A quote meant assembling the pieces
A group inquiry can involve dates, guest numbers, overnight rooms, meal packages, meeting space and minimums. A useful price needs those pieces to agree.
Before Everybooking, Kevin reports that the first quote took 17 hours on average. The information existed, but a person had to assemble the answer while also running the venue.
Put the pricing rules into the system
Everybooking was built around the venue’s rates, seasons, rooms, meals and exceptions. The change was to make those rules available to the quoting process when the request arrived.
The first quote and the ongoing conversation are different jobs. Kevin reports that new inquiries at his venue are now quoted automatically. Follow-up still includes human review where needed.
What Kevin reports changed
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| First quote | 17 hours on average | 2–6 seconds |
| Kevin’s time on inquiries | 40 hours per week | Under 4 hours per week |
| Follow-up replies | No comparable baseline reported | 1–10 minutes |
The venue handles 250–400 retreat and conference requests per month. Kevin reports that about 20% of follow-up replies are answered instantly by AI, while about 80% include a person in the loop.
Source: owner Kevin Penner, figures confirmed September 16–17, 2026. These are owner-reported observations from his own business, not an independently audited study. The review did not establish a common before-and-after measurement period for every metric.
Growth alongside the operational change
Sales are on track to double in 2026.
In the first six months of 2026, Wilderness Edge took in about 9% more than in all of 2025. For the full year, Kevin projects sales about 100% higher than in 2025. He describes automation as a very important factor in that growth, crediting Everybooking and Zero Second Offers with helping the business handle inquiries and quoting as sales expanded.
Basis: the comparison of January–June 2026 with all of 2025 comes from the company’s accountant-prepared statements. The full-year figure is Kevin’s projection as of September 2026, not a final result. Percentages are rounded. This is Kevin’s own business, and his assessment does not isolate automation’s contribution from other factors.
What this means for your business
The useful lesson is the process: identify the inputs, load the rates and exceptions, work through examples, and keep a person involved where judgment is needed.
Your volume, pricing complexity and existing workflow will affect the result. These figures are not a forecast for your business. Revenue changes alone cannot establish how much of a business’s growth came from quoting automation.
Explore the same approach
Start with the way your team answers a complete inquiry today. What information is needed, where does it live, and which requests should come back to a person?
Explore quote automation and email inquiry automation, review setup pricing, or see the examples. You can also visit Wilderness Edge’s public website.