Overview

Cadence

Successfully launching a sales prospecting & engagement tool from 0-1 to help sales teams - reduce tool overload and increase revenue opportunities.

Role & responsibilities

Product designer
UX research
Conceptualization
MVP

TimelineAug 2022 - Present

Skills

Product design
UX research
Competitor and market analysis

For reader’s discretion

For the full director’s cut, I recommend viewing this case study on desktop. The mobile friendly version is streamlined —great for a quick scroll, but the full story plays out best on the big screen.

Introductions

Cad-en-ce

/ˈkeɪdns/

Cadence is a sales prospecting & engagement platform that streamlines processes with real-time CRM integration, automation, insights, and efficient workflows. Seamlessly blending into the Ringover ecosystem, it enables multi-channel outreach, tracks engagement, and boosts productivity. While built for sales teams in SaaS, e-commerce, and finance, its flexibility also makes it a favorite for marketing and staffing teams.

Cadence is a sales prospecting & engagement platform that enables multi-channel outreach, tracks engagement, and automates workflows through real-time CRM integration. Built for sales teams, its flexibility also suits marketing and staffing use cases.

My Role !?

Designing and shaping Cadence — from early concepts to functional MVP, beta market launch, and finally a growing, stable product. I have been involved from its inception through to its immaculate maturity. (Peter Drury commentary supremacy)

Through user research, iterative design, and close collaboration with developers and stakeholders, we created a tool that helps sales teams work more efficiently and focus on building stronger customer relationships.

Designing and shaping Cadence — from early concepts to functional MVP, beta market launch, and finally a growing, stable product.

Context

Let's talk Sales !

Picture this...

You're part of a bustling sales team. Your mission? Turn potential customers, aka "leads" into loyal clients. ✨Sounds straightforward, right? Not quite.

Leads can come from anywhere – maybe they found your website (hello, inbound leads !) or got a friendly nudge from you on LinkedIn (shoutout to outbound efforts). Whatever the case, you've got to connect with them, fast and effectively. Sales reps dive into action, juggling calls, emails, SMS, and LinkedIn messages to engage these leads. More channels mean more chances to make a connection, right? But here's where things get tricky.

Every sales team operates differently – while processes vary by industry, team structure, and business goals, they typically follow proven frameworks.

Leads progress through multi-step pipelines, with each step demanding a unique action: update the CRM, send follow-up emails, qualify the lead, or even switch to another communication channel entirely. Now, imagine doing this for hundreds or thousands of leads. Feel overwhelmed yet?

Throw in multiple tools for CRM updates, email, calling, and social outreach, and suddenly, staying organized feels like a herculean task.

Leads can come from anywhere – inbound or outbound
Sales reps engage through multiple channels. More channels mean more chances to make a connection,
Every sales team operates differently
Leads progress through multi-step pipelines, with each step demanding a unique action: update the CRM, send follow-up emails, qualify the lead, or even switch to another communication channel entirely.
Add multiple tools for for each action
Now Imagine doing this for hundreds or thousands of leads.

Problem statement

Let's break it down...

Clearly it is not easy being on the sales team. Between having to channel your inner extrovert ( kudos to all inherent extroverts :/ ) to maybe even going 'Limitless' , not having a tool in your corner seems even more frustrating.

Clearly it is not easy being on the sales team.

Writing stuff down helps :)

Tool overload

Sales reps are often caught juggling multiple tools. Switching between them not only wastes time but also disrupts focus and reduces efficiency.

Tools for different actions and communication channel

So basically we need a ‘megazord’ transformation???

Multi-channel chaos

Leads aren’t all hanging out in one place. Some prefer LinkedIn, others respond to calls, while a few live on SMS or WhatsApp.

Different conversations in different channels for different leads

I think we should give sales people psychic powers.

Repetitive tasks

Time-consuming tasks like follow-ups, reminders, and updating CRMs eat into the valuable time reps could use to build relationships and close deals.

Time-consuming tasks like follow-ups, reminders, and updating CRMs

Everyone wants automation now-a-days

Scattered data = Scattered focus

When information is spread across platforms, valuable insights get lost, leading to missed opportunities and misaligned priorities.

