Wilderness Edge Retreat & Conference Centre, Pinawa, Manitoba. Founded by Kevin Penner in 1999. He built its first venue booking system in 2001, and in 2019 he founded Everybooking.
Demand at Wilderness Edge was real. Kevin's inbox was the bottleneck.
The pattern: corporate retreat planners and wedding couples emailed at all hours. The same 20 questions every time, does the date work, what's the package, can we feed 30 people, what are the rooms like, what's the deposit. Kevin answered each one personally because the existing tools couldn't quote what Wilderness Edge actually sold.
The breaking point: inquiries arrived at all hours and waited for Kevin. A reply took 17 hours on average, and deals went to whoever replied first. Answering by hand took 40 hours of his week.
The math was clear: 78% of bookings go to whoever replies first. He needed software that could quote a full multi-line retreat package the moment the inquiry hit. No existing tool did it.
In 2019 he founded Everybooking.
Wilderness Edge gets 250 to 400 retreat and conference requests a month. The agent picks up every one, email, web form, SMS, voice, DM, and returns a real multi-line quote in seconds. Follow-ups take minutes: it finishes 20% of them end to end; the rest take one to two minutes of Kevin's time. No spreadsheet. No PDF. No callback.
Corporate retreat for 25 people? Organizer accepts quote. Each of the 25 attendees gets their own link to claim a room, log dietary, and pay their share. Kevin used to chase that data manually. Now: zero email.
Real-time tracking per unit, per date. Double-booking became mathematically impossible. The one error that used to cost $5k every couple of years stopped happening.
When every inquiry gets a real quote in seconds, you can afford to pick and choose. Wilderness Edge turns away 30% to 50% of inquiries, depending on the year. Overhead at a venue doesn't rise in step with revenue. Once base expenses are covered, profit climbs quickly.
Wilderness Edge uses Everybooking for its inquiry and quoting workflow, with implementation through Zero Second Offers. Kevin Penner founded Wilderness Edge and Everybooking and leads Zero Second Offers. This is his own operating business and an example of the approach in practice.
The setup brings together the venue's rooms, meals, rates and operating rules, with human review where judgment is needed. Kevin describes automation as a very important factor in the business's growth.
Read the Wilderness Edge implementation story at Zero Second Offers →
Kevin's agent is the template. We'll build yours on your packages, your voice, your inventory in minutes.
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