How Epoch became even more customer-centric with Cycle
“Cycle encourages Sales & CX to share quotes directly from the customer. As a result, we hear the customer voice all the time and not just through user research. Everyone in the company feels closer to customers.”
Keith Choy, Co-founder @Epoch
TL;DR
Challenges
Epoch faced issues managing scattered customer feedback from various sources, struggling with effective tracking, prioritization, and closing the feedback loop.
Solution
By adopting Cycle, Epoch streamlined customer feedback management, resulting in improved employee engagement, enhanced prioritization, and centralized feedback insights.
About Epoch
Epoch is an employee experience platform for people teams to create, promote, and measure internal events and programs.
Angie is Lead Product Designer
Industry: HR tech
Headquarters: San Francisco
Founded: 2019
Company size: 17
Epoch's Story
Before discovering Cycle, Epoch encountered challenges with their user feedback:
1. Overwhelming feedback volume from scattered sources: Google Sheets (Sales & CX), HubSpot (Meeting notes), Sales call videos, and various note apps.
2. Translating feedback into actionable insights and prioritizing it.
3. Inability to effectively close the feedback loop with users & prospects.
They learned about Cycle from Shreyas Doshi on Twitter and decided to give the product a try.
“My first a-ha moment was when I was processing the feedback. I could see all the insights and was able to translate them into an initiative. That was a mental model switch for me. Before, we approached initiatives by focusing on the problem first and mapping insights back to it later.”
Angie Kwan, Lead Designer @Epoch
“Then the other aha moment was when we were closing the loop, moving the features to the right column, reaching out to everyone, and then going through the Slack channels where Cycle bot updated customers about features status changes. Customer Success really enjoyed that process.”
How Epoch Uses Cycle
"Cycle made it easy and accessible for teams to contribute to the product. In many companies, I hear that customer-facing teams don’t feel heard because their feedback is not taken into account."
Angie Kwan, Lead Designer @Epoch
Most people at Epoch use Cycle for different purposes: Keith (Founder) and Angie (Lead Designer) for processing and prioritization, Sales through HubSpot integration, and Customer Success via Slack channels.
Cycle has become essential for customer-facing teams, both for initial onboarding and for gaining insights into customer views, especially on key accounts and their feedback history.
Epoch’s use of Cycle revolves around three core principles:
1. Aggregating customer feedback and transforming it into initiatives.
2. Categorizing requests and providing a centralized platform.
3. Efficient filtering in Cycle views offers in-depth insights and supports decision-making.
Enhanced product processes
They introduced a dedicated feedback Slack Channel for increased visibility, implemented a priority tag system for streamlined alignment, and regularly process their feedback inbox a few times a week, complemented by efficient feedback submission through Slack – all of which further boosted team engagement.
Impact
By addressing challenges tied to scattered feedback sources and improving prioritization, Cycle has evolved into a trusted source of truth for Epoch's product development. This fosters cross-team collaboration and engagement, leading to an improved experience for both employees and customers.
"Cycle is a centralized product hub that helps teams focus product development around customer feedback. It really helps us understand the problems phase and the pain points that customers are having. It also opens channels for sales and CX to provide that feedback and engage with the product and the roadmap."
Keith Choy, Co-founder @Epoch
The impact of Cycle's integration into Epoch's workflow is evident:
1. Enhanced prioritization & decision-making: Anchored in a deep customer-centric approach.
2. Team engagement and alignment
3. Customer satisfaction & engagement: The ability to track, manage, and close the loop on customer feedback has resulted in heightened customer satisfaction.
4. Product processes updates
"I must say, I genuinely appreciate the team at Cycle. From the onboarding phase to the ongoing support, I always felt well-supported. The entire team, including the CEO, played a pivotal role in helping us grasp the tool's nuances. Their responsiveness and supportiveness, especially in Slack, have been exceptional. It's more than just a vendor-client relationship – it feels like a true partnership where we've been sharing and learning about product best practices."
Angie Kwan, Lead Designer @Epoch