Data spread across platforms

Multi-tasking god

Lead prioritization

Not all leads are equal, but without real-time tracking and engagement data, reps struggle to focus on high-potential prospects.

Identifying the best leads

Inequality??

Scaling challenges

Managing hundreds or even thousands of leads becomes overwhelming. Missed follow-ups, delayed outreach, and limited touchpoints result in reduced lead qualification and engagement rates.

Managing hundreds or even thousands of leads becomes overwhelming.

Are sales people super heroes?

Traditional methods

Teams still relying on spreadsheets or outdated methods lack a centralized database, making consistency and alignment within the team a challenge.

Teams still relying on spreadsheets or outdated methods lack a centralized database

What about those cool excel commands???

Manual tracking

Updating lead statuses, tracking tasks, and managing follow-ups by hand one by one is exhausting and prone to errors.

Tracking tasks by hand one by one is exhausting and prone to errors.

Homing drones?

Reporting and analyzing

Without a centralized system, generating reports and measuring success is cumbersome for sales reps. Managers also need to track progress and measure success, but it’s a headache to consolidate data and present actionable insights.

Without a centralized system, it is difficult to track progress and measure success

Enabling micro-management??

What does the market say?

Now that we've identified the challenges faced by sales teams, it's time to figure out what solutions are out there. Let's talk about the sales engagement tools that came before Cadence. We examined popular tools like Outreach.io, Salesloft, and Lemlist which offered some great features, but they left a few things to be desired.

Having identified the challenges faced by sales teams we examined popular tools like Outreach.io, Salesloft, and Lemlist which offered some great features, but still left some gaps

First things first, the strengths, things that worked (essentially features that are a must have for tools in this market)Let’s talk about the must haves and the gaps

Bountiful integration marketplace

Automated sequences and workflows

Mail box integrations with template creation and bulk mailing capabilities

CRM integration with real time updates and 2 way sync

So what are we missing???

Untapped channels

While these tools were heavily integrated with mail boxes and CRMs, channels like videos calls, SMS, Whatsapp, LinkedIn were missing leading sales teams to still require multiple tools.

Channels like videos calls, SMS, Whatsapp, LinkedIn were missing.

Complex interfaces

Bulky interfaces and enterprise-level focused set-ups made if difficult to navigate, especially for smaller and flexible teams.

Bulky interfaces and enterprise-level focused set-ups made if difficult to navigate.

Costly integrations

Extra integrations meant additional fees.Eg : Calendar integrations, content generation, Reminder systems, Meeting scheduling, Calling & SMS services, Lead enrichments, lead generation, LinkedIn prospecting.

Extra integrations meant additional fees.

Rigid systems

Tools weren’t always designed for the unique workflows of every sales team, forcing users to adapt their processes instead of the other way around.

Most platforms don’t bridge the difference between inbound and outbound leads.

Inbound vs. Outbound

Most platforms don’t bridge the difference between nurturing inbound leads and looking out for outbound opportunities.

Tools weren’t always designed for the unique workflows of every sales team.

Branching

The idea that this system can be generalized to be used by teams other than sales - such as Marketing, Customer success & relations , recruitment, Customer support - is missing.

The idea that this system can be generalized to be used by teams other than sales.

Research & Explorations

Building Cadence

So what do we need ?

A platform to unify CRMs, communication channels, and analytics while automating tasks and simplifying workflows. Cadence delivers just that: a clean, multi-channel solution that keeps teams focused on what matters most—building relationships and closing deals

After having identified the pain points and market gaps the first step into this massive project began with one simple question: How would this tool actually be used?. The initial concept positioned it as a "first touch point tool" for sales teams.

The Sales team

Sales teams aren't one-size-fits-all. They can be structured by roles, geography, product, or channels. To create Cadence, we zeroed in on two critical aspects: roles and lead sources. Using Ringover's sales team as a benchmark, we identified the following :

Most teams share common roles like sales agents/specialists, Sales/business development reps, and account managers/executives.
For our proof of concept, we needed a scalable blueprint. We chose to organize around the most basic element: lead source—either inbound (leads approaching through various channels) or outbound (sales representatives initiating contact).
we focused on the lead source—either inbound (leads approaching through various channels) or outbound (sales representatives initiating contact).
Cadence had to be adaptable. Sales teams differ widely in structure and strategies, so we made sure the platform could cater to both small startups and sprawling enterprises.

