Snapshot
Property: Carillon Miami Wellness Resort (Independent luxury wellness destination)
Role: Patrick Fernandes, Executive Managing Director
Catalyst: 15 years of building manual quality systems in Excel—and knowing there had to be a better way
Problem: Standards tracking lived in spreadsheets, Word docs, and fragmented software tools. Getting a 5-star was possible. Sustaining it was the struggle.
Solution: Yipy—the Hospitality Standards Management System
Outcome: Year-over-year improvement in Coyle audit scores, ~100 managers now conducting audits, and Yipy data integrated directly into annual employee performance reviews for objective accountability
The Situation: A Career Spent Searching for the Right Tool
Patrick Fernandes isn't new to quality management.
Before joining Carillon Miami Wellness Resort as Executive Managing Director, he spent over a decade in the trenches of luxury hospitality—first as Director of Quality and Training at The Setai, then helping open The Faena to Forbes 5-Star status in its first year.
At both properties, he achieved what most hotels only aspire to: consistent five-star recognition.
But the path to get there? Brutal.
“I would sit there and try to come up with formulas that would work to measure standards, come up with a score, track the performance of the individual, track the performance of the team and the department, measure it against the standards, compare it to Forbes... It was very Excel driven and very tedious.”
Patrick tried everything. Paper. Word. Excel. HotSOS. Triton. Kronos. Small independent software tools repurposed for hospitality.
None of them worked.
"Getting the five stars would be easy because you have this massive pump of energy that you can put into your team, boost morale, motivate them, incentivize them, and get it. But then to sustain it over a period of time—that was the challenge."
The problem wasn't effort. It was infrastructure.
The Break: "I Have Been Waiting for You Guys All My Life"
Patrick discovered Yipy at an independent hotel show in Miami Beach.
A colleague, Steve Turk, pointed him toward the booth. His CFO had already heard about Yipy at HITEC. So Patrick walked over—curious but skeptical.
Then he saw it.
"The moment I saw Yipy—the iPad on the table, Adam and Connor talking about it—I said, 'Oh my goodness, I have been waiting for you guys all my life. Where have you been?'"
No demo needed. No lengthy explanation required.
Patrick recognized immediately what Yipy was built to do—because he'd spent 15 years trying to build it himself.
"I said, 'No explanation needed, please. I know exactly what your product is.'"
The Challenge: A Complex Operation Without Corporate Infrastructure
Carillon Miami Wellness Resort isn't a typical hotel.
Patrick's title—Executive Managing Director—reflects the complexity:
- An oceanfront luxury wellness resort
- A membership component
- Private residences
- A real estate transaction arm
All operating under one roof. All requiring consistency. None with the built-in systems that come with a major brand.
"I am in a very unique situation at the Carillon... I knew exactly what Yipy was capable of. I knew how to use it without having seen it. And I knew why we needed it because I was struggling to get the answer myself."
The Shift: From Emotion to Objectivity
What changed when Yipy went live?
Everything about how accountability works.
Before Yipy: Managers relied on gut feeling. Feedback was subjective. Employees pushed back.
"The danger we always have with managers—whether inexperienced or sometimes even experienced—is they bring emotion into accountability. 'I feel that you're not doing a good job.' It's not about how you feel. Who cares about how you feel?"
After Yipy: Accountability became objective. Data replaced opinion. Coaching replaced confrontation.
"When you have a tool like Yipy, you can say, 'I've measured your performance. I've compared it to the standards. You're not delivering to the level that we expect from you.' There's nothing about feeling and emotion. It's in black and white. You either met the standard or you didn't."
That shift—from subjective to objective—changed the entire culture of feedback at Carillon.
The Unexpected Benefit: Reinventing the Review Process
Patrick expected Yipy to improve guest satisfaction scores. He didn't expect it to transform how the property conducts employee reviews.
"What you don't realize Yipy will deliver is all of those sub-layers... The accountability and the review process becomes fair."
Starting in 2025, every team member's annual performance review at Carillon will include their Yipy data.
"Your 2025 performance on Yipy is going to go into your annual review. We are measuring department and team engagement and team member performance through the use of Yipy."
This wasn't in the original plan. It emerged because the data was there—credible, trackable, and fair.
"We've revamped our internal review process because of Yipy. Now that we have this wealth of information available to us, we can go to our team and say, 'Here's how we hold you accountable.' We have the tool. It's easy enough to use."
The Results
Audit Scores: Improved year-over-year.
Manager Adoption: Managers have adopted and actively conducted hundreds of audits through Yipy.
Review Integration: Yipy data now feeds directly into annual employee performance reviews—creating objective, defensible accountability.
Future Expansion: Plans to extend Yipy into preventive maintenance, checklists, and operational workflows beyond service standards.
The Manager Perspective
For Patrick, the transformation isn't just operational. It's cultural.
"Your team becomes more engaged. Your managers are holding your team accountable. There's a more credible approach to accountability because it's not based on emotion—it's objective."
And the layers keep revealing themselves:
"It's like one of those onions that you peel away and you say, 'Wow, this is great. This is great. This is great.' It starts with guest satisfaction and goes into so many different layers that you can reap the benefits of from using Yipy."
How Patrick Describes Yipy to Fellow GMs
"It's something that you need, but you don't know you need it yet till you actually use it. And once you have it, you'll realize you cannot live without it—or you should not live without it."
"If you are a true GM and a true hotelier—one that cares about the guest experience and standards and elevating your team—you need Yipy. You probably just don't realize it yet."
The Feedback Loop: A Product That Listens
Like other Yipy clients, Patrick emphasized the partnership:
"I don't think I've ever had a time where I've been told, 'No, we can't do that.' Each time we've asked something—if it could not be done—it was, 'Yes, we'll get that on the next update. We'll do that. That is in the works.'"
"Things are missing from Yipy just because we think about new things all the time. But for most parts, it's a robust tool. From my own experience—when I was using Excel—this is far superior than anything that I ever produced as a training and quality director."
Why It Worked: The Playbook
- Replace gut feeling with objective data. Accountability isn't about emotion. It's about measurement.
- Integrate standards into performance reviews. When Yipy data feeds into annual reviews, consistency becomes everyone's job.
- Start with service, expand from there. Carillon began with service standards. Preventive maintenance and checklists are next.
- Commit to the tool like you commit to the car. You don't buy a car and leave it in the garage. You don't subscribe to Yipy and leave it unused.
- Let the layers reveal themselves. Guest satisfaction is the obvious win. Engagement, morale, and fair accountability are the hidden dividends.
Bottom Line
Patrick Fernandes spent 15 years building manual systems to track standards, measure performance, and sustain five-star excellence.
Excel. Word. Paper. Fragmented software. None of it worked at scale.
Then he found Yipy.
"This is what I was hoping I would have had when I was in the role of training and quality. For me personally, this is a dream come true."
A year in, Carillon's Coyle scores are up. 100 managers are auditing. And Yipy data now drives annual reviews.
Patrick says it simply: "Once you have it, you'll realize you cannot live without it."
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: Carillon Miami Wellness Resort