The Challenge

Links ABA’s intake team handled all follow-up by phone and email. For families of newly diagnosed children, that meant repeated calls that often went unanswered.

Working parents couldn’t pick up during the day. By the time they got home, they were with their kids. A simple task like confirming insurance benefits or sending in a document could stall for days because the parent couldn’t take a call and the intake team couldn’t move forward without a response.

When an unfamiliar number showed up on a parent’s phone, many assumed it was a scam and ignored it entirely. Email was marginally better, but parents rarely opened it fast enough to keep the process moving.

For an intake team of 4 specialists managing families across multiple states, the phone-and-email loop was eating days that families couldn’t afford to lose.

“These parents just heard a diagnosis. They’re overwhelmed. They want to get started, but they’re working full-time and they can’t leave their desk to take a call. I was calling and calling, and they just couldn’t pick up.”

— Leah Teichman, Intake Specialist, Links ABA

The Solution

Links ABA added Salesmsg in April 2026 as the texting layer alongside HubSpot, their intake system of record. The initial phone call still happens. That’s where the team hears the family, confirms insurance, and sets expectations. But everything after that first call now moves through text.

How the workflow runs:

1. A family calls after a diagnosis. The intake specialist has a phone conversation to hear the family, verify in-network insurance, and set expectations
2. Once the family is in HubSpot, a workflow creates a follow-up task and can trigger an outbound text
3. Follow-ups shift to text: confirming insurance benefits, chasing documents, sending status updates, nudging families when a provider couldn’t reach them to schedule an assessment
4. Inbound replies land in the Salesmsg inbox, where Leah monitors and continues conversations
5. Text is used to build the connection and get a response. Calls carry the substantive conversation. Text replaces email, not the phone call
6. Insurance details and health information are deliberately kept off text as a privacy choice
7. Dead leads get closed cleanly with a single “still want to move forward?” text instead of days of unanswered calls

“A text with my name on it gets a response. An unknown number on their phone? They assume it’s a scam and they don’t pick up. But when they see a text from someone they just spoke to, they respond right away.”

— Leah Teichman, Intake Specialist, Links ABA

Core Features Used

• HubSpot Integration: Workflows trigger outbound texts and create follow-up tasks automatically
• Two-Way Texting: Parents reply on their own time, and the team picks it up without playing phone tag
• Shared Inbox: Leah monitors all conversations and can respond while on another call or working remotely
• Saved Messages: Routine check-ins and follow-ups sent with a click
• Manual + Automated Follow-Up: HubSpot workflows handle the cadence; Leah personalizes when it matters

“I don’t need to make a whole phone call to tell a parent we received their documents. I just text them. It takes five seconds and they know right away.”

— Leah Teichman, Intake Specialist, Links ABA

The Results

Measured figures come from the Salesmsg instance (April 21 to August 19, 2026). Reach and loop-time estimates are Leah’s and are clearly flagged.

1,023 messages in 4 months (326 inbound, 697 outbound). Roughly one reply for every two texts sent, a ~47% inbound-to-outbound ratio.

~60% more families reached on follow-up (customer estimate). Where the team previously connected with roughly 5 out of 10 hard-to-reach families, they now reach about 8 out of 10. Leah flagged this as an illustrative estimate, not a measured figure.

Document-and-insurance loop cut from ~3 days to ~1 day (customer estimate). Tasks that stalled waiting on a callback now resolve asynchronously. A parent confirms consent by text at lunch instead of waiting until they can return a phone call after work.

Email largely replaced by text for follow-ups. Text doesn’t replace the phone call. It replaces email, which parents see too slowly to keep the intake process on track.

“Instead of it taking 3 days because you have to wait to get through to the parent, wait for the psychologist, wait for the fax, it takes 1 day. One text gets the whole thing moving.”

— Leah Teichman, Intake Specialist, Links ABA

Business Impact

• Family reach on hard-to-connect contacts up from roughly 5 in 10 to 8 in 10 (customer estimate)
• Document-and-insurance confirmation loop compressed from ~3 days to ~1 day (customer estimate)
• Email follow-ups largely replaced by text, which parents see and respond to faster
• Dead leads closed cleanly with a single text instead of days of unanswered call attempts
• Intake specialists can text while on another call, working two families at once
• Remote work friction reduced: a quick text replaces a full phone conversation from a kitchen laptop
• 3 of 4 intake specialists adopted Salesmsg within the first 4 months

Conclusion

Links ABA didn't set out to replace phone calls. They set out to stop losing families to phone tag. Texting picked up the slack between calls, and the intake team got hours back they used to spend chasing callbacks that never came.

"This is amazing. It's a game changer. I was always asking why we didn't have a texting system, and now that we do, it really is a game changer."

— Leah Teichman, Intake Specialist, Links ABA