Party and tent rental answering service
How a tent and party rental shop got $443K in orders from calls the crew couldn’t answer
Ken Rent rents tents, tables and chairs in New Jersey. When the office phones ring out, the call goes to Kai. Kai takes down the event, never quotes a price, and sends the team what it needs to quote the job. We matched five years of orders to those callers: 269 orders, worth $443K, came from people who talked to Kai first.
The strict count: booked within 30 days of the call
Some callers were past customers who would have ordered anyway. So we also counted only orders placed within 30 days after a call to Kai, through October 16, 2026.
In their words
Pete Gallic on a year with Kai
Pete Gallic, owner, Ken Rent / Starr’s Party
“When we implemented KaiCalls, all of a sudden, customers were calling in and actually talking to a person.”
“It’s replaced a full-time employee for us at a cost of maybe 20% of that.”
Pete recorded this on his phone. The cuts here are edited from that one recording. The call and cost numbers he mentions are his own estimates. The order counts on this page are our own count from Ken Rent’s order data.
The problem
The phone rings while everyone is out on a job
Ken Rent and its sister brand, Starr’s Party, rent tents, tables, chairs and linens in New Jersey. From spring to fall the crew is loading trucks and setting up tents. Those are the same weeks people call to ask if their date is open.
People planning a party often call more than one rental shop. If nobody picks up, they try the next one.
How it’s set up
The office phones ring first. Kai gets the calls nobody picks up.
Ken Rent kept its main number and its office phones. When a call rings out, the phone system forwards it to Kai. Starr’s Party lists Kai’s number on its website directly.
That means Kai mostly hears from people during the workday, not at night. 84% of the calls Kai took came in on weekdays between 8am and 5pm. The shop was open. Everyone was just busy.
April 2025
Kai starts answering
36 calls in the first month.
June 2025
The first busy season
173 calls in June.
June 2026
The second season
573 calls in June, more than three times the year before.
October 2026
Requests go into the booking system
Rental requests that include an email now land in Ken Rent’s booking system as a draft quote, so the team prices it there instead of typing it in.
Calls Kai answered each month
On the phone
What Kai does on a rental call, and what it won’t do
On Ken Rent’s line, Kai answers as Steph: “You’ve reached Ken Rent and Starr’s Party. This is Steph. What can I help you rent today?” You choose the name. When a past customer calls, Steph greets them by name.
Ken Rent set the rules. Steph gets what the team needs to price the job: the event date, what the caller wants, where the event is, and the best email for the quote.
- Kai never gives a price. Delivery and setup depend on distance and the site, so the team prices every job.
- When callers ask, Kai says delivery is a separate charge, so nobody is surprised by the bill.
- Tents need 6 feet of clear space on each side, and Kai tells callers that when they describe where the tent will go.
- Kai doesn’t transfer calls. It takes the message and the team calls back.
- If an event is today or tomorrow and something is wrong with the order, Kai texts the owner right away.
- Every call is written up and emailed to four people on the team.
- Wants
- 20x40 tent, 100 chairs
- Where
- Backyard, on grass
- Asked
- Price, with delivery
Why it worked
The call and the order were usually the same conversation
We counted orders placed within 30 days after the customer called Kai. That came to 205 orders worth $275,676.
70 of them were placed within an hour of the call, and 124 within a day. The caller got an answer instead of a ringing phone, the team got the details to price the job, and the order went in the same day.
The average order. A few big tent jobs pull it up: the three largest orders were 16% of the money.
How soon after the call the order was placed
Money from orders placed within 30 days of a call
Who called
Two-thirds of the money came from first-time customers
Returning customers call too, and many of them would have ordered anyway. So we split them out.
80 of the 205 orders came from people with no earlier order at Ken Rent. They spent $186,063, about twice what the returning customers did.
First-time customers vs returning customers
What was hard
Getting an email address is the weak spot
Most callers give a name and a date. Many callers hang up without leaving an email, and a quote has to go somewhere. Kai asks once and doesn’t make the caller spell it out. When the email is missing, the team calls back using the number from the call.
How we counted, and what it does not prove
- We matched all 7,150 of Ken Rent’s orders, October 2021 to October 16, 2026, against everyone who called Kai.
- The headline counts any order placed after the customer had talked to Kai: 269 orders, $443,353. 224 of them matched the caller’s phone number exactly. 45, worth about $58,000, matched by name or a shared number.
- The strict count only takes the orders placed within 30 days after a call: 205 orders, $275,676.
- Cancelled orders are left out. Kai also took calls about orders that were already booked. We don’t count those.
- Calls the office answered itself are not in these numbers. Kai only sees the calls that reach Kai.
- A match shows the customer talked to Kai before ordering. It does not prove Kai made the sale.
Counted October 18, 2026.
Questions rental owners ask
What does an answering service do for a party rental company?
It picks up when your crew can’t. Kai answers like a front-desk secretary, takes the caller’s name, event date, items and address, and sends the details to your team right away. With your rental software connected, each request also lands there as a draft quote for your team to price.
How much does a party rental answering service cost?
KaiCalls plans run $10–$349/mo, flat, with no per-minute charges. Kai Backup starts at $10 a month.
Does Kai answer tent rental calls after hours and on weekends?
Yes. Kai answers day and night, weekends included. You choose whether your own phone rings first and Kai takes the calls you miss, or Kai answers right away.
Can I stop Kai from giving prices?
Yes. Ken Rent did. Kai collects the details and tells the caller the team will send pricing. You decide what Kai can and can’t say.
What name do callers hear?
The one you pick. Ken Rent’s line answers as Steph and says the business name first. Past customers are greeted by name.
Did Kai make these sales?
We can’t prove that, and we don’t claim it. The numbers show these customers talked to Kai before they ordered. The strict count only includes orders placed within 30 days after the call, and most came the same day.
Can I measure this for my own rental business?
Yes. After Kai has answered your calls for a while, send us an export of your orders. We can match them to the people who called, the same way we did for Ken Rent.