What they built with UserEvidence
When Cisco’s previous advocacy platform, Influitive, was acquired, Nic’s team had to move fast. They used this moment as an opportunity to fully reimagine Cisco Insider from the ground up.
Before the redesign, Cisco Insider was really four separate sub-programs: an advocacy community, technical user groups, a champions program (i.e. a technical influencer program), and a user research function. Each running on its own platform, with its own registration process and disconnected member data. Nic describes it as “a very Marriott hotel model”: lots of value spread across different places, but hard to navigate. Members had to sign up separately for each, and there was no unified picture of who was doing what.
Nic’s team rebuilt it into one program: just Cisco Insider. No sub-programs. A single sign-up, one place to engage, with a clear and compelling value prop allowing customers to connect with peers, access exclusive product roadmap information, advise on the future of Cisco’s technology, and create content alongside the company to elevate their own professional profiles.
Overlaid on top of the new program structure is a B2C-style loyalty model with tiers — gold, platinum, diamond, and a top “rock star” tier — designed to feel less transactional than the old points-for-rewards approach.
“In the old program, it was very much like you get your points, you redeem them for rewards. It’s like a currency. Now I’m earning points, but it’s not a currency, it’s a status, and I’m leveling up,” says Nic. Members know what they’ll get at each level, and the rewards lean into what only Cisco can offer.
Nic partnered with UserEvidence to rebuild Cisco Insider, using UserEvidence’s Advocacy Hub as the centralized space for members.
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Once the platform was ready, he invited roughly 30 top members to beta test the structure and give direct feedback, using a mix of survey missions inside the community platform, weekly check-in calls, and one-on-one interviews.
From there, Nic took Cisco Insider to the full customer base and officially launched at Cisco Live (the company’s flagship trade show in Las Vegas) in early June 2026.
The impact & results
About two months after launch, Cisco Insider had 2,700-plus members, a mix of existing advocates re-enrolled in the new platform and net-new members met at Cisco Live. Members have reported a meaningfully improved experience, everything they’ve ever done with Cisco now lives in one place, and Nic is already back out re-engaging internal stakeholders to grow the program’s business impact from here.
Nic’s biggest lesson: build alongside your customers, not just what you think will work. His team beta tested, gathered direct feedback, and iterated before rolling the program out broadly — because what customers actually want and what you assume they want aren’t always the same thing.
