Customer Story
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Growthzilla Sees 20% Increase in Deliverability After Switching to SignalWire SMS APIs
See how Growthzilla improved SMS deliverability by 20% and cut time to market by switching to SignalWire's Messaging APIs.
Abbi Minessale
Senior Product Marketing Manager
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Messaging (SMS/MMS/10DLC)
Migration
20% higher SMS deliverability
Growthzilla switched to SignalWire Messaging APIs to improve SMS deliverability and reduce build time when migrating from other providers. Growthzilla sends at least 100,000 text messages per month, saw a 20% increase in deliverability after switching, and relied on SignalWire to launch high-volume programs like a “wait in line” workflow that helped salons take prepayments and manage appointment demand during pandemic-related shutdowns. Compatibility with other providers also reduced time to market by avoiding custom build-outs.
Overview
Uzeli, a product of Growthzilla, gives salons simple tools to streamline bookings, point-of-sale operations, and automated marketing programs from a single system. Growthzilla uses SignalWire to build its SMS tools, including appointment reminders, SMS marketing, appointment confirmation, receipts, and two-factor authentication. After switching from other providers to SignalWire, Growthzilla has seen a 20% increase in deliverability, which matters because SMS communication is integral to its business model.
About Growthzilla
Growthzilla provides tools to the salon industry that help increase revenue, including point-of-sale systems, data-driven marketing, and SMS appointment and booking reminders. SMS is an integral part of Growthzilla’s marketing suite, designed to attract and retain salon customers.
It's also used to follow up with customers who haven’t returned in a while and send them promotions and reminders. Growthzilla considers SMS to be the most effective mode of communication with customers. Founded in 2014 and based in Westlake Village, California, Growthzilla is a bootstrapped company serving the salon and spa industry.
“A lot of our operation depends on being able to send text messages and that’s where SignalWire Comes in. We send at least 100,000 text messages a month. In some months it's even more.”
Bipul Luitel
CTO at Growthzilla Inc
The Challenge
Growthzilla’s goal was to make its product easy to use for all of its customers, not just the tech-savvy ones, optimizing for simplicity so the software could get the job done with minimal effort from clients. Growthzilla also aimed for the maximum deliverability rates possible, since low SMS deliverability means salon customers lose clients who miss appointments or important promotions. On top of that, Growthzilla’s development team focused on finding a solution with fast integrations so they could decrease time to market.
The Solution
Growthzilla uses SignalWire APIs for its SMS integrations, sending appointment reminders, confirmations, receipts, promotional materials, and two-factor authentication codes.
Growthzilla’s data analysis can pinpoint salon clients who haven’t returned in a while and automatically send them messages with coupons and reminders to retain that customer and increase salon revenue. The team has found SMS gets a much higher response rate than traditional methods like email.
During government shutdowns, SignalWire SMS APIs let Growthzilla launch a “wait in line” program: salons sent SMS campaigns asking customers to “get in line” for the first available appointments after reopening, with customers paying ahead of time, helping salons generate revenue during the shutdown, with an overwhelmingly positive response from both salons and their clients.
It’s core to Growthzilla’s business that text messaging works flawlessly, and the company relies on SignalWire to do that job: Growthzilla sends over 100,000 text messages a month using SignalWire and has seen a 20% increase in deliverability after switching from other SMS API providers. That increase in deliverability makes it easy for Growthzilla and its clients to trust and use the software, so clients can focus on increasing revenue rather than the underlying technology. SignalWire APIs are also easy to use and backward compatible with other providers, which helped Growthzilla decrease time to market by avoiding custom build-outs.
The Results
High deliverability stats | Quick deployment | Infinitely scalable |
|---|---|---|
After fully adopting SignalWire as its SMS API provider, Growthzilla saw a 20% increase in deliverability rates. | Growthzilla was able to decrease its time to market and avoid a custom build-out because of the ease of use and backward compatibility of SignalWire SMS APIs. | Growthzilla sends over 100,000 text messages a month and can easily increase this number during busier seasons. |
“As a company, Growthzilla relies on the idea of being able to reach out to customers directly and get a better response than sending emails. Text messages are more personal and let you reach out directly to the customer. It’s a communication that can’t be ignored, even if you delete it you’ve already read it.”
Bipul Luitel
CTO at Growthzilla Inc
Why is SMS deliverability sometimes lower with one provider versus another?
Deliverability depends on factors like carrier relationships, proper number/campaign registration, sending reputation, and how well a provider's infrastructure handles filtering by mobile network operators. Providers with stronger carrier integrations and compliance practices generally see fewer messages blocked or filtered as spam.
What kinds of messages do appointment-based businesses typically send by SMS?
Common use cases include appointment reminders and confirmations, receipts, two-factor authentication codes, win-back promotions for lapsed customers, and general marketing campaigns — all of which depend on reliable, high-volume delivery.
Why do businesses get a better response rate from SMS than email?
Text messages are typically read within minutes, while emails can go unopened for hours or days and are easily lost in a crowded inbox. That immediacy makes SMS effective for time-sensitive messages like appointment reminders or limited-time promotions.
What is involved in migrating from one SMS API provider to another?
A migration typically involves re-pointing an application to a new provider's API, re-registering sending numbers or campaigns with carriers, and testing message delivery. Backward-compatible APIs can reduce this to a configuration change rather than a full rebuild, which shortens time to market.
How can a business keep taking payments or bookings during a temporary shutdown?
Some businesses use SMS campaigns to let customers reserve a spot or prepay for services in advance — sometimes called a “wait in line” or waitlist model — so the business can generate revenue and manage demand even before it reopens.
How much SMS volume can a business send before needing a more robust API provider?
There's no fixed threshold, but as volume grows into the tens or hundreds of thousands of messages per month, businesses typically need a provider built for high-throughput sending, carrier-level deliverability optimization, and scalability — rather than a basic API meant for low-volume use. Growthzilla, for example, sends over 100,000 messages a month on SignalWire.
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