Cisco is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. At Cisco, understanding customers has been an integral part of creating long-lasting customer partnerships. An increasing challenge for the Cisco team was to become more of an “outside-in” customer-focused organization by listening to the specific public conversations about customers, markets and industries to understand their customers’ business challenges better.

At Cisco, it was all about enabling not just their sales team but their marketing organization as well. They had pockets of market research being conducted but it wasn’t efficient. Cisco looked for what platforms could give them this outside-in perspective and provide a holistic, comprehensive view to harness their knowledge in a single repository.

FirstRain was selected by the marketing team to provide one solution for the multiple scenarios where market, competitor and customer insights are needed.  Cisco used an enterprise social collaboration platform to integrate FirstRain to address the needs of different stakeholders in sales and marketing.  Within marketing, Cisco has different marketing organizations with different focus areas including a social media listening center.  Some are focused on vertical segments and industries while others are focused on buying centers and technologies.  On the sales side, the insights needed to fit the specific lens of an individual customer encompassing size of business, vertical segment, buyer persona, geography and social media conversations.  With FirstRain, Cisco can track every C-level discussion on any campaign or topic so that every member of the sales team can walk into a customer meeting armed with a real-time, unmatched view of the space they operate in.

FirstRain enables Cisco marketing and sales to go to one source for the specific conversations about customer topics and campaigns on a daily basis.   FirstRain analytics delivers insights and data points that enable the sales team to focus the conversation with their customer in ways they simply couldn’t before.  The sales team members access the FirstRain insights according to their preference – email, portal, or through a mobile device.  With FirstRain, Cisco marketing and sales is always on top of market, customer and competitor news and working more effectively with their customers and partners.  FirstRain benefits Cisco by providing:

• Personalized, customized views of market knowledge that enables sales and marketing to have more meaningful customer conversations and messaging
• Relevant conversations from the global web and social media that are impactful, unlike broader social media listening tools
• One holistic, flexible solution that can be deployed for a large-scale organization by a small team