How a global youth activity provider unified three countries into one HubSpot inbox with Sinch Engage

A well-established youth activity provider runs sessions for kids across 300+ locations, opening new sites nearly every week. They have a UK-based client success and retention team of 10 to 20 people, which manages the day-to-day relationship with tens of thousands of families. The kids of these families attend sessions daily, across the UK, US, and Spain.

To manage an operational footprint of that size, the organization had leaned on a bespoke communication system, custom-built and maintained by a single software developer in Wales. It worked, but it was fragile, hard to scale, and increasingly out of step with the leadership team’s ambitions.

When they set out to modernize, they brought in The RevOps Company, a HubSpot-certified training partner and one of the world’s few top-tier HubSpot agencies. They’re selective about the clients they take on – typically working directly with leaders who are open to rethinking how their business operates, not just patching what’s already there. This was exactly that kind of project.

Kevin de Jong, founder of The RevOps Company, flew out to meet the organization’s leadership team in person and map out the project before any implementation work began.

With the organization’s old bespoke system, they did have the ability to trigger automated messages, but the real problem was fragmentation: there was no single place to send, track, or reply to a conversation. In imagining their ideal setup, the team wanted HubSpot to become the center of everything.

That meant finding a messaging provider that could check three boxes at once:

• local SMS numbers across every region the academy operated in
• deep native integration with HubSpot
• support for RCS – the richer, interactive message format the academy wanted for client-facing communication.

Sinch Engage was the only provider that met all three requirements at once, and the one that came out on top in testing against other options. The academy ultimately gained:

With Sinch Engage live inside HubSpot, the organization built out a full, automated customer journey – all triggered from CRM data and sent from local UK, US, and Spanish numbers:

• Session confirmations sent by RCS, including a short welcome video
• Reminders ahead of upcoming sessions, with location details pulled dynamically from HubSpot
• Post-session feedback requests and follow-ups
• Milestone messages, marking key moments in the relationship
• Promotional template messages that staff can send directly from a contact record in HubSpot

Every message pulls dynamic fields straight from the CRM – a child’s name, next session date, and account status – so trigger-based texts and one-off, one-to-one replies both feel personal, without any manual lookup.

Before Sinch Engage, replies to automated messages were essentially invisible. There was no shared inbox, and no easy way for the retention team to see who had responded to what.

Now, every inbound message – texts to any of the organization’s regional numbers, RCS replies, emails, and even website form submissions – lands in one HubSpot inbox, where the retention team handles one-to-one conversations alongside the automated flows, and can still layer in broader campaigns, like venue-change notices, on top.

For The RevOps Company, the level of hands-on support from Sinch was a standout part of the implementation – not just software handed over, but a partner involved throughout.

Kevin even met his Sinch rep face to face in Dublin, noting that, “he was really involved – fast replies, pointed me to the right people, helped think things through. It’s not like you buy the software and you’re done. Someone’s actually there helping with the implementation.”

Sinch also handled the RCS approval process directly. The organization simply completed a short form, and Sinch managed the rest, clearing the way for interactive, client-facing RCS messaging without added friction for the RevOps team.

The shift to Sinch Engage in HubSpot operationally changed how the organization’s retention team works every day:

• One inbox for every SMS, RCS, and email conversation, replacing a bespoke system with no shared visibility
• Full visibility into replies to automated messages, which the team couldn’t see or act on before
• Automated, CRM-personalized messaging across the full customer journey
• Faster, easier one-to-one communication for a lean, 10-to-20 person retention team supporting tens of thousands of families
• RCS approval and implementation support handled directly by Sinch, reducing lift for the RevOps team

The organization continues to open new locations nearly every week, and with SMS, RCS, and email now consolidated in one HubSpot inbox, the team has a communication backbone that can grow with it – adding regions, numbers, and conversations without adding complexity.

For The RevOps Company, it’s the kind of project the agency looks for: a client ready to rethink how they operate, and a technology partner like Sinch that’s both powerful and hands-on enough to help make it happen.

Is your team looking to scale communications in HubSpot? Learn more about Sinch Engage’s integration that enables SMS, MMS, RCS. And WhatsApp in HubSpot.