Case study · Adventure Tour Operators

Silver Cap Cat Skiing

Rogers Pass closes for avalanche control and 40 guests call at once from the highway shoulder. Here's the exact stack we'd build — and the sample artifact it produces.

Revelstoke · Ski season · Illustrative composite — the numbers are typical-pattern estimates, not measured results.

Illustrative scenario. Silver Cap Cat Skiing is a fictional composite of typical adventure tour and cat-ski operations in the Revelstoke area — not a client account. The numbers are estimates from typical patterns; your audit produces real ones. Founding-client case studies will replace these as they complete.

The day this happens

The morning the pass closed

It's a Tuesday in March and the reservations line at Silver Cap Cat Skiing will not stop ringing. Highway 1 through Rogers Pass has just closed for avalanche control — the notice says "up to four hours," which anyone who's wintered here knows can quietly become all day — and forty-odd guests are strung out on the wrong side of it, engines idling at the closure gate past Golden, watching their powder day slip away.

They're all phoning the same number at the same minute. "Are you still running today?" "Do we wait or turn around?" "We booked the three-day package — what happens to tomorrow?" The two people who could answer are the same two people who need to be loading the cat, reading the avalanche bulletin, and deciding whether today even happens. The line rings out. Voicemails stack up. And every guest who can't get an answer is deciding, from the highway shoulder, whether to rebook, demand a refund, or leave a one-star review.

A Rogers Pass closure isn't a freak event here — the highway shut for eight hours last December and for four straight days a couple of weeks ago. It's a known, repeating tax on a winter tourism business, and it always lands at the exact moment there's no one free to pick up the phone.

What we built

The second brain for this business.

A booking-day second brain that absorbs the surge, answers the status questions in a calm voice, and turns a closure from a phone-melting crisis into a few taps.

  • AI Receptionist — picks up the whole call surge at once, answers the "are you running?" questions, and never lets a guest hit voicemail. Always identifies as AI, always offers a human.
  • Website AI Chat & Lead Capture — fields the pre-trip flood of gear, fitness, avalanche-cert and pricing questions, and captures serious inquiries with dates and group size.
  • Workflow Automation — the moment a closure is confirmed, it texts every affected guest a hold / rebook / refund choice and escalates only the handful of edge cases to a human.

The artifact

The artifact: a closure, handled by text

The star of the study — the same standard as the AI Receptionist sample call, written out line by line.

Closure protocol — text-back & rebooking trace · Tuesday from 7:41am illustrative

7:41am — DriveBC alert ingested: Hwy 1 CLOSED — Rogers Pass, avalanche control, est. reopen 12:00pm. → closure protocol armed.

7:42am — inbound call · missed (line busy) · guest on a 3-day package

Auto text-back fires:

Silver Cap AI (SMS) Hi, this is the AI assistant for Silver Cap Cat Skiing — sorry we couldn't grab your call, the whole valley's phoning at once. Rogers Pass just closed for avalanche control (est. reopen ~noon). Are you (1) still trying to reach us today, or (2) stuck at the closure? Reply 1 or 2.
Guest 2. three of us at the gate past Golden, we've got the Thu–Sat package
Silver Cap AI Got it — you're on the east side. Today's first cat is on hold, not cancelled; we make the call at 10am once the control results post. Because you're on a multi-day package, I'm looping in a human — Kate will text you personally within the hour about protecting all three days. Nothing you booked is lost.
Guest ok, that's a relief. dog in the back seat is losing his mind lol
Silver Cap AI Ha — crack him a window from us. Kate's on it.

8:03am — inbound SMS · solo guest, single day

Guest are you running today or should i just bail
Silver Cap AI Straight answer: undecided until 10am — it depends when the pass reopens and what the avalanche report says. If you'd rather not gamble the drive, I can move you to any open day this week free, or hold your spot. Want (A) hold today, (B) rebook, or (C) refund?
Guest B — friday?
Silver Cap AI Friday has two seats. Booked — confirmation's on its way. See you then; leave the alarm off.

— Cascade trace · owner dashboard · 10:15am —

Closure protocol reached 38 booked guests:

26 self-served by text — 14 held today, 9 rebooked, 3 refunded

9 answered on the AI status line, no action needed

3 escalated to a human — 2 multi-day packages, 1 deposit-refund dispute

Reservations line: 0 missed voicemails. Kate had 3 real conversations instead of 41.

The outcome

What changes — in typical-pattern estimates.

Illustrative outcomes — typical-pattern estimates, not guarantees or a promise about your operation.

Before After (typical-pattern estimate)
Closure-morning calls to the line 40+/hour to voicemail → every one texted back in seconds
Guests the two staff personally handle on a closure day all of them, badly → the ~3 edge cases that need a human
"Refund and walk" decisions made from the highway shoulder however many → most converted to a rebooking
Owner's powder mornings spent on the phone all of them → back on the cat

Now a pass closure means the owner glances at a dashboard instead of drowning in a phone — guests get a real answer while they're still in the truck, and the day's decisions get made on snow, not on hold.

Transparent pricing

What it costs to start.

The Silver Cap stack starts at $3,500 for the AI Receptionist, $1,500 for Website AI Chat & Lead Capture, and $2,500 for Workflow Automation — starting floors, fixed-quoted as one build after a free call. Every build requires a Care Plan, from $299/mo (a seasonal voice line that surges on closure days usually sits on Growth, so it stays sharp when it matters most).

Is it worth it for your business? Let's find out — free.

We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth it before your next season.

Prefer to talk now? Call (236) 837-3550 — a real BC-based human picks up. We reply within one business day, usually faster.

Call Book a free AI assessment