The Sales process

Sales teams have different sales processes varying depending on the industry, company size, account type, product etc. But a blueprint sales process that almost all sales team would follow is :

The users

By conducting user interviews with various members of the sales team, we were able to develop targeted use cases for specific roles that we could focus on. These conclusions are more focused on the user responsibilities of the role than a user persona, keeping that in mind -

Meet our John Doe(s)

John “Sales Rep” Doe

Automating follow-up sequences to ensure no lead is left behind.
Tracking email open rates and call engagement metrics.

John “Sales Manager” Doe

Monitoring team performance and campaign effectiveness.
Analyzing lead conversion data to optimize strategies.

John “CSM” Doe

Engaging clients with personalized sequences for renewals and upsells.
Proactively spotting for churn risks with engagement data.

John “Sales Rep” Doe

Automating follow-up sequences to ensure no lead is left behind.
Tracking email open rates and call engagement metrics.

John “Sales Manager” Doe

Monitoring team performance and campaign effectiveness.
Analyzing lead conversion data to optimize strategies.

John “CSM” Doe

Engaging clients with personalized sequences for renewals and upsells.
Proactively spotting for churn risks with engagement data.

Conceptualization & Iterations

So after the why and the how we began iterating for the designs. Initially we focused on inbound leads. We had roles for Sales reps, managers and company admins. The objective was to give the tool to a select number of users and teams in Ringover and collect feedback on how we could build the tool further.

1. We brainstormed ideas focusing on automating repetitive sales tasks for a bulk amount of leads

2. We wanted to eventually crate a plug & play system which allowed to map any CRM to our tool as an integration

3. Sales reps need to be able to their daily tasks and observe all the leads they are working on

4. A basic dashboard with some rudimentary statistics to help track progress

Solution

So where do we stand ?

After almost a year of fast-paced iterations and internal testing we were ready with the initial set of features to push to market. We first introduced a beta of the tool to existing Ringover users to help judge how much the tool had grown. Our team sat with stakeholders to better understand how we could evolve Cadence and how far we were able to address the pain points. Over the year we refined the tool further adding new features, improving the experience and aligning it with Ringover's brand.

A lot of time and effort went into building Cadence and today it stands shoulder to shoulder with other Sales prospecting and engagement tools, performing best with growing companies that embrace flexible working processes.

After nearly a year of rapid iterations and testing, we launched Cadence’s beta to Ringover users, gathering feedback to measure growth and address pain points. Over time, we refined features, improved the experience, and aligned it with Ringover’s brand. Today, Cadence stands strong among sales prospecting tools, thriving with companies that value flexible workflows.

Presenting Cadence

The cadence page is the center piece of our tool (I hope the name doesn’t make it too obvious). Users can create multi step sequences mixing between automated and manual steps for a bulk number of leads. A visually familiar folder structure allows users to keep a tab on all the Cadences created in the company. To launch a new cadence simply create a cadence, add your prospects and launch it. The cadence immediately starts generating tasks for the users associated to the prospects inside the cadence. It helps you cut down on repetitive tasks and keep a track of your progress for each prospect.

What are we solving for

So you've probably heard the saying “never judge a book by its cover.” The UI looks good (hopefully) — but does it hold any substance? Let's open this book and recall on all the discussed pain points, market gaps, and feature requests to see how Cadence truly delivers.

1. Multi-channel chaos, tool overload and repetitive tasks

2. Data centralization, lead prioritization, Scaling and traditional systems

3. Tracking, Reporting and analyzing

Conclusion

Outcome

500k+ tasks created

By users across the platform, indicating strong user adoption and consistent user engagement.

More than 500k tasks created

60% task completion on avg

Reflects an intuitive user experience and simple interface which enables task completion

60% task completion on avg

6000+ cadence sequences created

Reflects the tool’s adaptability to diverse team workflows, enabling faster and better lead management.

AEs successfully completing nearly 80% of their demos

~ 300k prospects added

Highlights enhanced lead qualification, supporting high-volume prospecting and driving greater revenue opportunities.

