How 101 Mobility Built SMS Into Every Step of the Customer Journey

“Texting just speeds up the process and makes it a lot easier for people.”

At a Glance

The Challenge

66 Franchises, One Communication Gap

101 Mobility’s franchise locations range from single-person operations where the owner runs everything to multi-location offices with large teams. But they all shared the same problem. Their customer communication depended almost entirely on email and phone calls, and both channels were falling short.

The company’s customer base skews older. Many are seniors or the adult children of seniors, coordinating stairlifts and ramps for parents who can no longer safely navigate their own homes. These aren’t casual purchases. When someone reaches out to 101 Mobility, there’s usually urgency behind it. And when the company’s email reminders went unread or phone calls went unanswered, that urgency turned into missed appointments, slowed sales cycles, and frustrated franchise teams.

Franchise owners had been asking corporate for a texting solution for years. They knew their customers would respond to texts. And when 101 Mobility brought on a new marketing team and began integrating HubSpot, the timing was right to finally make it happen.

The Decision

Why Sakari 

When 101 Mobility evaluated SMS platforms, they had a short list of requirements. The solution had to integrate cleanly with HubSpot. It needed a reliable API that could support a custom CRM integration across 66 franchise databases. And it had to be something their development team could build on without running into walls.

Sakari has long been the leading  SMS integration on the HubSpot marketplace. The reviews were strong, the API documentation was solid, and the integration worked the way the team needed it to.

The Solution

Two Layers of SMS, One Seamless Experience

What makes their Sakari implementation unusual is that they didn’t just set up a few HubSpot workflows and call it a day. They built two distinct SMS layers, each serving a different purpose, both powered by Sakari.

Automated Workflows via HubSpot

The corporate team set up HubSpot workflows that fire automatically at key moments in the customer journey. These include welcome texts when a new lead comes in, appointment scheduling confirmations, reminders before in-home consultations, and rescheduling notifications. All of it runs through Sakari’s HubSpot integration using the send SMS workflow block.

This was an immediate upgrade from email-only notifications. Customers who would have missed an email reminder now get a text, and they actually respond to it. The team has seen it be especially useful during bad weather. When a snowstorm hits in Canada or the northern US, customers can quickly text back to reschedule instead of playing phone tag or letting the appointment silently lapse.

Direct Conversations via Custom CRM

The second layer is where things get really interesting. 101 Mobility’s development team used Sakari’s API to build a full SMS interface directly inside Mobilinq, their custom CRM. Franchise team members can text customers without ever leaving the system they already work in. No extra logins. No switching tabs. Just open a client profile and start texting.

The team also built SMS templates with dynamic personalization. A consultant can send a quote follow-up that automatically pulls in the client’s name, their primary product, the order total, and even the quote document itself. What used to require flipping between screens and manually copying information now takes one click.

And because 101 Mobility’s consultations require seeing the actual space (does the stairlift fit up a narrow corridor? is there room for a ramp?), customers can now text photos directly to their consultant. Those photos get uploaded right into the client profile in the CRM, so the team has everything they need before they even step foot in the home.

Automating Lead Management Through SMS

One of the more recent additions is automatic lead status tracking. When a team member texts a customer from Mobilinq, the CRM automatically updates the lead status to “contact attempted.” When the customer replies, it flips to “contact made.” This removes an entire layer of manual admin work. Franchise teams can focus on the actual conversation instead of remembering to update a status field after every interaction.

SMS Across the Full Customer Journey

Here’s how Sakari now fits into the 101 Mobility customer experience, end to end.

1. Lead comes in. An automated welcome text goes out via HubSpot. The lead can reply immediately with additional details about what they need.
2. Pre-consultation. The consultant texts the customer directly from the CRM. Photos of staircases, doorways, and living spaces come back via text and get stored in the client profile.
3. Appointment management. Automated confirmations and reminders go out before in-home consultations. Customers can reschedule with a quick reply.
4. Quote follow-up. After the consultation, the team sends personalized quote texts with product details, pricing, and the quote document attached.
5. Installation coordination. Once a customer commits, SMS keeps the installation process moving with scheduling updates and day-of communication.

Every one of those touchpoints used to depend on email or phone calls. Now, most of them happen over text, and the ones that are automated don’t require any manual effort at all.

The Results

68% Adoption and Growing

The clearest signal that the implementation is working? Franchise teams actually use it. 68% of 101 Mobility’s existing Sakari groups have sent at least one text message via the API this year. For a franchise network where locations range from solo operators to multi-person offices, that kind of adoption doesn’t happen unless the tool is solving a real problem.

Faster Communication, Less Admin, Better Relationships

While 101 Mobility is still building out formal reporting to quantify specific metrics like no-show reduction, the qualitative feedback from franchise teams has been consistent. Appointment no-shows have dropped noticeably. Lead response times are faster. Quote follow-ups that used to require a phone call now happen in seconds. And the photo-sharing capability means consultants walk into homes already understanding the layout, which speeds up the entire sales process.

The automated lead status tracking has also removed a layer of admin work that franchise teams used to do manually after every interaction. Now, Mobilinq handles it in the background based on SMS activity. Fewer things to remember. Fewer status fields to update. More time spent actually talking to customers.

And from the corporate side, the integration has been clean. Sakari’s API handles the load of 66 franchise databases without significant issues, and the HubSpot integration works exactly as expected. For a team that built an entire custom SMS interface on top of the API, reliability matters.

Opening Up the Conversation Early

One benefit the team didn’t fully anticipate was how SMS opened up the early part of the customer relationship. When a lead comes in and gets a welcome text, they tend to share information they didn’t include on the original form. Maybe they clarify what product they actually need, or mention that they’re coordinating care for a parent. That context used to come out during the first phone call, if the customer picked up. Now it surfaces in the first few texts, before a consultation is even scheduled.

For a company that requires in-home consultations to recommend the right solution, that early context saves everyone time.