Robotalker.com provides automated phone calls and text messaging for organizations such as churches, schools, and medical offices, and needed a communications provider that made it easy to support customers, reduce operational friction, and maintain redundancy. After switching from Twilio to SignalWire, Robotalker kept existing Twilio-compatible code, ported phone numbers, and relied on direct access to dedicated support for faster issue resolution. The change also reduced fixed costs for phone numbers, and Robotalker reported completing the migration in about five days, including testing.
“It was so easy to switch to the SignalWire SDK. We had thousands of lines of code for our autoresponder and we didn’t need to change a single line of code.”
Thomas Mahoney, Robotalker
Overview
Robotalker.com provides automated phone calls and text messaging that help organizations stay in contact with their audiences, including churches, schools, medical offices, and healthcare providers. They switched from Twilio to SignalWire to get faster, more effective support, improve redundancy, and reduce costs for phone numbers, while keeping their existing Twilio-compatible implementation.
About Robotalker
Robotalker.com has served clients for close to 14 years and offers a user-friendly website for sending automated phone calls and text messaging for purposes like events, medical information, and appointment communication. They describe their messaging and calling use cases as designed to stay Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) legal.
They use SignalWire for automated calls and texts, including an autoresponder feature where customers call a dedicated phone number, hear a message addressing common questions, then receive a text message with information such as rental property listings, directions, and links to websites. They also use business-to-business toll-free numbers for large broadcasts, including political campaigns and seasonal promotions like Black Friday sales and coupons.
Challenge
Robotalker needed a provider that made it easier to support their own clients, especially when issues came up. With previous providers, they describe waiting up to 48 hours to speak with agents, difficulty communicating, and multi-day resolution cycles. They also wanted stronger redundancy for calls, and they needed pricing that made operating at scale more sustainable.
Solution
Robotalker moved from Twilio to SignalWire and kept their existing Twilio code because they report it was fully compatible with the SignalWire API. They implemented a separate initialization method based on the SID format to switch between SignalWire and Twilio, since SignalWire SIDs include dashes while Twilio SIDs do not. They also ported phone numbers from Twilio to SignalWire and report immediate savings as each number moved over.
For their dialer code, they report supporting legacy Twilio numbers that could not be ported alongside new SignalWire numbers in the same application, using a simple switch between providers.
"With other providers, we’ve had to wait 48 hours to speak with agents who had difficulty communicating with us and took days to figure out our problem. Now we have the ability to pick up the phone and speak directly with our dedicated SignalWire agent to get answers immediately. Rather than having a relationship with another chat bot at Twilio, we had and still have great support with SignalWire, which is the most important reason we needed a change."
Thomas Mahoney, Robotalker
Results
Robotalker reports changing over “within 5 days including all testing,” and that their handlers did not need modification for Interactive Voice Response (IVR), text message replies, or autoresponders. They describe the integration as painless and emphasize the availability of SignalWire technical support by phone.
They also report:
Increased redundancy by using SignalWire in addition to their short code approach
Excellent call sound quality
Lower Direct Inward Dialing (DID) costs, cited as 8 cents per month compared to 1 dollar per month previously, and that the savings at scale outweighed minor coding changes
Faster issue resolution compared to prior “bot emails” and multi-day resolution timelines