Avg weekly bookings remained stable

#cadence_feedbacks

Cadence in an evolving product in the market growing continuously based on user needs and client feedbacks. What started as a “first touch point tool” grew into a sales-prospecting tool, evolving towards an all in one engagement tool all while diversifying into fields other than Sales like recruitment and marketing. As a designer I have learnt a lot on this project and the importance of not just listening to users but also understanding their pain points. Today Cadence in one of Ringover’s fastest growing products and used by almost all their trusted clients. This has been made possible through dedicated channels for feedback collection and bug reports.

Cadence started as a first-touchpoint tool and quickly evolved into a full-fledged engagement platform, expanding beyond sales into recruitment and marketing. As a designer, it taught me the value of understanding user pain points deeply. Today, it’s one of Ringover’s fastest-growing, most-used products—driven by continuous feedback and iteration.

Areas of improvement

Rigid systems

Highlighted as a market gap, Cadence is still working to address issues around rigid systems. While it currently allows self-service integration switching and customizable workflows, field mapping remains limited. If a company uses fields outside industry standards, they must create custom fields—currently capped at 10 in Cadence.
Many companies, especially SMEs, have niche workflows. While this is primarily a technical challenge, as a designer, I should better understand how we can improve system flexibility. From there, I can work with developers to align on technically feasible solutions that positively impact the product.

Branching

Ringover, as a VOIP service, caters to diverse industries —not just Sales. As more clients from sectors like recruitment and marketing adopt Cadence, it becomes crucial to balance general use cases with niche needs. The goal is to build a system that's flexible enough for various industries, yet customizable enough to adapt to specific workflows—without forcing companies to overhaul their processes to fit our tool.

Cleaning lists

Companies often handle large lead lists, but before sales can engage, qualification is key. This means cleaning the list to push forward leads with real potential. While Cadence supports both qualification and engagement, the former needs improvement.
Users currently build Cadences to qualify leads, using status-triggered workflows to move them into prospecting. Although Cadence offers enrichments and filters to assist in this process, it could do more—especially during the import stage.
Advanced filters and allowing users to create workflows that automate lead cleanup would help streamline and ensure only high-potential leads enter the system.

Feature discovery and adaption

Cadence is growing rapidly, with frequent feature releases. However, we noticed users often requested features that had already been launched. Surveys revealed that many were simply unaware of new additions, leading to frustration—especially when clients were onboarded with expectations based on upcoming features.
To address this, I introduced a Feature Discovery section that summarizes updates per release, along with a newsletter to inform users. But these channels aren’t always effective—they’re not contextual or actionable.
Instead, surfacing new features where they appear in the product, or prompting users to try them with guides or sample flows, could drive better engagement. It’s also crucial to track feature adoption: how many users access a feature, how long it takes them to discover it, and what triggered that discovery—whether through the discovery section or by navigating directly to it.

Rigid systems

Cadence is still addressing rigidity in its system—especially limited field mapping. Custom fields are capped at 10, which doesn’t suit SMEs with niche workflows. As a designer, understanding these challenges helps me work with developers on flexible, feasible solutions that improve the product.

Branching

Ringover, as a VOIP service, caters to diverse industries —not just Sales. As more clients from sectors like recruitment and marketing adopt Cadence, it becomes crucial to balance general use cases with niche needs. The goal is to build a system that's flexible enough for various industries, yet customizable enough to adapt to specific workflows—without forcing companies to overhaul their processes to fit our tool.

Cleaning lists

Before sales can engage, lead lists need cleanup and qualification. Cadence supports this, but qualification—especially during import—needs work. Users build Cadences to qualify leads, but better filters and automated cleanup workflows during import would streamline the process and boost lead quality.

Feature discovery and adaption

Cadence is evolving fast, but users often miss new features—even requesting ones already released. This caused frustration, especially when features were promised during onboarding. I introduced a Feature Discovery section and a newsletter, but they lacked context and actionability. A better approach is surfacing features in-product, with prompts, guides, or samples. Tracking adoption—how many use a feature, how long discovery takes, and what triggers it—will help improve visibility and engagement.

