Cisco Introduces ACE Preview—the “New” ACE Service

 

Published: October 2019

What Is ACE?

Cisco created the Advanced Cisco Experience (ACE) service in 2006, initially serving about 2000 salespeople in the Americas region. The program provides subscribers access to and the ability to demo the latest Cisco collaboration products and features before those services are available to customers. Through the ACE service, subscribers in sales can experience user benefits firsthand and then showcase them to customers. They also get access to collaboration road maps, sales enablement tools, product videos, trainings, adoption programs, and easy-to-follow reference guides. These documents, guides, and presentations can be further adapted by customers to drive usage and adoption.

Over the years, the feedback from ACE users has been invaluable in helping Cisco to make better product decisions in the collaboration space. ACE users have tested many products, including Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Collaboration Meeting Rooms (CMR), and Cisco Webex Teams. Not all features reviewed by ACE subscribers are rolled out company-wide to Cisco employees after they are released for General Availability (GA). But many are—and they have included Cisco Jabber, Cisco Webex Meetings, Cisco Webex Teams, and early features on Cisco Webex Boards.

What’s Changing with ACE—and Why

As of mid-2019, the ACE service has a user base of about 13,000 subscribers worldwide. Of those subscribers, about 1600 are salespeople focused solely on selling Cisco Collaboration solutions. ACE is introducing new features that are designed to help this specific subset of ACE subscribers become even more effective in generating revenue from selling Cisco Collaboration solutions. This subset in the ACE service is now called ACE Preview to better reflect the core benefits of the ACE program: early access to new Cisco products, services, and features. ACE Preview subscribers receive:

  • Hands-on demos and training on new product features.
  • Dedicated support and communications, including “white glove” support—One of the key pillars of the ACE service is its dedicated support and communications teams, who help keep ACE users in the know. Support for the ACE Preview subset of users is designed to give them an extra edge when learning about new Cisco products and features. ACE Preview users can access “white glove” support, which includes a 4-hour initial response time after a user opens a case (issue resolution time will vary). They can also engage in dedicated discussions, one to one, with our 17 analysts around the world—also known as ACE “geniuses.”
  • Targeted communications—This information helps sellers of Cisco Collaboration solutions to use and understand new features more thoroughly before they are released for GA. That allows sellers to be better prepared to demo and sell these features and products to our customers.
  • Early access to the transfer of information (TOI) from Cisco.

ACE Preview builds on the ACE service’s long history as a unique resource that helps Cisco salespeople grow their product knowledge early, and more completely, so they can become more effective at selling Cisco solutions once they are released for GA. ACE is committed to helping salespeople use what they sell—and sell what they use.