How two brands inside the Great Day Improvements family automated 100% of SMS confirmations

For home improvement companies managing multiple brands, fast and personalized lead follow-up is essential to driving conversions and to delivering the kind of responsive, high-touch experience homeowners expect.

Great Day Improvements, a national home remodeling company based in Twinsburg, Ohio, needed a better way to unify lead management across its fast-growing portfolio. With over 1,000 employees and a lean marketing team, they couldn’t afford to rely on slow, manual processes to handle incoming leads.

"We worked out of email a lot,” said Christopher Jarvis, VP of Enterprise Digital Marketing. “We’d set up an inbox, and a vendor or web form would send leads to it. Then someone would manually go through and enter that data into our CRM.” The process wasn’t scalable, and it definitely wasn’t fast.

To modernize lead intake without overloading their IT team, the team turned to automation. “The biggest challenge was integrations: How do we spin them up quickly and without a developer?” Chris explained. “Zapier gave us that control and flexibility.”

Great Day Improvements' results, by the numbers:

• 41% increase in appointments when SMS automation is used

• 500 SMS reminders sent daily through Zapier-powered workflows

• 100% reduction in manual SMS outreach for self-scheduled appointments

• Improved lead response time across multiple brands by automating CRM ingestion

• Scalable infrastructure: One SubZap now powers SMS logic for two brands

• Hours saved weekly by avoiding repetitive tasks with reusable SubZaps and AI-generated values

Turning messy lead intake into automated outreach

Many of Great Day’s brands previously relied on spreadsheets and email to manage incoming leads. Chris’s team set out to build standardized automations that could capture those leads, enrich them, and personalize communication at scale—all without writing custom code. The result was a fully automated intake and outreach system powered by Zapier and underpinned by reusable logic with SubZaps.

Since launching this SMS workflow, the results have been clear: brands using automated SMS have seen a 41% increase in appointments compared to those without it. Today, the system sends about 500 SMS reminders per day, each personalized to the customer’s location and appointment. These improvements don’t just streamline internal operations, they help Great Day respond to homeowners faster, with clearer appointment details, reducing back-and-forth and helping projects start on the right foot.

Here’s how the full system works:

• A new appointment is booked via an online form embedded on brand websites.

• A Webhook catches the submission and triggers the Zap.

• The Zap runs a JavaScript code step to clean and format phone numbers.

• A SQL Server lookup checks the lead’s ZIP code against a branch database.

• Zapier Paths routes the lead based on whether they're a new or returning prospect.

• The Zap starts a SubZap, which handles all downstream SMS delivery logic.

Inside the SubZap:

• SQL Server retrieves relevant market data.

• Zapier Tables is queried to pull the correct SMS campaign template based on brand and branch ID.

• Webhooks by Zapier retrieves an API token from Five9.

• Formatter by Zapier formats the message content for SMS

• A Webhook opts in the phone number and a final lookup confirms the correct message template.

• Webhooks sends SMS message via Five9.

Before this automation, call center agents sent follow-ups manually, often generic and lacking appointment details. But now, because the most crucial communication is anchored in SubZaps, the team eliminated repetitive setup across brands and established a consistent, scalable approach to lead engagement. Instead of rebuilding the same workflows for every brand, they now rely on centralized logic that’s easy to maintain and quick to adapt.

For Chris and the team, SubZaps became more than a time-saver; they’re the backbone of a system built for scale. “I look at them like functions in code,” Chris said. “If you build it right, you can plug it in anywhere.” Before SubZaps, he was constantly rebuilding the same logic across workflows. Now, he has a single, modular component he can maintain, reuse, and rely on.

Using AI to eliminate friction (and passwords)

Chris’s team also found a clever use for AI by Zapier in their customer portal setup. When adding customers to the portal, they needed to create secure temporary passwords for new users, without burdening developers or building a custom password generator.

“I could have written some JavaScript,” Chris said, “but I just asked AI to generate passwords based on certain rules. It worked.”

Here’s how the full system works:

• Every day, Schedule by Zapier triggers the Zap to check for new customers.

• Formatter by Zapier standardizes the date/time.

• SQL Server pulls all the customers needing account setup.

• Looping by Zapier runs through each customer entry individually.

• AI by Zapier analyzes the data and generates a password based on predefined criteria.

• Webhooks by Zapier pushes the login information into the customer portal.

This daily workflow not only saves time but also removes friction from customer onboarding, making account creation seamless and secure at scale. By making account setup instant and secure, the Great Day Improvements team gives customers one less thing to worry about, making it easier to track progress and stay informed throughout their project.

Looking ahead—scaling smarter, not harder

Zapier has empowered Great Day Improvements to scale its marketing operations without growing headcount. With dozens of brands, localized markets, and high lead volume, the team is building once and deploying everywhere.

“My favorite thing about Zapier is how quickly I can spin up integrations without needing IT,” Chris said. “It doesn’t matter how simple or complex it is, I haven’t found anything I couldn’t integrate with Zapier.”

Now, Chris is helping teams across the company streamline their work by building scalable automation and incorporating AI where it adds real value. His goal is to create systems for Great Day Improvements that work smarter across the business and ultimately make it easier for customers to get the home improvements they need, with less friction and faster service.