ParkFiller · Park Secret Shopper
Two of five reservation calls went unanswered, the after-hours voicemail was never returned, and one of two campers could not finish a booking on a phone. Every dollar below is built from an observation in this evaluation, section by section, with the arithmetic shown.
| Section | Score | Annual leak | The short version | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Findability | 12 of 15 | $1,400 margin | Easy to find. An OTA outranks you on your own name. | |
| Phone | 17 of 30 | $16,900 | Answered well when answered. Two calls rang out, voicemail died. | |
| Online booking | 24 of 30 | $6,200 | Solid on desktop. The mobile date picker resets and loses people. | |
| Follow-up | 9 of 15 | $2,900 | Confirmation email is good. The contact form sat 31 hours. | |
| Trust | 8 of 10 | not modeled | Good reviews, real photos, nobody replies to them. |
Every scored item is a yes/no condition or a timed measurement. No subjective ratings were used. Trust is scored but not assigned a dollar figure, for the reason given in that section.
12 of 15. Queries run incognito from a Dallas IP: “rv park granbury tx”, “campgrounds near lake granbury”, “willow draw rv park”.
| Item | Points | Result | What we found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Own site on page one for the core local query | 3 of 3 | Pass | Fourth organically, and in the map pack |
| Own site outranks every OTA for the park name | 0 of 3 | Fail | A Campspot listing sits above willowdrawrv.com on your own name |
| Business profile claimed and complete | 2 of 2 | Pass | Claimed, category set, 34 photos |
| Profile hours match the website | 1 of 1 | Pass | Identical, including the seasonal note |
| Profile phone number connects | 1 of 1 | Pass | Reaches the office line |
| Booking action available from the profile | 2 of 2 | Pass | Reserve button lands on your own booking flow, not an OTA |
| Ranks for a non-brand nearby query | 2 of 2 | Pass | Map pack for “campgrounds near lake granbury” |
| Secure and fast on mobile | 1 of 1 | Pass | HTTPS, first paint 2.1 seconds throttled |
| Section total | 12 of 15 |
Estimated branded searches converting through the OTA instead of direct: 12 bookings/month × 8 month season = 96 bookings/year
Commission gap: OTA ~15% vs 2.5% card processing = 12.5% of a $115 average booking = $14.38 per booking
96 × $14.38 = $1,380
$1,400 a year in margin, on bookings you were already going to get
These guests are not lost. You are renting them back from a platform that did not find them for you.
Evidence: discovery-screen-recording.mp4 (4:12)
17 of 30. Five calls, five different numbers, five personas, across one week. Each one a real attempt to reserve two nights for a 34-foot fifth wheel in late October.
| Call | Answered | Rings | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue Sept 8, 10:42a | Yes | 3 | Warm, named the park, quoted $46 correctly, offered to hold site 22. Never asked my name. |
| Wed Sept 9, 2:15p | No | Rang out | Eleven rings, no voicemail pickup, during posted office hours. |
| Thu Sept 10, 6:20p | No | Rang out | Same. Office posted open until 7:00p. |
| Thu Sept 10, 8:05p | Voicemail | — | Clean greeting, names the park, states hours. Message left with a callback number. |
| Sat Sept 12, 11:30a | Yes | 2 | Full for those dates. Offered the following weekend and a pull-through. Good save. |
Both answered calls were handled well. That matters, because it means this is a coverage problem and not a training problem, and the two leak in different ways and cost different amounts.
