Cycliq Customer Service Rant

[tuxbailey]

First of all, they only do email support (no phone, no chat) so any inquiry from the US take at least two days to get a response.

Issue: After my accident in 2017 I pre-ordered the Fly12CE and Fly6CE. I got them in December, 2017 and used them a handful of times due to health and schedule issues. They worked fine and the Fly6CE is still functioning while the Fly12CE had developed an issue after I used it last summer.

The unit just doesn’t stay powered up after fully charged. Turned it on, after a few seconds it chimes and shutdown. Resetting it doesn’t help and I couldn’t install the new firmware either.

I contacted them at the beginning of July, sending proof of purchase, followed instruction to reset sent by them and then I was told that they have high volume of support tickets and will get back to me. Then I haven’t heard anything else from them since mid July.

I do understand that I may be SOL because the unit is out of warranty period. But I expected that for something this expensive they would take an interest of knowing what could be wrong and/or offer repair/replacement cost.

After this I did a search and found that a lot of people is having complaints on their customer service as well as product life.

I ordered a $40 Cycolite metro 850 and using my old Actioncam for the front.

I am writing Cycliq off because of their product quality as well as shoddy CS.

[Veloo]

That's too bad. The 6CE sounds like a good product on paper but sounds like they can't keep up with whatever flaws it has. And they prob haven't figured out root causes/ fixes.

[mdeth1313]

There's OH so much more to them. Their first taillight had a mounting system that would break, often while people were riding. I ended up finding and buying a 3rd party 3D printed mount. After a year or two your battery life drops SIGNIFICANTLY. I had the 1st gen rear light and then a 2nd gen and both had the same battery issue.
Their solution - send it back (to Australia) and we'll sell you another one at a (crappy) discount.

Not sure about battery life on the front but I've read about all kinds of issues there as well. I have light and motion headlights that are on years 4 & 5 and no batter issues.

Idea is great - company sucks.

[Llewellyn]

It makes me sad to hear this about a company that is based not too far from me. Bad/poor customer service does seem to be a recurring theme with them.

[eddief]

they're gone in a short time. my rear light/camera was fiddly p.o.c. challenging to fend off a ton o bad feedback.

[bikinchris]

I have no flaws in either of my Cycliq cameras. I did perform the firmware update to improve battery life.
I get 3 1/2 hours of run time out of the 12 and 4 hours out of the 6.This is my third year with the caneras.

The OP should try to set up the camera for firmware update and leave the charging cable plugged in during the update.

[mdeth1313]

I have no flaws in either of my Cycliq cameras. I did perform the firmware update to improve battery life.
I get 3 1/2 hours of run time out of the 12 and 4 hours out of the 6.This is my third year with the caneras.

The OP should try to set up the camera for firmware update and leave the charging cable plugged in during the update.

4 hours out of the 6 (probably in warm weather) is not that good. I used to get 7-8 hours out of my 6 (actually both of them). Year 3 it dropped to 2-3 hours in warm weather and yes, I tried their firmware update.

[djg21]

I loved my original Fly6 so much that I preordered the Fly12CE and Fly6CE the day they were announced. They worked fine for a season, notwithstanding the fact that the connected features were worthless apart from allowing you to adjust settings on your phone and syncing the video timestamp with your phone. If you paired with your Garmin, battery life suffered, and the ConnectIQ software for Garmin’s is pretty wonky.

Last month my Fly6CE failed. It’s taken 6 weeks to finally get the thing warrantied and it was an incredibly frustrating experience. Initially, my emails went unanswered. I finally got Cycliq’s attention by posting a negative review in the comments to DC Rainmaker’s review of the Cycliq cameras. The President of the company follows that site and it seems to be the de facto support forum for Cycliq. He responded to my comment quickly and I then was inundated with emails from Cycliq support ironically asking why I wasn’t instantly responding.
I was asked to troubleshoot, send a video of the unit turning on, and to perform a bench test consisting of turning of incident protection and letting the thing run until the battery fully discharged. It took days of back and forth by email to complete these processes, and they could have been resolved in a single short telephone call.

In the interim, I bought a second Fly6CE from Amazon, thinking that I’d give it to my wife after I got my replacement from Cycliq. It lasted 5 rides before it stopped working. I returned it to Amazon for a refund rather than deal with Cycliq tech support again.

I really want to like the Cycliq cameras. They are a great idea, and when they work, they work really nicely. Unfortunately, they have not proven incredibly reliable and obtaining tech support is a chore. If I weren’t committed to the Fly cameras, having purchased a number of aftermarket mounts for all of my bikes, and already owning a (for the time) functional Fly12CE, I’d go in another direction and never buy anything from Cycliq again. I’m really hoping another more stable company purchases the rights to the Cycliq technology, supports the current devices, and sells improved devices. Replaceable batteries and better firmware update process would be good starts.

[Veloo]

That blows my mind that a company would use another guy's personal review website as the primary point of customer communication.

[Heisenberg]

That blows my mind that a company would use another guy's personal review website as the primary point of customer communication.

ehhh

as others have echoed, nice idea, terrible execution. they're capitalizing on an underserved market with an underdeveloped product and big margins - it's a private equity-owned org, pretty much par for the course. as soon as someone with a reputation and experience in the space makes a competitor, they'll quietly exit.

i wanted to love mine. badly. but then they both flat out died, aside from other issues.

the unfortunate fact of the matter is no one makes anything comparable - right now.

