Building the future of beauty & wellness: How Fresha empowers businesses with Twilio
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The Challenge: Seamless, Personalized Communication at Scale
Fresha, one of the largest dedicated booking platforms for beauty and wellness, is trusted by over 130,000 businesses in more than 120 countries. To date, clients have booked over 1 billion appointments through the platform, which now sends more than 1.5 million messages every single day. With a mission to make self-care universally accessible, Fresha’s growth is powered by delivering seamless, personalized experiences—before, during, and after every appointment. Achieving that at global scale is no simple feat, but it's central to Fresha’s vision.
In an industry built on service, Fresha needed to eliminate customer wait times, provide personalized support at scale, empower teams with real-time insights, and unlock new levels of productivity using AI. These goals, combined with the complexities of international operations and regulations, demanded both a robust technology foundation and an agile communications platform.
Solution: Putting the customer first
Fresha listens closely to business owners and focuses on real needs rather than adding features just for the sake of technology. “We’re here to make life easier for salon owners, putting their needs front and center in everything we design,” shares Jeremy Miller, Head of Product at Fresha.
Building with Twilio: Supporting Builders and Innovators
When expanding to new countries and introducing more messaging channels, Fresha turned to Twilio. With Twilio’s communication platform, Fresha can build and launch new features at pace, focusing on local customer preferences and staying trusted and compliant as they grow. “Twilio helps us move fast and keep service consistent, no matter which country we’re in,” says Jeremy.
Why Twilio? From Messaging Vendor to Strategic Partner
Fresha’s journey with Twilio began in 2016, leveraging SMS and email for crucial appointment confirmations, reminders, and notifications. As Fresha’s expanded their reach and regulatory climates shifted, Twilio’s reputation for high deliverability, minimal latency, and hands-on compliance expertise made it an indispensable partner.
“Twilio lets us launch in new countries and trust our messages will be delivered, protecting the customer experience no matter where we go.” explains Jeremy.
As Fresha’s needs matured, they adopted Twilio Flex to deliver unified, omnichannel support and continue building innovative, context-rich experiences. From programmable messaging (including SMS, RCS, and WhatsApp) and SendGrid-powered email, to real-time voice and chat, Twilio is at the heart of Fresha’s communications.
Building with Twilio: Seamless Integration, Streamlined Operations
To keep the “Fresha feel” across every touchpoint, Twilio Flex enabled easy, code-driven integration with CRM systems and the Fresha platform itself. Features like invisible number lookup, fallback OTP authentication, and HubSpot integration create frictionless, branded experiences for customers.
Flex’s customizable UI let Fresha brand their chat and support widgets, maintaining a consistent look and feel with Fresha’s platform. By consolidating all customer interactions into a unified, intelligent interface, agents are more productive, efficient, and empowered—delivering delightful support.
"By taking care of the telecom complexity like sender management and channel scaling Twilio frees us up to focus on what really drives value and creates great experiences for our customers."
Raising the bar for messaging with RCS
By introducing RCS as an additional option to traditional SMS, Fresha delivers appointment notifications—such as confirmations, reminders, and thank-yous—with richer branding and increased trust. The addition of RCS has resulted in noticeable improvements in engagement and reliability over standard SMS.
- RCS drives 40% read rates—significantly higher than SMS.
- 6% more customers confirm appointments via RCS than SMS.
- 5–7% more engagement (reviews, tips, post-visit actions) through trusted, branded messaging.
Spam reduction: Verified senders build more trust, driving up customer engagement and reducing friction from spam warnings.
"Trust is essential to communicating effectively and building strong relationships with our users. When messages come from a verified, recognizable Fresha brand, people engage more because they know it’s real, and they know it’s us. That trust leads to stronger relationships and better outcomes."
AI and Chat: Trusted Help, Whenever It’s Needed
Fresha invests in building trusted, efficient support through AI and real-time chat. Powered by OpenAI and Twilio Flex, Nova, Fresha’s virtual assistant, now handles the majority of new chat conversations, resolving 70% of them without human involvement. These AI-led interactions consistently deliver customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores on par with human support.
Business owners are always informed when they’re chatting with Nova and can easily switch to a human agent if needed. Nova responds instantly to routine questions, while more complex issues are quickly routed to a member of the support team for personalized help.
Fresha designs its AI to deliver fast, reliable support while maintaining clarity, privacy, and trust.
"With Nova, our goal was clear: to build an AI support agent that could handle most queries as effectively as a human, allowing our skilled team to focus only on the most complex and valuable conversations, and we’re confident we’ve achieved exactly that."
The Future: Richer, Smarter, Always-On Communication
Fresha’s roadmap centers on more omnichannel innovation: WhatsApp integration, two-way messaging, richer content, and deeper automation using AI. With Twilio, these initiatives are easy to roll out and manage—ensuring compliance, branding, and high engagement in every geography.
Fresha and Twilio continue to support over a hundred thousand businesses with simple, secure, and trusted technology tailored for real needs.
Fresha’s journey shows that when you focus on simple design, integrated solutions, and building trust, everyone benefits - especially the customers.