Fresha, a booking platform for the beauty and wellness industry, is building deeper customer trust and driving significant business growth by adopting Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging, powered by Twilio and Google.
Facilitating over 700,000 appointments daily for its 130,000 partners in 120 countries, Fresha upgraded from traditional SMS to RCS to transform standard notifications into trusted, branded conversations.
The move resulted in an immediate and measurable uplift across the customer journey, including a 41.3% read rate on appointment messages and a 7.1% increase in customer reviews.
“We’re here to make life easier for salon owners, putting their needs front and center in everything we design,” said Jeremy Miller, head of product at Fresha.
“When messages come from a verified, recognisable Fresha brand, people engage more because they know it’s genuine. That trust leads to stronger relationships and better outcomes,” said Miller.
Unlike traditional SMS, RCS offers a secure, high-impact channel for customer communication, featuring verified sender identities, rich media, and interactive buttons.
For Fresha, this meant replacing plain text messages with dynamic, branded notifications for confirmations, reminders, and thank-yous.
With Twilio’s seamless API, Fresha deployed RCS with no code changes, achieving standout results compared to SMS. There is higher engagement, with appointment-related RCS messages achieving a 41.3% read rate.
There are increased confirmations, with 6% more customers confirming their appointments. There is also post-appointment growth as the interactive prompts led to a 7.1% jump in customer reviews and a 5.3% increase in tipping, directly boosting partner revenue.
Also, RCS messages reached a 99.2% delivery rate, ensuring critical communications were consistently received.
“RCS stands out because it’s trustworthy,” said Stephen Brough, global GTM head – RCS for business at Google. “When customers clearly see who is messaging them, they engage more — they’re more likely to respond, confirm appointments or share a review. Trust makes all the difference.”
Fresha, a Twilio customer since 2016, initially implemented SMS and gradually adopted additional channels such as WhatsApp, email, voice, chat, and RCS. With the help of Twilio’s solutions, Fresha now builds and launches new features at pace, focusing on local customer preferences and staying trusted and compliant as they grow.
“Twilio lets us launch in new countries with complete confidence that our messages will be delivered, protecting the customer experience no matter where we go,” said Miller.
