Two in the afternoon, and nobody knows what was promised this morning
The early receptionist leaves at three. Before she goes, she tells the late shift about the guest in 12 who wants a taxi at half six, the couple in 4 whose shower was running cold, the company that rang to say their invoice address has changed, and the late arrival who asked for sandwiches to be left in the room. Some of this is written in the log book. Some is on a yellow note stuck to the monitor. The invoice address is in an email that only she has read.
At seven the guest in 12 comes down asking where the taxi is. The late receptionist has the log book open but the note says 'taxi 12' with no time. The sandwiches were never ordered because the kitchen closed before anyone thought to ask. Nobody did anything wrong. The information just did not survive the handover.
Night audit has the same problem in the other direction. The night porter hears about a noise complaint at one in the morning, deals with it, and writes a line in the book that the duty manager may or may not read before the guest checks out angry.
Why a better log book will not fix it
Most hotels have tried the obvious fixes: a nicer log book, a rule that every shift reads the last two pages, a column for initials. They help for a few weeks. The underlying problem is that a log book is a diary, and what the front desk actually needs is a to-do list with owners.
- A diary entry records that something happened. It does not say whether it has been dealt with.
- Items relating to a guest are not attached to that guest's reservation, so whoever checks them out cannot see the history.
- Requests arrive by phone, email, the OTA message inbox and in person, and each route leaves its trace somewhere different.
- Your PMS has a comments field on each booking, but comments are not tasks. Nobody gets reminded about a comment.
- Agency staff and new starters do not know which of the four places to look.
The more rooms you have and the more shifts you run, the more of these half-finished items are live at any moment.
What the lost items end up costing
The direct cost is the guest who did not get what they were told they would get. Missed wake-up calls, taxis that never came, a birthday cake that was promised on the phone and never reached the kitchen. These are the moments that turn up in reviews, word for word, because they are specific and easy to describe.
The quieter cost is time. Every shift spends its first stretch piecing together what is open, and managers become the human memory of the building, called on their day off to explain what was agreed with a guest. When a complaint escalates, there is no record of who knew what and when, which makes it hard to resolve fairly and harder to learn from.
How we build a front desk handover board
What we build is a small web app your front desk team opens on the reception PC or a tablet. It sits beside your PMS rather than replacing it.
- Every open item becomes a card with a room or reservation, a due time, an owner and a status: open, in progress, done, handed over.
- Where your PMS offers an API, the card links to the live reservation, so the guest name, room and departure date are pulled in rather than typed.
- Requests that arrive by email to the reservations inbox can be turned into a card with one click, keeping the original message attached.
- Timed items (wake-up calls, taxis, late check-outs, deliveries to rooms) raise an alert on the board before they are due.
- At the end of a shift, the outgoing receptionist confirms the handover. Anything still open moves to the incoming shift by name, so it cannot be quietly dropped.
- The duty manager sees a summary of what was handed over, what was completed and what is overdue.
| Item | Log book today | On the handover board |
|---|---|---|
| Taxi at 6.30pm for room 12 | 'Taxi 12' written in pen | Card with time, alert at 6.15pm, marked done when booked |
| Invoice address change | In one person's email | Card linked to the company's reservation |
| Cold shower in room 4 | Mentioned verbally | Card sent to maintenance with room attached |
| Noise complaint at 1am | Line in the night book | Card flagged for the duty manager before check-out |
We keep the categories and wording your team already uses. If your reception team calls it 'the book', the board can open on a page called that.
The first hour of a shift, once the board is running
The late receptionist logs in and sees seven open cards, three of which are due before eight. The taxi is at the top. The cold shower card shows that maintenance looked at it at two and replaced the cartridge. The sandwiches card has a note that the kitchen has made them and they are in the fridge behind the bar.
When the guest in 4 checks out the next morning and mentions the shower, the receptionist can see the whole story and respond properly. When a new agency receptionist starts on a Saturday, they learn one screen instead of four places.
The log book does not have to disappear. Some teams like writing a narrative note at the end of the night. The difference is that the actions live somewhere that tracks them.
Does your reception have this problem?
- Your front desk relies on a paper log book plus a WhatsApp group.
- Guests have been told something at reception that the next shift did not know.
- Managers get called at home to explain what was agreed with a guest.
- Timed requests like taxis and wake-up calls occasionally get missed.
- Agency or new staff struggle to work out what is still open when they arrive.