How Shelter Bali Increased Bookings 40% with Zero Commission
A Canggu restaurant replaced third-party booking platforms with an AGNT agent — and kept every dollar.
Key metrics
40%
+40%
Booking increase
$0
-100%
Commission paid
<30s
-95%
Response time
12
+11
Languages supported
The challenge
Shelter Bali was paying 15-25% commission on every booking through third-party platforms. Their front-of-house team handled WhatsApp inquiries manually, with average response times of 10+ minutes during peak hours.
Multilingual support was limited to English and Bahasa — losing potential bookings from the large Russian, Chinese, and Korean tourist segments in Canggu.
No-show rates hovered around 20% because there was no automated reminder system. Staff spent hours each week chasing confirmations by hand.
The solution
AGNT deployed a dedicated venue agent for Shelter Bali, trained on their full menu, seating layout, event calendar, and booking policies. The agent handles WhatsApp and Telegram inquiries 24/7 in 12 languages.
Automated booking confirmations and reminders reduced no-shows. The agent sends a confirmation immediately, a reminder 24 hours before, and a final check 2 hours before the reservation.
Direct booking through the agent means zero commission. Shelter keeps 100% of every cover, compared to the 15-25% they were losing on platform bookings.
The results
Bookings increased 40% within the first 60 days, driven primarily by faster response times and multilingual support capturing previously lost international inquiries.
No-show rate dropped from 20% to 6% thanks to the three-stage reminder system.
Staff time spent on booking management dropped by approximately 25 hours per week, freeing the team to focus on guest experience.
Zero commission on all agent-handled bookings — estimated savings of $3,200/month based on prior platform fees.
“We went from losing bookings because we couldn't reply fast enough to handling three times the inquiry volume with zero extra staff. The agent pays for itself in the first week.”