The events of 2020 have kicked our world into a second wave of digital transformation, and partners have been at the forefront of that wave. As part of that shift, customers are demanding a more digital and responsive approach to engagement than ever before. This has brought to light a hard reality check about customer experience (CX): you can’t cut corners. Adopting a digital-first mindset is absolutely paramount to being future-ready in this new landscape, and it’s critical for all partners to get on board. But digital strategies can take years to build and executing them day in and day out – especially at scale – is complex.
Enter Lifecycle Advantage, a digital engagement powerhouse that makes partners future-ready right now. Lifecycle Advantage drives digital journeys, bridging together Cisco and our partners to jointly guide customers through important milestones across the entire lifecycle. It lets us engage customers together with the right message at the right time, whether that’s assisting adoption, simplifying renewals, or upselling to higher-value solutions.
As many of you know, Lifecycle Advantage isn’t new. In fact, it has already proven its value at scale for partners and customers alike. In Cisco’s last fiscal year, it drove:
- 40% faster time to value for customers
- 33% higher customer satisfaction ratings
- 26% higher customer engagement rates
- A 10 point higher overall partner attach rate
- An 8 point higher overall partner renewal rate
- An 18 point higher renewal rate on opportunities engaged digitally with a quote
Fueling Scale and Responsiveness
During the pandemic, Lifecycle Advantage has been a lifeline, putting partners in position to address scale at a time when availability at the partner business can be in a constant state of flux. By smoothing out the demands for responsiveness with proactive digital journeys, it gives partners a way to be digitally present with their customers when being physically present isn’t always possible.
The addition of Commerce Automation to Lifecycle Advantage last year elevated our partners’ ability to be even more proactive. Those partners that have been the earliest adopters of this new AI-driven innovation are getting positive feedback from customers on the advantages of automatically-generated quotes – which use the partner’s own specific pricing – along with automated renewal notifications, streamlined renewal transactions and much more.
Ava Garside, Operations Data Analyst for CDW explains the impact it’s had on their business. “Lifecycle Advantage [and Commerce Automation] …allows a customer to purchase the renewals through a few clicks on their computer. Digital engagement changes the way that CDW goes to market, because instead of creating quotes all day…and packaging them up to our customers, we spend that time now educating and finding solutions for our customer needs.”
New Features Being Unveiled at Partner Summit Digital
Building upon the Commerce Automation innovation, here’s a sneak peek at four new Fiscal Year 21 Lifecycle Advantage feature sets slated to be unveiled at Partner Summit Digital, Oct. 28-29.
1. New customer success drivers
New adoption journeys for AMP for Endpoints, DNA Center and the CX Portfolio will provide ways for partners to scale and optimize their digital customer success motions across multiple offers. This allows a greater focus on high-touch accounts, empowering partners to leverage digital to maintain relevance with all customers and drive optimal offer utilization.
2. New customer insights
New lifecycle stage and usage scores will give partners more visibility into customers’ adoption journeys, including where and when they may be stuck and need support, and the steps partners can take to help customers proceed on their adoption path.
3. Renewals advances
A few exciting new capabilities are launching to improve and simplify the customer renewal experience, while helping partners book more deals. They include intelligent quoting (quoting based on partner preferences), customer-specific price settings, co-term and consolidation options, and a modernized checkout experience.
In addition, a new partner-branded renewal experience on Cisco.com will let customers view their contract details, expiration dates and request quotes all in one place. Lifecycle Advantage partners will have their logos featured as part of this experience.
4. New partner growth drivers
We’re continuing to embed growth opportunities into Lifecycle Advantage with a new service attach journey that helps ensure customers have all the relevant support contracts in place, while also bringing awareness to higher value coverage options.
And, a new network and support insights journey will empower partners to minimize network disruption, maximize business continuity and discover upsell opportunities. This will be made possible by consolidating customers’ technology and renewal dates, spotlighting uncovered devices and security alerts that require action, and more.
There’s no stopping the move to digital: McKinsey says it vaulted five years forward in a matter of weeks in the early stages of the pandemic. This trend will only continue. And that’s why the time is now to join the more than 3,000 partners who have already made the move to a more digital future with Lifecycle Advantage.
To learn more about all the new Lifecycle Advantage features and how they drive digital journeys, register for the Americas SuccessTalk on October 13.
Sign up for Lifecycle Advantage
Looking for more ways to gain access to products, solutions and knowledge that enable you to perform and transform? Become future ready by joining us at Partner Summit Digital.
Evolution is now… getting ready for the future, clearly explained by John Stone! A must read!