HomeYou increased conversion rates 40% using Twilio

When the Homeyou online marketplace launched in 2014, the founders had 6 employees and a handful of contractors offering home services. Two years later the Woburn, MA, based company has generated $150,000,000 for its contractors and processed more than 1,200,000 service requests. Twilio Voice with its streamlined workflow has had a vibrant role in enabling Homeyou’s incredible growth spurt and customer-first success.

Homeyou remodels with Twilio

Twilio powers Homeyou’s call center, which connects quality contractors, roofers, painters, plumbers, and other skilled professionals with homeowners seeking services. At first, Homeyou’s founders answered all incoming calls, but as the lead-generation business gained velocity, they created a call center with software they built themselves to ensure a superior customer experience.

Development with Twilio was rapid and delivered huge benefits. By integrating calling directly into the browser, the team of agents could handle more calls and realize higher conversion rates.

“Using Twilio was one of the best decisions we made,” said Artem Filikov, vice president of marketing and corporate development at Homeyou. “We’ve seen a roughly 40% increase in conversion since adding Twilio for our outbound calls.”

Quick, convenient customer experiences

“One of the reasons we picked Twilio is because it is so simple,” said Bill Madeira, a company founder and vice president of operations. “There were examples on Twilio’s website that we could copy and adapt to our logic to make it work. We were able to build exactly what we wanted. All of the functions we needed were there, and they were just waiting to be built.”

Homeyou selected a rich set of Twilio functions that supported a customer-centric business that serves both the homeowners and the contractors. Twilio Voice provides advanced call control, global connectivity and APIs for the global business with multiple data centers, offices, and agents spread across the US, Chile and Brazil. Customers calling in have exceptional call quality and fast response time as calls are routed in real time to the next available agent and with the lowest latency.

“A ton of complicated technology is on the back end, but we make the interactions as simple as possible,” said Madeira. “We want to make the experience quick, convenient and easy for everyone involved. Our customers—on both sides—love it.”

Homeyou has built its business around providing an exceptional user experience for everyone connecting through the online marketplace. Homeowners, for example, communicate directly with home improvement pros via local private numbers using Twilio Masked Numbers.

“We provide a good experience for the homeowner by not giving out their contact information if they don’t want to be called anymore,” said Madeira. “The contractor reaches the homeowner through a unique number, and that lets us control the experience. The contractor never knows the homeowner’s phone number because we use local numbers from Twilio to route the call.”

Homeyou also considered the contractors’ experience, making sure they receive a qualified, sales-ready lead that introduces them to potential clients. “Delivering leads is one thing,” says Filikov. “We take it one step farther, and home improvement professionals only pay us when they get to meet with a client. That’s the best thing these guys could ask for.”

Ready and prepared for staffing increases

Happy agents are another part of the user experience equation. Homeyou offers lots of perks and flexibility, allowing agents to work across continents in North and South America from any computer with a web browser.

“Everything is built into the agents’ browsers so there’s nothing to install,” said Madeira. We can hire people anywhere and easily route calls to them.”

The attention to agents, homeowners and contractors has paid off. In the coming year Homeyou expects to hire up to 100 new sales reps and agents to handle the increasing volume of calls, emails, and texts.

The boom in business doesn’t concern Homeyou’s executives. They see the business model and technology as scalable and price conscious.

“Our company isn’t built on venture capital funding, so we need to make our buck go further,” said Madeira. “The rates with Twilio are very competitive. As we scale up, we pay much less than if we did it ourselves,” says Madeira.

A business built to grow

Homeyou is on an upward growth trajectory, and will soon introduce a mobile app. Remaining agile to capture new market opportunities is critical for any business operating in today’s digital economy, and as opportunities emerge, Homeyou can be confident that it can deliver a superior experience with the latest in communication technologies.

“In our business, we make money when our customers make money,” said Filikov. “It is easy to build on top of the Twilio technology and API and create processes and workflow that serve our business and help us build long-term relationships with our customers.”