Today’s rental shop is not your father’s rental shop. It’s not even your older brother’s shop.

“Rental used to have a bad reputation,” says Bruce McCloy, marketing director at Sunapee, N.H. “It was slow, with long lines.

“Now, I hardly ever see a line. The whole process has changed. Rental techs don’t even need a screwdriver anymore.”

Computer software that calculates release settings and keeps track of guests and inventory, redesigned facilities for better flow, and new integrated equipment systems have all speeded up the rental process, as well as the guests’ learning curve.

“Shaped skis really advanced the learning process when they came out,” says Rich Jennings, rental and repair shop manager at Shawnee peak, Maine. “Hopefully, the new rocker technology will advance that learning curve even further.”

Jennings says Shawnee spent $75,000 this season to buy new rental equipment, including 100 pairs of Elan’s new rocker adult skis, a third of its adult fleet. The beveled tips on the new rocker shapes make the ski easier to initiate and hold a turn. Shawnee uses Dalbello 4Factor boots, which have 4 different sole lengths, with the Elans, as part of an integrated system that speeds the rental process.

“Burton changed over to rocker boards a few years ago, and the ease with which people learned to snowboard was dramatic,” Jennings says. “Last year, Elan sent us some rocker skis to try. The ski school was amazed.

“We also replaced all of our junior skis with Elan, but not rockers,” Jennings says. “They’re not available in juniors yet.”

Ease of learning is not the only goal of the new rental equipment technology. The color-coded, integrated boot/ binding/ski systems have dramatically speeded up the rental process and reduced adjustment errors.

Like other Peak Resorts, Crotched Mountain, N.H., has expanded its inventory by adding the new-for-2012 Head LINK system. Head pioneered the reduced-sole-lengths concept, which puts all men and women boot sizes on three sole lengths each. The different sole lengths are then color-coded with skis pre-adjusted to those lengths and various DIN settings.

“It saves about 10 to 30 seconds for an adjustment,” says Pat Terry, general manager at Crotched. “When you start talking about a line of people or a school group of 100 kids, 30 seconds per kid adds up.” Terry says Crotched spent about $50,000 on the new Head skis and boots.

The order also included rocker snowboards and Boa boots, which eliminate laces in favor of a single-pull cable system, another timesaver in the rental shop. “It’s much quicker than trying to lace and tie boots,” Terry says. “It gets kids out much quicker and with a better fit.”

Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands, Mich., also each added 400 pairs of the Head LINK skis to their rental inventories. Last season, the resorts launched a new computer rental system that guests only have to use once to input their personal information. “It remembers you, your experience level, ski type, release setting, everything,” says Erin Ernst, communications manager. “It’s speeded things up quite a bit.”

At Monarch, Colo., rental shop speed has increased 20 percent since the resort bought 600 pairs of the Head LINK skis last year. It added 200 more sets this season. “Head makes it real easy to set up skis and boots faster,” says Greg Ralph, Monarch marketing manager. He says it now takes six minutes to get through Monarch’s rental shop, including “paperwork,” which today is a touch screen. “As we perfect the system, we expect even faster times,” Ralph says.

Also this season, Monarch brought in new high-end demo equipment from K2, Volkl, Dynastar and Salomon. “More and more people are not investing in skis and poles,” Ralph says. “They’re investing in boots, but skiing on rentals and demos. They can get the perfect ski for that day. Our rental and demo business is up.”

He says just the opposite is happening with snowboards as fewer riders rent. Only about 20 percent of Monarch’s rental business is snowboards.

For many of those who do rent, Monarch uses the Burton LTR board. “They’re aimed at speeding up the learning process, not so much the rental process,” Ralph says.

Some areas have found that they can’t change just one thing. Crystal Mountain, Mich., spent $250,000 this season to revamp both its rental shop and the equipment it rents. “We totally reconfigured things, and swapped out our rental fleet for Head boots, bindings and skis,” says Brian Lawson, PR manager. Crystal’s order included 1,099 new Head skis and 1,360 Head boots. It also bought 100 new snowboard boots to go with its 225 existing boards.

“Snowboarding has become less of a rental sport than in the past,” Lawson notes.

Crystal redesigned the flow in its rental shop, and added ticket and lesson purchases to that area. “The idea is to make the rental process as quick and easy for guests as possible,” Lawson says.

The new integrated rental technology not only saves time for guests, it saves on labor costs for resorts. After investing last season in Rossignol’s adult rental system (385 skis and 420 boots), Bogus Basin, Idaho, was able to trim its rental staff 15 to 20 percent.

“We don’t need anywhere near the manpower we used to,” says Bob Dinwiddie, director of Black Diamond Sports, the rental shop at the resort. “We had a pretty fast system before. How fast guests get out the door now depends on how fast they can buckle their boots.”

On the snowboard side, Bogus eliminated laces when it swapped 90 percent of its boots for Boas with the one-pull system. “They’re pretty awesome,” Dinwiddie says. “We look at those as a labor-saving device as well. When the boots get returned, we don’t have to re-lace them.”

For next season, Bogus is looking to replace its boards and junior skis and boots. Dinwiddie also wants to expand his demo fleet to Rossignol, Head, Völkl and K2.

Unlike most resorts that are consolidating tickets and lessons with rentals, Bogus still makes guests run around. But not for long. “In the master plan, we want a guest services center where everything can be done at once,” Dinwiddie says.

Getting that flow just right can be tricky. Monarch built a 16,000-square-foot rental facility five years ago and has remodeled it three times since. “I think we finally have the flow the way we want it,” Ralph says.

Elsewhere, Mt. Bachelor, Ore., last year replaced its entire ski inventory with Salomons. This year, it has replaced its snowboard fleet with Burton LTR boards.

Purgatory at Durango resort, Colo., spent $24,000 over the offseason on new rental equipment, including 50 new sets of Völkl rocker beginner skis and 124 new Salomon Focus GT boots. “We’re also incorporating the new skis into the ski school, using the progressive lengthening of skis in our teaching,” says Kim Oyler, communications director. “We’re trying to improve the renting and learning experience for people.”

And that is the goal of today’s rental shop: “Getting” and “learning” as fast as possible.

For a look at what’s new in rental gear for 2012-13, check out the SAM Rental Buyer’s Guide at www.saminfo.com/marketplace.