A guest request might be fresh in your mind for a single minute, but after five additional interactions at the front desk it will slip right out of your head. A guest requests more towels, the phone starts ringing, another guest asks for directions, a call arrives from housekeeping to check on a room status, and suddenly the first request is now only known in someone’s mind. This is the reason why it is important to write handover notes. Handover notes turn a piece of spoken information into a piece of information the next person can actually use.
A useful handover note should provide basic service information such that the other team member does not need to make a guess. Who or what room is being referred to? What is the request? What was the time of the request? Have the actions regarding the request already been completed? Who needs to be responsible for follow-up? If the note only says towels, housekeeping will not know which room, the time of the request, or whether the request was made to a guest once or the guest is waiting. If the note includes room 412, two requested extra towels 18:20; housekeeping has been informed, then the action to be taken is obvious.
Beginners often create notes that sound nice, but do not work well. An entry such as Guest would like assistance when possible is friendly but does not provide clarity on the exact task being requested. Remember that the handover note is not about writing a message to anyone. A handover note is not a work of art. It is a work piece of information in plain, service language. A note should include room number, guest request, time, whether it has already been acted upon, and what is the next action to follow. A note should help reception, housekeeping, maintenance or anyone else to follow-up on the task without having to remember the whole context of the request.
Guest requests in handover notes should also include the correct amount of information. Too little information will cause confusion, too much information will take a lot of time to read and review. For instance, if a guest has told reception that the air conditioner is not working in their room, then there is no need to write down the whole story of how the conversation went and what the guest said next. The note should be focused on the important facts, that is: room number, what the problem is, time the request was reported, whether reception was able to contact maintenance and if the guest was advised about any alternative solution. Writing such a note means that the next person reading the note is less likely to make a mistake and the guest will be happy that the complaint was recorded and there is no need for the guest to report the problem again and again.
One method to train yourself is to rewrite bad notes into good, usable notes. An entry such as Guest angry about the room should be rewritten into something more practical, such as Room 208 reported disturbance from the guest in the neighbouring room 21:10; Reception has apologised and offered to check if the room has been changed to another room if the noise is still heard. The rewrite does not add too much, does not make the guest angry and does not promise anything but a potential follow-up. The rewrite includes room number, what is the problem, what was done to assist the guest and what is the next action that may have to follow up. This exercise is also applicable to the rest of the guest requests, such as request for extra towels, guest request wake-up call, luggage storage, lost property, late-check out, and room change requests.
Especially important for cross-team requests is a well written handover note. For example, a guest may tell reception a certain service is required but may need housekeeping staff to perform that service. A guest could tell the receptionist of a concern and the request could potentially need attention by maintenance. A guest could ask reception about a late check-out but the request could depend on the number of room bookings that are already made and room availability for the next guest to move in. A well written handover note could be critical to help reception, housekeeping or maintenance keep the process of guest requests up-to-date and know which requests are new, which ones have been checked and which ones have been resolved.
Before signing off from your shift, a trainee could read through each open note and ask one question for themselves, such as Could someone take any action from this entry if they do not know what I have meant? If no, then the entry needs one more information. Writing a good handover is not complicated, but does require attention to detail. In hotel service, a good handover note can sometimes help a guest request to get through smoothly so that the guest does not have to ask again.