Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Cisco
Search every verified Maria Martinez interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a May 2020 virtual fireside chat, Maria Martinez, then Cisco's Executive Vice President and Chief Experience Officer, discussed customer success strategies. She stated that at Cisco, the focus had shifted from traditional customer success to managing the "end-to-end experience" from marketing through onboarding. Martinez differentiated customer success from support by describing it as "being proactive versus reactive" and centered on driving outcomes and adoption. She argued that customer success should report high in an organization so that the CEO receives regular feedback. Martinez also addressed churn, calling it "the number one issue for CEOs in software and SaaS." She said that in enterprise settings, churn is often measured as a loss of revenue or footprint rather than losing the customer entirely, and she advocated focusing on use cases rather than products. During the crisis, she advised companies to "not waste a crisis" and to use the opportunity to demonstrate value to customers. She emphasized that partners are integral to the customer experience at Cisco and that human relationships remain important despite technology.
“When I came to Cisco ... we realized it was much more than the traditional customer success — we need to look at the end-to-end experience from the customer that starts from the very beginning, from the moment that we market to customers, when we sell them and then when we onboard them — so we're thinking about the exp...”
“I think the key element that differentiates customer success from support is being proactive versus reactive — customer success is more about driving outcomes, onboarding and adoption, not just reacting to issues.”
“Customer success becomes a function that really needs to report pretty high up in the organization — many times it gets buried and becomes tactical; the CEO should be hearing that feedback every day so they can steer the ship better.”
“Churn is the number one issue for CEOs in software and SaaS right now — in a recurring revenue business the core of our business is our customers, and customer success is existential to your company; it's what’s going to keep your company going.”
“Don't waste a crisis — this is a time to be agile and adjust to what a customer needs; the crisis allows us to elevate our value in a customer's eyes and we must capture that to make it an ongoing motion.”
“We are focusing on use cases versus products — in enterprise churn is often about overall footprint and revenue, not necessarily losing the customer; measure churn as loss of revenue and think about which use cases map to value.”
“Partners are a big part of the customer experience because most of our business goes through partners — we design plays and content with them, certify partners, and take ownership for the unified experience so customers don't have to navigate multiple vendors.”
“Despite all the telemetry and technology, human relationships still really matter — customer success teams need training in relationship management and should focus on customers' professional goals, not just tasks.”
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