the loop.”
Landscaping
Even the grounds team uses Yipy to track weekly sprinkler checks and property walkthroughs.
“We're pretty handy with it.”
The Results: Record Scores During Record Growth
Here's what makes this case study remarkable:
San Ysidro Ranch didn't achieve record scores by slowing down. They achieved them while scaling up.
- Occupancy grew
- Restaurant covers "blew through the roof"
- More staff, more managers, more complexity
And yet:
“We just got back our LQA score and we're over 90%—which is the first time in this property's last six or seven years.”
This wasn't a sleepy hotel coasting on reputation. This was a growing operation that needed infrastructure to match its ambition.
Yipy delivered.
The Manager Perspective
Ian manages 22 managers and 240+ employees. Their feedback mirrors his own:
“It's really easy and quick.”
The system eliminated the friction that used to slow everything down:
- No more Excel files getting too big
- No more IT calls about file sizes
- No more hunting for old records
- No more printing and manually marking forms
“In many cases when I've worked with other programs, you're usually trying to utilize an Excel program and then the Excel file becomes too big. It slows down your system. Your IT is calling you and you're trying to delete this person's record because they're no longer working there.”
The Feedback Loop: A Partnership, Not a Product
One thing Ian emphasized: Yipy listens.
“Part of the surprise is we provide feedback and later on down the road here comes some of those new modifications which helps us get better.”
“I don't think anybody's going to send you anything that would negatively affect the product because everybody's intentions is to make the product better.”
For a GM running a world-class property, that partnership matters. The system evolves with the operation.
How Ian Describes Yipy to Colleagues
“It's made to simplify your day-to-day operations. You should never purchase or utilize a product that makes what you do in a day longer and takes away from your productivity. If it's going to be technology related, it needs to be easy, efficient, and something that everybody understands. And I think you guys have done a really good job of kind of linking that all together.”
Why It Worked: The Playbook
- Replace administrative theater with real-time coaching. Standards testing isn't about filling out forms. It's about feedback in the moment.
- Unify standards in one source of truth. No more binders, PDFs, spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge competing for authority.
- Refine over time. After a year of data, remove what's working and focus on what needs attention.
- Extend beyond the obvious. Health inspections, housekeeping, engineering, landscaping—if it can be standardized, it can be systematized.
- Make performance visible. When employees see their scores, behavior changes. Human nature does the rest.
- Close the loop. Accountability isn't about catching people. It's about having the data to coach them.
Bottom Line
San Ysidro Ranch didn't adopt Yipy because they were failing. They adopted it because a world-class property deserves world-class infrastructure.
Three and a half years later, they've achieved their highest LQA scores in over six years—while growing occupancy, expanding covers, and adding complexity.
Ian says it simply:
“Our scores are definitely up and you can see on our grid when we started the product. You can see how that's helped us.”
That's the Consistency Dividend.
Visit yipy.io to explore how the world's first Hospitality Standards Management System transforms standards chaos into consistent excellence.
Yipy Case Study: San Ysidro Ranch, Montecito