Key learnings

Designing Cadence was fun and challenging, especially because it was my first real world project with actual users and tangible impact. Here are some of my learning from this experience :

1. Users have the final say ?

In design, user feedback is vital—but acting on every request isn’t the goal. Early on, I treated suggestions as mandates, trying to tailor solutions too literally. Through my mistakes I learned the real task is uncovering the core pain points behind those requests. Users focus on their workflows; my job is to see the bigger picture—balancing technical feasibility, product goals, and business value. The key is solving for shared needs without overcomplicating the system or straining development.

In design, user feedback is prioritized as the ultimate reference point—after all, without users, who benefits from the tool? Initially, I tackled client requests and user suggestions as a mandate, trying to overhaul features or create tailored experiences. Only later did I realize my mistake: The aim is not just to satisfy requests without thought, but to identify and address the underlying pain points.
Users are hyper-focused on their workflows; my role is to assess the bigger picture. Does the request align with technical feasibility, product objectives, and business value? Learning to read between the lines is key—. It's crucial to understand how the current system can be enhanced to meet common use cases without overwhelming the developers or compromising our goals.

2. Presenting your work

As the sole designer, I regularly presented to diverse teams—each with different priorities. I quickly learned that how I present matters just as much as what I present. I learned to tailor my presentations to align with the goals each team wanted to achieve through my designs.

As the sole designer on this project, I presented my work to diverse teams—developers, product managers and owners, sales, marketing, and fellow designers—each requiring tailored communication. Over time I learnt that the way I present my work has to be tailored to hold discussions.
For example, when I worked on the the Upcoming Tasks feature which essentially helped users see the next steps in a Cadence, I spoke about my work based on the requirements of the team I was presenting to.
For developers, I focused on user flows, feature logic, and technical constraints that may arise. (e.g., how we'd fetch and display upcoming tasks week-by-week instead of all at once). For the product team, I emphasized how designs aligned with goals and measurable outcomes, like boosting the “tasks completed per user” metric by improving future task visibility. The sales team as users themselves needed clarity on how features solved user problems (e.g., helping reps plan their next day efficiently). For marketing, I highlighted standout components and summarized features for their campaigns. With the design team, I shared my iterative process, assumptions, and feedback-driven decisions.

3. Glossary

As designers, being able to clearly explain your decisions is crucial—especially in simple, non-technical terms when working with cross-functional teams. I also found that understanding the technical side of other fields makes it easier to communicate ideas and stay aligned. This is even more important with users; by learning about standard sales processes and sales funnels, I could better grasp their workflows and design solutions that truly met their needs.

As designers, learning to verbalize your work is crucial. Being able to articulate the reasoning behind your decisions in a process is incredibly valuable. Moreover, it's even more effective to explain problems and solutions in layman's terms rather than relying solely on technical jargon. I've learned that this skill becomes especially important when presenting your work to teams from other disciplines.
Counterintuitively, I also discovered that understanding the technical aspects of your discussion partner's field helps convey your ideas more clearly and ensures everyone stays aligned. This is even more true when speaking with users as it allows you to better grasp their workflow and makes it easier for them to describe pain points. For example, by learning about standard sales processes and the typical sales funnel that teams use to manage leads, I could more effectively tailor solutions when discussing their needs with users

4. Collecting feedback

Collecting feedback is vital, but vague comments like “I don’t like the color” or “Something feels off” often felt subjective and unactionable. My initial instinct was to push back, but I learned that as designers, our role is to ask better questions and extract value. Instead of asking “why,” I started prompting users with comparisons like, “Is there a tool you find intuitive? What works well about it?” This helped uncover real insights and align designs with user expectations.

Collecting feedback is a critical part of the design process, but we often receive vague, open-ended comments like:
“I don't like the color.”
“I don't understand where the button is.”
“Something didn't feel right.”
I would often feel stuck with such feedback, dismissing it as purely subjective and unactionable. My instinctive response would be defensive—“What didn't you like?” or “Why didn't you like it?”—but this rarely led to meaningful insights.
Over time, I realized that as product designers we should learn how to ask the right questions, our job isn't just to receive feedback but to extract value from it. Instead of asking why someone disliked something, I learned to propose alternative solutions and questions to observe their reactions. For example, I started asking more targeted questions like: “Is there a tool you use daily that you find intuitive? What specifically works well about it?”
By drawing comparisons, I could pinpoint gaps in my designs and align them with user expectations.