| Item | Points | Result | What we found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Call 1, weekday mid-morning, answered within four rings | 3 of 3 | Pass | Answered in 3 rings |
| Call 2, weekday afternoon, answered within four rings | 0 of 3 | Fail | Eleven rings, no pickup, during posted office hours |
| Call 3, dinner hour, answered or clean voicemail | 0 of 3 | Fail | Rang out, and voicemail did not pick up either |
| Call 4, after posted close, usable voicemail | 2 of 2 | Pass | Names the park, states hours, accepts a message |
| Call 5, Saturday peak, answered within four rings | 3 of 3 | Pass | Answered in 2 rings |
| Voicemail returned within 24 hours | 0 of 4 | Fail | Never returned. Monitored 96 hours |
| Greeting names the park | 2 of 2 | Pass | Both answered calls opened with the park name |
| Captured caller name and callback number | 0 of 3 | Fail | Neither answered call asked, so a dropped call is unrecoverable |
| Asked for the booking | 3 of 3 | Pass | Offered to hold site 22 on the Tuesday call |
| Rate quoted matched the website | 2 of 2 | Pass | $46 quoted, $46 published |
| Offered an alternative when unavailable | 2 of 2 | Pass | Saturday call offered the following weekend and a pull-through |
| Section total | 17 of 30 |
A. Office hours, calls that ring out
Estimated inbound calls in season: 35/week, of which ~60% are reservation inquiries = 21/week
Observed miss rate during posted office hours: 2 of 5 = 40% → 8.4 missed inquiries/week
Assume 30% would have booked and do not call back: 8.4 × 0.30 = 2.5 lost bookings/week
2.5 × $115 average booking = $288/week × 34 week season
$9,900 a year
B. After hours, voicemail never returned
Message left Thu 8:05p with a working callback number. Monitored 96 hours. Never returned.
Estimated after-hours messages in season: 6/week
Return rate observed: 0%
Assume 30% of those callers would have booked: 6 × 0.30 = 1.8 lost bookings/week
1.8 × $115 = $207/week × 34 weeks
$7,000 a year
Phone total: $16,900 a year
These are different problems with different fixes. A is a staffing window, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. B is a voicemail box nobody owns, and it is the cheaper of the two to fix by a wide margin.
Evidence: call-01-tue-1042.mp3 (3:31) · call-02-wed-1415.mp3 (0:47, rings only) · call-05-sat-1130.mp3 (4:02) · full transcripts attached. Calls recorded under the authorization on file, with the staff monitoring notice posted in the office Sept 5.
24 of 30. One desktop attempt run by us, and two attempts by recruited campers on their own devices, unaided.
| Participant | Device | Finished | Where it broke down |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tester A, 68 | iPhone 14 | No | Picked arrival Oct 23, then tried to change departure from Oct 24 to Oct 25. The calendar reset both dates. She tried three more times, said “I’ll just call them,” and quit at 6:40. |
| Tester B, 71 | Desktop, Chrome | Yes | Finished in 5:40. Paused 40 seconds looking for the cancellation policy before entering a card. |
The date picker reset is reproducible. It fired on every attempt where the departure date was edited after the arrival date was set, on both iOS Safari and Chrome at phone width. It does not happen on desktop, which is why nobody on your side has seen it.
She said she would call instead. Read that against the Phone section, where two of five calls rang out. The two failures compound: the site sends her to the phone, and the phone does not answer.
| Item | Points | Result | What we found |
|---|---|---|---|
| A booking engine exists on the park's own site | 3 of 3 | Pass | Yes, on your own domain |
| Live availability shown without calling | 3 of 3 | Pass | Real open and closed dates |
| Desktop reservation reached the payment screen | 3 of 3 | Pass | Reached it in 3:10 |
| Mobile reservation reached the payment screen | 3 of 3 | Pass | Reached it on our own attempt, on a clean date selection |
| Total price including fees visible before payment | 3 of 3 | Pass | $107.42 shown before the card screen |
| Completed in six steps or fewer | 2 of 2 | Pass | Exactly six |
| Completed in under four minutes | 2 of 2 | Pass | 3 minutes 10 seconds on desktop |
| No errors or dead ends encountered | 0 of 2 | Fail | The mobile date picker resets both dates when departure is edited |
| Rig length and hookup type selectable | 2 of 2 | Pass | Both offered during booking, not in a notes field |
| Tester 1 finished unaided | 0 of 4 | Fail | Quit at 6:40 after four attempts at the date picker |
| Tester 2 finished unaided | 3 of 3 | Pass | Finished in 5:40 on desktop |
| Section total | 24 of 30 |
A. Mobile date picker resets
Estimated booking sessions in season: 120/month, of which ~65% mobile = 78 mobile sessions/month
Estimated share that edit a departure date and hit the reset: 15% = 11.7 sessions/month
Assume half abandon rather than retry or call: 5.9 lost bookings/month
5.9 × $115 = $678/month × 8 month season
$5,400 a year
B. No abandoned-booking recovery
Sessions abandoned after contact details were entered: estimated 9/month
Recovery messages currently sent: none in 72 hours, confirmed
Assume a single reminder email recovers 10%: 0.9 bookings/month
0.9 × $115 = $104/month × 8 months
$800 a year
Online booking total: $6,200 a year
Leak A needs your booking vendor. Leak B is a setting in the platform you already pay for.
