Cisco’s Global Sales Experience App Keeps Attendees Engaged

Cisco Global Sales Experience (GSX) is Cisco’s training event for its worldwide sales community. Over 17,500 Cisco employees gather in Las Vegas for three days of crucial strategic alignment, learning, networking, mentorship, and celebration.

With attendees from 92 countries speaking dozens of languages, getting everyone aligned poses challenges. The Cisco IT and Global Events team, along with its creative agency partners Sans Serif, Eventbase and FanKave, developed an intelligently designed mobile app called GSX Mobile. This app enhanced GSX attendees’ experience by offering intuitive functionality, outstanding visuals, and unified messaging.

A standout feature of GSX Mobile was a progressive gamified experience called The Quest. This feature encouraged friendly competition among attendees and ultimately deeper event engagement by awarding points for completing tasks and finding hidden QR codes. The tasks began before the event, with activities designed to get attendees primed for their time in Las Vegas. The Quest narrative guided attendees in their pursuit of glory, ultimately striving to become a Quest Legend.

GSX Mobile included all the functionality expected from an event app: session scheduling, personal recommendations, maps, meal locations and more. Cisco reimagined the UI of session scheduling, including a powerful new AI Assistant which included natural language prompts and responses with personalized recommendations, real-time scheduling, and customized learning tracks based on attendee needs. Scheduling in GSX Mobile was simplified with easier-to-navigate user flows and clearer information about session availability, addressing attendee feedback from the 2024 event.

The results of the UI reorganization, the gamified experience, and the sleek design surpassed expectations. Post-event surveys revealed 95% of attendees were beyond satisfied with GSX Mobile and 84% (a 42-point increase from 2024) felt GSX Mobile was useful in helping them navigate the event. The Quest exceeded goals by driving record participation, with 266% growth in Legend status and a 71% increase in tasks completed compared to the previous year.

Overall, GSX Mobile successfully aligned 17,500 attendees, empowering them to maximize their engagement at the training event.