hen Steve Underwood and his business partner, Ken, started Wave & Ridge Adventure Rentals, they had four jet skis. The original plan was pretty simple: buy some toys their families could enjoy and rent them out enough to help pay for them. It didn't quite stay that simple.
Today, Wave & Ridge operates nine jet skis, two boats, two UTVs, paddleboards and several trailers out of Apache Junction, Arizona. They're also getting ready to open a second location, and Steve expects the fleet to at least double.
Steve shared that a lot of the growth came from customers asking for more.
“We started renting jet skis out of Apache Junction and grew into the full lineup: jet skis, pontoons, wakeboats, UTVs and paddleboards, because customers kept asking what else we had.”
As the business grew, though, their booking software started creating some problems of its own.
A booking system that wasn't built for the business
Wave & Ridge had been using a general-purpose rental platform. Steve's issue wasn't that it couldn't handle a reservation. It could. The problem was everything that came after someone clicked “book.”
“Our previous platform was a general rental inventory tool. It will rent you a camera, a bounce house or a jet ski, and it does not know anything about watersports.”
Wave & Ridge was using separate systems for things like waivers and e-signatures. Damage deposits involved manual work, and add-ons weren't really part of the online checkout. That meant more work for the team. Steve also wondered whether it was costing them sales. The numbers suggested it was.
Before the switch, just 22% of Wave & Ridge's revenue was coming from online bookings.
Their add-on attachment rate was 5.7%.
And optional damage protection? They had sold it once in 1,029 orders.
Steve didn't think customers necessarily didn't want it.
“There was nowhere in the flow to offer it.”
Making the switch
Wave & Ridge started looking for a platform that was built more specifically around the way a watersports rental business works. That's what eventually brought them to BookingCentral.
Steve liked that waivers and rental agreements could live inside the platform and be tied directly to the reservation. Damage deposit authorizations could be handled automatically, and add-ons and damage protection could be offered during checkout. The team could also handle check-in, check-out and photos from a mobile device.
On the back end, API access and webhooks meant they could keep connecting booking data to the other systems they use. The transition itself was planned out ahead of time. Products, pricing, deposits and documents were built in parallel while the old system was still running.
“The prep was the work. The switch itself was fast.”
Steve also gives a lot of credit to the BookingCentral support team, describing the support he’s received throughout the transition and beyond as a huge value to the business. His advice to other operators thinking about making a similar change is straightforward: get the waivers and deposits figured out before you cut over.
Then Steve started tracking the numbers
Once the switch was made, Steve kept an eye on what changed. The first number was online revenue.
Online revenue: 22% to 67%
Before the switch, a lot of reservations still involved someone picking up the phone and completing the booking manually.
Now, 67% of revenue comes in online.
For Steve, that changed more than just the booking process.
“The phone stopped being the business.”
Customers can book while the team is helping someone else, out on the water or dealing with something around the shop. Nobody has to stop what they're doing just to take a reservation.
Add-ons: 5.7% to 43%
This was another big change.
Before the switch, only 5.7% of orders included an add-on. Now it's 43%.
The products themselves didn't change. Steve said customers simply started seeing them as part of the booking process instead of something an employee had to remember to mention.
“Add-ons sell themselves now.”
Damage protection went from almost nothing to $2,133 in 11 days
This might be the most interesting number in Steve's report. Wave & Ridge had sold optional damage protection once across 1,029 previous orders.
After adding it to the BookingCentral checkout, the attachment rate reached 39% during the first 11 days.
Revenue from damage protection during those 11 days was $2,133.
The company didn't add another jet ski or boat to generate that revenue. They didn't add another rental day, either. They simply started offering an option that customers hadn't previously been seeing during checkout.
The operational changes matters too
The revenue numbers are easy to focus on, but Steve says some of the biggest changes happen before the customer even arrives. Waivers used to involve multiple systems and paperwork at pickup. Now customers can complete them as part of the booking process.
“Customers show up ready to go instead of standing around with a clipboard.”
That has also changed what the Wave & Ridge team spends its time doing. Steve's daughter used to spend a significant part of her day taking phone reservations, chasing waivers and reconciling paperwork. Now she can spend more of that time managing inventory, organizing the shop, working on social media and helping customers who actually need assistance.
That's especially useful as the business prepares to open another location.
The feature Steve values most isn't the flashy one
When we asked Steve which BookingCentral feature has made the biggest difference, he didn't pick something flashy.
He picked Digital Documents, specifically the native waivers and rental agreements.
“Not the flashiest answer, but it replaced a whole stack of outside vendors, and the legal side of the rental is finished before the customer arrives instead of at the ramp with a pen.”
If you ask which feature has had the biggest direct financial impact, Steve points to add-ons and damage protection, and that's probably the most interesting part of the whole story.
Wave & Ridge didn't need to add a bunch of new products to increase revenue from existing bookings. They needed to make it easier
Wave & Ridge by the numbers
Online revenue: 22% to 67%
Add-on attachment: 5.7% to 43%
Damage protection attachment: essentially 0% to 39%
Damage protection revenue: $2,133 in the first 11 days
Running a boat or watersports rental business? See how BookingCentral helps operators manage bookings, payments, waivers, fleet operations and more.