Evidence: booking-desktop.mp4 (3:51) · session-tester-a-mobile.mp4 (8:14, failure at 4:05) · session-tester-b-desktop.mp4 (11:02). Screen and voice only. Faces are never recorded.
9 of 15. Every channel a guest can use to reach you without calling, clocked to the minute.
| Channel | Sent | Replied | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact form | Tue Sept 8, 11:10a | Yes, late | 31h 25m |
| Email to info@ | Tue Sept 8, 11:12a | Yes | 4h 50m |
| Text | — | No number published, and the site says so | — |
| Confirmation email | Deposit placed Sept 12 | Yes | 2m 10s |
| Abandoned booking recovery | Abandoned Sept 13, 3:02p | Nothing in 72h | — |
The confirmation email is genuinely good: site number, dates, total charged, and the cancellation policy all in the first screen. Whoever wrote it knew what they were doing.
The gap is the form. It routes to an address nobody owns, while info@ routes to a person. Same guest, two paths, a 26 hour difference. Cancellation was handled the same day, politely, deposit refunded in full within the published window.
| Item | Points | Result | What we found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confirmation email within five minutes | 3 of 3 | Pass | 2 minutes 10 seconds |
| Confirmation email contains the details that matter | 2 of 2 | Pass | Site number, dates, total, and cancellation policy all in the first screen |
| Contact form reply within 24 hours | 0 of 4 | Fail | 31 hours 25 minutes. It routes to an address nobody owns |
| Email inquiry reply within 24 hours | 3 of 3 | Pass | 4 hours 50 minutes to info@, which reaches a person |
| Text inquiry reply within two hours | 1 of 1 | Pass | No textable number is published and the site says so, which earns the point |
| Abandoned booking recovery within 72 hours | 0 of 2 | Fail | Nothing. Contact details were entered before abandoning |
| Section total | 9 of 15 |
Estimated form inquiries in season: 3/week
Observed response time: 31 hours, against 4h 50m on the email that reaches a person
Assume 25% of inquiries waiting past 24 hours book elsewhere: 3 × 0.25 = 0.75 lost bookings/week
0.75 × $115 = $86/week × 34 week season
$2,900 a year
The abandoned-booking leak is counted under Online booking, not here, so it is not double counted.
8 of 10. Trust covers the things a guest checks before they will hand you a card: whether other people have stayed here recently, whether anyone is home when they speak up, whether the photos are real, and whether they can find out what happens if plans change.
| Item | Points | Result | What we found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twenty-five or more reviews | 2 of 2 | Pass | 187 reviews, 4.5 average |
| Most recent review within 60 days | 2 of 2 | Pass | Newest is 11 days old |
| Owner replied to a review in the last 90 days | 0 of 2 | Fail | No owner response in 14 months, to any review, positive or negative |
| Photos are of the actual property | 2 of 2 | Pass | 34 photos, all clearly this park, no stock imagery |
| Cancellation policy findable within 30 seconds | 2 of 2 | Pass | Found in 18 seconds from the homepage, though not on the booking page itself |
| Section total | 8 of 10 |
Public profile data on the five nearest RV parks within 25 miles, collected the same week as this shop. No shopping was required, because all of it is visible to any guest comparing you against them.
| Park | Reviews | Rating | Newest review | Owner replies, 90 days | Photos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Willow Draw RV Park | 187 | 4.5 | 11 days | 0 | Real, 34 |
| Pecan Flats RV Resort | 341 | 4.7 | 2 days | 27 | Real, 61 |
| Brazos Point Campground | 212 | 4.6 | 4 days | 9 | Real, 40 |
| Comanche Cove RV Park | 155 | 4.4 | 9 days | 0 | Real, 22 |
| Hilltop Acres RV | 96 | 4.3 | 22 days | 0 | Real, 18 |
| Lakeside Pines RV Park | 74 | 4.2 | 38 days | 3 | Stock, 12 |
You are third of six on review volume and third on rating, which is a respectable position. The pattern worth noticing is that the two parks above you are the two that answer their reviews, and they answered 36 times between them in 90 days while you answered zero. Whether replying causes the higher rating or simply travels with the kind of operator who earns one, the guest comparing all six sees two parks that appear staffed and four that appear absent.
