Camp Webex: Training our New CS Team Members to Help Customers Achieve More Than They Thought was Possible with Webex

Customer Success Blog Series

The Customer Success Blog Series highlights Customer Success Managers (CSM) and their Customers where we spotlight a Customer Success Story. Learn how Cisco’s collaboration technology is making positive organizational impacts, solving real-live business challenges and can impact a customer’s outcome.

Think Again with Webex

If you’re a Webex customer, why do you use Webex?  If your answer is “to hold meetings,” try to think deeper.  Do you think your management wants to know how many meetings you were in this month?  More likely, they want to know about those metrics that directly drive accomplishing a quarterly or yearly goal.  Maybe your goal was to increase product sales in your region or decrease time to market for a new product.  Perhaps you want to transform learning experiences for remote students.  Extend the reach of your medical care services to underserved communities.  Maybe it’s something else, but let’s think again about why you use Webex.  You use Webex to help get work done – work that helps you meet goals that deliver successful outcomes for you and your teams.  Now, you’re thinking like a Cisco Collaboration Customer Success team member.

Effective Customer Adoption Starts with Mindset

At Cisco, we’ve developed “Camp Webex” for new CSMs and PSMs have the skills and knowledge to becoming our customers’ consultants and trusted advisors

In the Cisco Collaboration Customer Success (CS) team, we know you don’t buy Webex to hold meetings.  We know you don’t invest in Webex Boards and Room Kits so you can pretend you’re on Star Trek facing down a Klingon Warlord.  You invest in Cisco Collaboration because you have work you need done to meet your business goals.  Our Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and Partner Success Managers (PSMs) know that successful adoption of our services will help you transform your business, perhaps in ways you didn’t even know were possible.  Their goal – their reason for being – is to guide our customers to adopt Collaboration technology so those business transformation goals can be met.

In my role on the Customer Success team, I am lucky enough to be trusted with training all our new CSMs and PSMs when they join the team.  Over the last 18 months, we have transformed the mindset of the CS team.  Their success as CSMs and PSMs doesn’t depend on the number of paid invoices, tech support tickets, or meetings our customers have.  Their success, OUR success, depends on becoming our customers’ consultants and trusted advisors, so our customers can achieve great things.  It’s imperative that our CSMs and PSMs have the skills and knowledge to do this, so we’ve developed a Customer Success New Hire Bootcamp called “Camp Webex.”

Camp Webex- Fast-Track Adoption with Webex Adoption Master

Webex Adoption Master eBook outlines the formula for implementing Webex adoption right from the start

Our newest CS team members from all over the world came together in Research Triangle Park, NC – one of Cisco’s largest locations in the US – for a week in September.  During the week, the CSMs and PSMs learned all about their roles and what it means to be in Customer Success.  They learned how to guide our customers through our industry-leading Webex Adoption Master methodology, developed in partnership with experts in technology adoption and digital transformation.  They understand how to help our customers identify their key business drivers, develop use cases and communications plans, garner leadership support, and ensure their environments are technically ready to deliver optimal success with collaboration technology.  They know how to advise our customers to set realistic goals for success based on their own unique set of business challenges and desired outcomes.  Perhaps most importantly, our CSMs and PSMs can also guide our customers to celebrate and recognize their successes along the way, and to make the journey and effort of technology adoption engaging and FUN – no, really!!

How did we make it happen?

Emeline Verge and Molly Dubow discuss the Pillars of Success with new CS Team members

I can’t write about Camp Webex without including how we used our own technology to make it all happen.  I created a space in Cisco Webex Teams, and added all of the Campers to the space.  Using emojis and gifs, my partner Molly Dubow and I set the tone for the event.  This was not going to be a boring corporate-style training – we were planning for the Campers to have a great time, get to know each other, and make connections with their colleagues from across the globe.  We used the Teams space to share information about the daily locations, post helpful links to content, and share photos from our daily sessions and team events.  During the week, we used Webex Video Conferencing devices to share our content and multimedia presentations, and brought in presenters from The Netherlands, Indiana, Texas, California, and Portugal; and it was like they were right there in the room with us – total Star Trek moment.  Now that the week is over, we’re using the Teams space to plan a one-month virtual reunion – which we’ll hold via Webex, of course, so the CSMs and PSMs can join from their offices, their homes, their mobile devices – anywhere that’s convenient for them.  We’re not meeting to hold a meeting – we’re meeting to catch up with each other, share success stories and laughs, and help each other figure out the best ways to help our customers achieve true success.  We’re meeting to help our customers achieve more than they even think is possible with Webex.

Curious to learn more about driving successful adoption of Webex within your organization?  Contact your Customer or Partner Success Manager — they will guide you through the steps of a meaningful adoption journey.

Become a Webex adoption master

Learn More:

Connect with all the Customer Success blogs in the series here

3 Ways to Be More Customer Obsessed in 2019

Customer Experience Partner Insights

Adoption Made Easy

What’s Your Webex Dream? Top Tips for Driving Webex Adoption