The TODAY Show Connects Fans To Celebrity Coaches with Twilio and Front

The TODAY Show Connects Fans To Celebrity Coaches with Twilio and Front

When The Today Show gives you the opportunity to ask world renowned personal trainer, Bob Harper, a fitness question, you know you should take your shot.

But, some questions are better asked in private: “Hey Bob, how do I mend my strained relationship with the elliptical machine?” That question might seem too personal to fit in a Facebook comment thread. It might be better for me someone to ask via text.

You can’t share a celebrity coaches’ cell phone number on a national broadcast. But, you can share a Twilio number that connects that coach directly to a viewer asking the question.

Keeping Private Questions Private

The Today Show built a Twilio & Front powered messaging service that allowed their viewers to ask celebrity coaches personal questions privately. Bob Harper, Joy Bauer, and Andy Puddicombe all took shifts answer questions on fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness.

“We wanted to create a safe space where people could interact with coaches and be able ask the types of questions they really wanted to ask but maybe wouldn’t be comfortable posting publicly on social media” said Andrew Pinzler, the Head of Innovation Labs for The Today Show, who built the whole service himself. “It was a natural fit to try something with texting.”

The Magic That Gets Your Question To A Coach

Let’s follow the journey of a question from the viewer’s fingertips, to the coach’s.

First, a visitor to Today.com sees they can text a coach. Then, they fire off a text and after agreeing to a few terms and conditions, their question is sent to a Front Messaging Inbox. The coaches see a question in their Front inbox and are able to reply straight from their browser.

The feature was a success for The Today Show. Questions poured in and coached received more questions than they could answer during their shifts. Coaches were also able to take shifts from the comfort of their own home, or in studio. Using Twilio and Front, all the coaches needed to answer questions was a laptop. They worked remotely with ease.

“SMS is an area we want to experiment with more, especially following this success,” says Andrew.

A Natural Fit

You can see check out The Today Show’s rundown of the coaches advice feature here.