Trust does not get a dollar figure in this report, and the reason is arithmetic rather than modesty. Trust works by changing the conversion rate on traffic and calls you already have, and those same conversion rates are the assumptions inside the Phone, Booking and Follow-up numbers above. Assigning Trust its own figure would count the same lost booking twice and inflate the total.
Counted once, inside the other three sections
If you want Trust isolated and priced, that needs a controlled comparison against the five parks above across all five sections, which is the Benchmark engagement rather than this one.
| # | Fix | Section | Est. recovery | Effort | Who |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Route the after-hours voicemail to a phone someone checks, with a 12 hour callback rule. | Phone | $7,000 | 1 hr | This week, staff |
| 2 | Point the website contact form at info@ instead of the unowned address. | Follow-up | $2,900 | 15 min | This week, staff |
| 3 | Turn on voicemail during office hours so a call that rings out lands somewhere. | Phone | $3,500 | 30 min | This week, staff |
| 4 | Add name and callback number capture to the greeting. Both answered calls skipped it. | Phone | $3,000 | 30 min | This week, staff |
| 5 | Cover the 2:00–7:00p window Wednesday and Thursday. Both misses were inside it. | Phone | $9,900 | Scheduling | This month, manager |
| 6 | Turn on abandoned-booking email in the platform you already pay for. | Booking | $800 | Half day | This month, manager |
| 7 | Put the cancellation policy on the booking page itself. Tester B hunted for it before paying. | Trust | Not modeled | 1 hr | This month, manager |
| 8 | Reply to reviews, monthly, even the five-star ones. Nothing in 14 months, against 27 at Pecan Flats. | Trust | Not modeled | 2 hr/mo | This month, manager |
| 9 | File the mobile date-picker reset with the booking vendor, recording timestamped at 4:05 attached. | Booking | $5,400 | 1 hr + vendor | Needs help |
| 10 | Claim your own name in search so your site sits above the Campspot listing on a branded query. | Findability | $1,400 | Project | Needs help |
Recovery estimates overlap where two fixes address the same lost booking, so they do not sum to $27,400. Items 3, 4 and 5 all attack the office hours leak of $9,900 from different angles. Items 1 through 4 take under three hours in total.
You paid $500 for this. Here is what the same $500 buys next, and what it buys instead.
| Next step | What you get | Price | When it makes sense |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add two competitors | The same five-channel evaluation run on the two parks taking your bookings, scored on the identical rubric, side by side with yours. You find out whether a 17 of 30 on the phone is bad, or normal for your market. Includes a rate and pricing audit across all three parks: nightly, weekly and monthly rates, every mandatory fee, minimum stays, deposits, cancellation terms, and published discounts. | $500 | Before you spend money fixing something your competitors do worse than you. |
| Re-shop in 90 days | Same rubric version, same personas, same five channels. A second score against this one, and a straight answer on whether the fixes moved the number. | $500 | After you work the fix list. This is how you find out if it took. |
| Quarterly watch | Three calls a month, a full re-shop each quarter, and a score trendline. Staff never know which call is the shop. | $150/mo | When the phone is the leak and you need it to stay fixed after the attention moves on. |
| Your other properties | Every property on the same rubric, plus one rollup page ranking them worst to best on score and on leak. | $500 each + rollup |
When you want to know which property is actually costing you the most, rather than which one complains loudest. |
Nothing here is required. The fix list above is yours, the recordings are yours, and items 1 through 4 cost you nothing but three hours of somebody's Tuesday.
A recorded walkthrough of this report, 14 minutes, is at willow-draw-walkthrough.mp4. It opens with the Wednesday call ringing out and Tester A giving up, because those two clips are the whole report. Forward it to the property manager. No meeting required.