Texting has worked wonders for scaling Ridership’s workforce.

Ridership uses SMS messages to hire quickly, scale their business

Ridership is an affiliate of scooter rideshare company Bird.  Based around Washington D.C and its surrounding areas, Ridership is tasked with maintaining, charging, and placing scooters in public areas for customers to ride. Ridership recruits contractors to execute daily tasks.

The challenge: Hiring ASAP

When cities increase their capacity for electric scooters, Ridership can suddenly find itself charged with maintaining a few hundred extra scooters. So, founder Christopher Parler needs to entice contractors to join their team at the drop of a hat and start working as soon as 24 hours later.

The solution: Job applications via text

Sinch Message Media SMS for Zoho CRM was the solution Ridership was looking for. The integration with Zoho makes it easy for Ridership to gather contact information and track applicants. Ridership ran ads targeting entrepreneurs, landscapers, bike messengers and gig workers, providing a number they could text to apply via a Zoho form. Ridership then used Zoho to categorize and tag these leads based on the specific city they live in. This let them quickly distribute leads to the appropriate teams and ensure that the right individuals were contacted for opportunities as soon as possible.

The sooner those scooters are available to riders, the sooner I can begin making money. For the amount of money, we spend on [SMS], our ROI has got to be 50-fold.

Christopher Parler, Ridership founder

The results: More leads than they can handle

SMS texting has worked wonders for scaling Ridership’s workforce. Ridership now has more leads than they need and was able to expand into new areas. Plus, the company can store unused leads to retarget when needed, allowing Ridership to foster relationships with applicants and offer them other related business opportunities. This keeps operations nimble and the service quality high. The automated SMS has also saved about 15 hours of manpower a week. Ultimately, Ridership estimates for every dollar they spend on SMS, they make at least $50 back.