Customer advisory boards can be a big win for a company and its customers if they’re handled well, with the right resourcing, clear expectations and ensuring it’s a valuable experience for members and the company.

“They offer a curated group of customers the opportunity to network, get access to company leaders and plans, and learn from peers and subject matter experts,” said Amy Bills, VP, principal analyst, customer engagement strategies at Forrester.

Convene, which specializes in event venues and work spaces for large enterprises in the U.S. and U.K., runs two client advisory boards out of London and New York.

CABs ensure its offerings are the right fit for customers, according to James Frankis, head of product at Convene, who manages the CAB program. Working in tandem, but geared around the particular customer sets in each country, Convene’s CABs guide the business as the market, customers and their requirements evolve.

“Out of our most recent U.K. board, we got a host of ideas and concepts that we wouldn't have come up with without that input,” said Frankis.

CABs serve as an important forum for testing and validating ideas about new products and offerings, something that can’t be done in isolation without customer input.

“You're evolving constantly, so it’s making sure you've got regular touch points where you can put your product in front of customers and ask if it’s right or it’s wrong,” Frankis said. “The CAB format allows you to zoom out and get anecdotal, qualitative and big picture feedback and that’s so important for customer experience.”

Best practices and common pitfalls

CABs are, by nature, high-touch, require in-depth account knowledge and need to be engaging for the CAB members, according to Bills. This requires financial resources and personnel who can devote time to ensuring the CAB has value for all involved. 

From the outset, clear expectations are needed for members to understand the time commitment, frequency of meetings and expected tenure. 

“Most customer advisory board misfires occur when expectations are not clear and resources are not realistic,” Bills said.

Proper planning, orchestrating deliberate, strategic conversations, and following up are crucial elements for effective CAB meetings, according to Jeff Marcoux, founder and CEO of Sphere Strategy, who has stood up several CABs in past roles.

Marcoux advises against using them as a direct sales opportunity. Instead, build the CAB around the people and types of accounts the business is targeting in the future. 

“Avoid having disparate customers or discussing completely different products because it won’t be possible to remain relevant to all participants throughout the forum,” he said.

Marcoux believes that once the business has a sustained group of customers, at least 100, there’s enough of a base to work with to adopt a CAB.

“Don’t be put off by thinking there isn’t the time or budget for it. Once you have a foundational set of customers, you’re big enough,” he said.

From there, businesses can set up CABs with between 10 and 20 participants. Even so, it can be challenging to balance the different customer profiles, which might include executives, power users, people from different industries and even people from competing companies.

When CABs meet, as a rule, there's no recording, Marcoux said. But some organizations may need to take it a step further and involve legal, introduce non-disclosure agreements or avoid placing competitors in the same room.

“You want people to feel free to share, engage in discussions and to encourage honest, transparent feedback,” he said.

Delivering value to the business

CAB insights are valuable to the extent feedback is shared widely across the organizations, according to Forrester. However, its research suggests not all organizations follow through on this. 

For nearly 60% of B2B organizations, customer feedback isn’t regularly shared outside the group from which it’s gathered and analyzed, Forrester found in its 2020 benchmark data.

To provide value to the business and CAB members — and to support the business case — Forrester recommends including a plan for improving how insights are captured, shared and measured.

“An executive sponsor for the CAB program helps ensure support, resources, and an internal stage to share success,” Bills said.

At Convene, Frankis has found sharing insights with executives is a powerful way to show that the product team is on the right track to meet customer needs now and in the future with first-hand feedback. 

“We’re able to validate our work with leadership and the company board because we can say: ‘look we’re doing good work and here’s how we know’ through the CAB,” Frankis said.