Story criteria and content opportunities

Know which leads to recommend

How Cisco prioritizes story leads

When evaluating a story lead, we look for many different qualities. Use this page as a checklist before you propose one of your customers' stories.

Must-haves

Every story we publish must demonstrate these things.

Inspirational impact: How did this project transform the customer's business? Did it change the way things have been traditionally done in the industry?

Quantifiable customer outcome: How did our partnership help the customer reach their goals? Can you articulate the customer's quantifiable outcomes and measurable results over at least 6 months?

Relevance: Will other customers learn from the story? Can the project be replicated?

Consent: We require every customer to sign a consent form agreeing to a story before we start. Is the customer happy to participate?

Above and beyond

We prioritize stories that include or highlight these things:

Cisco Campaign Alignment:

Power Hybrid Work - Collaboration, Security and Networking Solutions
Transform Infrastructure - SASE, Hybrid Cloud, and Future or Wireless Solutions
Reimagine Applications - Full Stack Observability (FSO), Cloud Native, and App Security Solutions
Drive Security Resilience - XDR, Secure Connectivity, and Zero Trust Solutions

Competitive stories: The customer chose Cisco over a competing technology and is prepared to say so

Cisco value-add: The project involved Enterprise Agreements, Cisco Capital, CX, an ecosystem partner or other Cisco differentiator

Partner value-add: Show us how you're "owning your edge"

Content opportunities

When you help connect us to your customers, we will invite them to become a reference, through which they can tell their story in a variety of ways. Depending on the project's nature, point in the customer lifecycle, and comfort of the customer, there are multiple ways we could offer to present the story.