Rocket Mortgage relaunches the American dream of homeownership

Challenge

Rocket partnered with Twilio to build a seamless, personalized communications experience that could scale with their mission to Help Everyone Home. They needed a flexible, developer-friendly platform that integrated with their systems and empowered rapid innovation.

Solution

Rocket used Twilio’s developer-friendly APIs to build a fully custom communications platform that unified channels, streamlined routing, and personalized client interactions at scale.

For far too long, the home buying and mortgage process has been a maze of complexity, impersonal transactions and frustration – turning what should be one of life’s most thrilling milestones into an overwhelming and emotional ordeal. In an age where technology has simplified nearly every aspect of daily life, buying a home has remained stubbornly archaic, expensive and daunting.

The reality is eye-opening. Studies show that half of all homebuyers – and more than 60% of Millennials and Gen Z – find themselves in tears of frustration at least once during the process. Yet, homeownership remains one of the most ambitious ideals in America, with 92% of Americans believing it is a cornerstone of the American Dream.

To truly fix the homeownership experience, Rocket needed to rethink the infrastructure behind it - not only the tools and platforms, but the way people stay connected during every step of the journey. It calls for an intelligent system designed entirely around the user - whether that’s a buyer or banker.    

Rocket set out to make this a reality and turned to Twilio to build a communications engine that’s fast, flexible and deeply human. All in service of something bigger: Helping Everyone Home.

Rocket is not new to transformation. Since 1985, the company has evolved from a brick-and-mortar mortgage company to the world’s first completely online mortgage platform. 

As Rocket continued innovating, their mission—to help everyone home—demanded systems that could scale with both speed and flexibility. But their communication stack was ready for an upgrade. 

“Our client experiences varied depending on the communications tool being used,” says Papanii Okai, EVP of Product Engineering at Rocket. “We couldn’t personalize the way we needed to, and the systems forced us to replicate data and rely on rigid UI frameworks.”

Rocket needed to centralize communications onto a unified platform that scaled with the business and empowered cross-functional teams. So Rocket designers, developers, product managers, engineers, and executives started looking for a communications platform as a service (CPaaS) partner they could trust.

Twilio stood out for all the right reasons—developer-friendliness, flexibility, fast integration, and a modern take on communications infrastructure. With Twilio's Personalized Support program, Rocket will be able to continue to innovate for the future.

“We wanted a platform that could integrate seamlessly with our custom systems, feel like Rocket in every interaction, and empower us to design experiences that meet clients where they are,” Okai states. 

Rocket worked with Twilio to create a solution from the ground up. The result was a modern, intelligent communications platform purpose-built on Twilio infrastructure. This centralized, real-time communications hub includes Twilio Voice, SMS, Lookup, Verify, and Segment—Twilio’s AI-powered customer data platform.

Andy Hollingsworth, Director of Product Management at Rocket, says they have been pleased with the success. 

“Since we launched, we’ve expanded to SMS, built a mobile app, wrapped our UI in a desktop app, and started to pilot inbound calls as well,” says Hollingsworth. “We are now delivering new functionality to our users, our bankers, and our client communicating team members.”

With a streamlined communications platform in place, Rocket was ready for a massive data transformation.

Performance issues caused by heavy third-party JavaScript were limiting Rocket’s digital storefront experience and holding back their SEO potential. When David Juan, Senior Director of Engineering at Rocket, was introduced to Twilio Segment, he was all in.

“When I saw Segment’s dashboard with all the data streaming in and out in real time, I was impressed” David says.

This discovery became the foundation for Rocket’s new company-wide data platform. Instead of traditional customer data platforms (CDPs) that required copying petabytes of data, Segment offered a composable architecture with zero-copy audiences. This allowed Rocket to leverage its existing data assets without duplication.

Combined with Segment’s Connections and Protocols, Rocket was able to unify behavioral web data with its internal data warehouse—creating a powerful foundation for personalization, experimentation, and AI activation.

With a fully custom communications platform, Rocket has reimagined how they connect with customers and teammates alike. Every communication—whether it’s a text, call, or automated verification—now feels consistent, secure, and unmistakably Rocket.

Beyond scale, Rocket has gained speed and autonomy. New features ship faster, data duplication has been eliminated, and AI integrations are actively being developed to make every conversation smarter.

Plus, the company is no longer limited by the constraints of generic platforms. With Twilio, Rocket’s teams are free to create exactly what they need. That means:

• API flexibility: Rocket builds their own workflows instead of conforming to someone else’s.
• Real-time personalization: By tapping into their own extensive data resources, Rocket could personalize communications like never before
• Branded UX: Every interaction—from calls to texts—feels uniquely “Rocket,” giving clients a consistent, trustworthy experience.

Overall, Rocket’s integrated product and engineering teams chose to build their agent productivity solution with Twilio because they proved to be a true platform partner — offering advanced capabilities and collaborating closely to integrate them seamlessly into Rocket’s existing tech stack.

Rocket’s journey with Twilio was a cultural and technological shift that unlocked new ways to serve clients at the most meaningful moments of their lives. From initial mortgage conversations to final closings, Rocket ensures that every message, call, or notification feels personal, intuitive, and helpful.

As the company continues to scale, the focus remains the same: real human connection, made smarter through the right technology. Twilio has become a valuable partner in supporting Rocket’s mission to make the dream of homeownership a reality.