[EB]

Echoing Heisenberg and others with my experience so far. Commuting 28 miles a day, 5 days a week convinced me of the need for it - just saw too much nonsense out there. It’s a completely unique product that is wonderful when it works, but lots of issues in technical execution and very problematic customer service. I just spent weeks of back and forth getting them to warranty a Fly6CE that had simply stopped working.

It’s a shame that nothing else like it exists in the market.

[false_Aest]

At least you care find a bit of solace in the fact that product developers read threads like this one, bring it to the boss's attention, and say things like "We cannot release a product that has this type of reputation."

Seriously, you all have ranted about a bunch of things and I've taken these threads directly to the higher-ups and said, "See, this is why I ________ and why I keep insisting that we do _______."

Somewhere these threads do some good. ;)

[Heisenberg]

At least you care find a bit of solace in the fact that product developers read threads like this one, bring it to the boss's attention, and say things like "We cannot release a product that has this type of reputation."

Seriously, you all have ranted about a bunch of things and I've taken these threads directly to the higher-ups and said, "See, this is why I ________ and why I keep insisting that we do _______."

Somewhere these threads do some good. ;)

letthebikeindustryburn

[djg21]

That blows my mind that a company would use another guy's personal review website as the primary point of customer communication.



I don’t think it’s meant to be the primary point of contact. But with close to 700 comments, a good portion of which are critical, and the huge amount of traffic to that site, it may be a matter of survival to appear responsive to customer concerns.
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/11/cycliq-fly6ce-fly12ce-first-look.html

[R3awak3n]

I liked my OG cyclic but eventually died mysteriously. It was at least a year or so old so I count my losses and decided not to buy the new one and instead get a garmin varia. Sure its not a camera but actually tells me if a car is coming and to me that is more useful that video of a crash after it has happened.

Shame that these guys have a terrible cs reputation, its a decent product and the new cameras looked even better

[kiwisimon]

and after reading this thread Cycliq appear on my facebook feed with a few people telling them the same problem, their marketing guy promised to forward the details on to the design guys and service guys. Maybe try contacting them on FB?

[Veloo]

Who knows...maybe their webmaster bailed on them and they did actually have email problems.

[unterhausen]

they post videos on FB all the time, and a couple of times a week one of their fed-up customers comments about an issue that Cycliq customer service has been ignoring.

[pdmtong]

Did you buy it direct or through a dealer? Presumably direct since you are pursuing support directly?

[559Rando]

What's new with Cycliq? I love the idea. Is there any competition? Or is it just better to have use separate lights and cameras?

[tuxbailey]

Yes I bought direct.

After a lot of patience on my part...and I also posted my experience in the DC Rainmaker thread, they said they will send me a new one while they check on mine for the failure.

So I sent mine back and they even paid for shipping. I am waiting for the new one/loaner to show up. it is likely coming from China/Hong Kong.

If I do receive the replacement one eventually then I think it will likely be the last time I hear from them given how slow their CS is.

In the mean time I bought a separate headlight and probably will mount my old Sony action cam.

[pjbaz]

Resurrecting this thread bc I'm pissed at this POS company and their foolish lack of support. My 6CE worked great until the battery died a few months ago. Now, I can't get it to operate properly and the battery life is also just sad now.
I'd love to talk to someone but it's only email (as has been said a lot) ...

$200 that worked great for about a year, now I'm ready to send the thing back to OZ in a box with dung in it.

[unterhausen]

their FB feed still has a batch of pissed off customers posting on it all the time. The comments get deleted and ignored now though

[pjbaz]

their FB feed still has a batch of pissed off customers posting on it all the time. The comments get deleted and ignored now though


I haven't hit their FB yet but I DID email a guy I found on the DC Rainmaker site ... let's see what happens

Ben Hammond
CMO
Cycliq
ben.hammond@cycliq.com

[brownhound]

I feel very fortunate that Cycliq walked me through a Fly6 that had stopped working through many emails.

Though like a previous poster said, it would've been easier with a short phone call or just a good trouble shooting guide: "Your Fly6 no longer holds a charge, here are the three likely reasons and our answer to each..."

[pjbaz]

I haven't hit their FB yet but I DID email a guy I found on the DC Rainmaker site ... let's see what happens

Ben Hammond
CMO
Cycliq
ben.hammond@cycliq.com

I got an email back saying he forwarded my info to their tech side ... I'm not ready to hold my breath but I am hopeful

[eddief]

it was a piece o crap and that was matched or exceeded by their lack of support.

[Veloo]

I just saw a video ad on Facebook. This is the text with the video below. Wonder if they came up with an updated rear came and are dumping the stock?
When I click on the video, it goes to this link:
https://cycliq.com/subscribe-to-win/?v=3e8d115eb4b3

=====================

The future of cycling safety is coming on March 3rd!
Sign up to be the first to find out what it is AND go into the draw to win a light and camera safety system worth over $500.

[pjbaz]

They've been very good about responding to my emails, although essentially I'm SOL because they changed the app which changed things I preferred, and while I struggle to reset and get it operating again I'm told it's for my ease of use ... and safety.