How Safelite Transformed Workforce Coordination

At a Glance

The Challenge

1,500 Technicians, One Unsupported Tool 

James is Safelite’s Workforce Optimization Manager. He built the company’s Road Warriors program from the ground up in 2022. The idea sounds simple enough. Maintain a roster of about 1,500 technicians willing to travel to locations with the highest demand, match the right people to the right assignments, and get everyone where they need to go. Every single week.

Each week, James’s team identifies which locations need the most help, filters the roster down to 500 to 600 eligible technicians, sends out availability requests, collects responses, coordinates with a travel agency to book flights and hotels, and confirms itineraries with everyone traveling. There’s not a lot of room for mistakes.

Safelite had been relying on a homegrown internal messaging tool that was no longer supported by any developer on staff. It technically worked, but it had serious limitations that were dragging the entire operation down.

For a while, the two-week turnaround cycle gave the team enough buffer to absorb the inefficiency. But as the business grew and leadership pushed to tighten the cadence, the old system just couldn’t keep up.

James knew they needed a better tool. He ran the numbers on exactly how much time his team was burning on manual communication tasks each week, brought the data to leadership, and got approval to start looking.

The Solution

Up and Running Fast 

When James evaluated SMS platforms, Sakari stood out because it had the functionality Safelite needed and it passed all of the company’s internal security requirements. For a nationwide organization moving hundreds of people every week, that combination mattered.

The initial setup involved some compliance work around getting an outbound number configured and approved. That’s pretty standard for enterprise-level implementations. But once that was squared away, the platform was ready to go.

Internal reaction? No pushback at all. The broader team was actually relieved. The old system had become something nobody wanted to support, and everyone knew it was time to move on.

How Safelite Uses Sakari Every Week

Sakari is now part of Safelite’s weekly workflow.

• 1.  Identify demand. The team reviews which locations need help the most in the coming week.

• 2.  Filter the roster. From 1,500 technicians, they narrow the eligible list to 500 to 600 based on performance and availability criteria.

• 3.  Send availability requests via Sakari. A targeted SMS goes out asking eligible travelers if they’re available for one or two weeks. Technicians simply reply “1” or “2.”

• 4.  Autoresponder confirms receipt. Sakari’s autoresponder immediately lets each technician know their response was recorded. No manual follow-up needed.

• 5.  Pull reports, match assignments. The team exports responses, cross-references with the eligible list, and matches technicians to locations by Wednesday.

• 6.  Coordinate travel and confirm.  After a travel agency books flights and hotels, the team sends a final Sakari message with itinerary details and travel tips.
  
  

And when leadership needs something outside the regular cadence, like an ad hoc request to move a team on short notice or additional incentive messaging to boost volunteer numbers, the team sends it through Sakari in minutes. The old system would have taken hours.

The Results

Faster and More Reliable Across the Board

Switching to Sakari saved time, obviously. But the accuracy and reliability improvements were just as significant.

Way Fewer Mistakes

James didn’t fully expect how much the data accuracy would improve. When technicians were texted a request, asked to respond via email, and then had those responses manually transcribed onto a third spreadsheet, things got lost. Important responses disappeared into a crowded inbox. Names were mismatched. Availability was misrecorded.

With Sakari, technicians respond directly to the text. The data is clean, the export is instant, and cross-referencing is simple. No more digging through an inbox hoping nothing slipped through.

Reaching Technicians in the Field

Safelite’s technicians are out in the field. They’re not sitting at desks refreshing email. Reaching them directly was always a pain point.

With Sakari, the team can reach everyone at once with time-sensitive updates. They can send out a detailed email for reference and then fire off a quick text: “Hey, check your email right now. We need an answer by end of day.” That kind of real-time nudge was technically possible before, but the turnaround was so slow that the team had to ask themselves, “Is this really worth the effort?” every single time.

Now, the answer is always yes. Because it takes minutes, not hours.

80,000 Messages, Less than 1% Error Rate

With over 80,000 messages sent through the platform and an error rate below 1%, the communication side of the Road Warriors program just works now. Whether it’s a standard weekly availability request or an urgent ad hoc deployment, messages go out and responses come back.

Looking Ahead

Safelite is currently using Sakari as a standalone communication tool, but James knows there’s more to explore. The platform has CRM integrations, advanced automation, and analytics that the team hasn’t tapped into yet.

When you’re moving hundreds of people across the country every week, you need your communication tools to be reliable and simple. Sakari gave Safelite both.