One of the hardest things to do in this post-COVID environment is to make high-quality investment decisions. Much of our legacy informal relationship work is simply not there – our quarterly review sessions, customer visits, and regular product and services trade shows.
Whether you are a division of a large enterprise or highly-targeted SaaS in growth mode, the dilemma remains:
How do you get the insight you need to apportion your resources in the now for the best outcomes in the future?
Many firms have a periodic informal feedback session with clients. These are valuable in their zone, but lack one key element: real-time, peer-to-peer client interaction. While some have concerns over peer-to-peer client interaction, in this age of instant digital connection, your best clients are going to get to know each other inevitably. The Customer Advisory Board formalizes and shapes it, which adds value to both you and your client base. These Boards take the form of an invitation-only board of key users, curated for their ability to add valuable insight to both the sponsoring firm, but also the other clients present. These are exclusive, structured events that typically occur on a roughly 9 – 15 month rotation.
Post COVID, many product teams are seeking clear and unambiguous direction, and these forums can be very useful. Let’s take a minute to unpack the pluses and minuses.
The Pluses
Putting in the time and effort to create a CAB is rewarded with several benefits. One of the first is the speed of input. By having a quality network of dialogue, firms will consistently be on top of shifts that might go unnoticed through regular, day-to-day transactional dialogue. Secondly, there is an ability to receive feedback quickly, and on new products and services, shortening the traditional maturation process of new services introductions. Finally, those firms that stick with it find that the long-term benefits are substantial, including the ability to see much farther down the road than a typical “slice in time” market study would allow.
Well put together, you’ll also enjoy a candidness in feedback that is truly a gift. Once the relationships are established, you’ll hear things directly that people on your team may know, but will rarely tell you directly.
The Price
It takes work and investment. Let me emphasize, this is a big lift for the first couple of cycles.
Once you’ve decided on this direction, it’s best to pencil out a clear value proposition and a roster of potential founding members. This becomes the start of a blueprint for a cross-functional effort to get this shared forum in place.
Next, you need to rough out a charter that makes it clear that this is a non-binding advisory group, sponsored by the firm and chaired jointly by an appropriate internal Senior Executive and is made up of (Mostly Senior Executive) peers who meet 3-5 times over 36 months to work on themed and predetermined agendas. There needs to be authentic reciprocal value in the customer to customer dialogue as well as the firm’s communication with its key stakeholding customers.
Building the agenda is an art. There needs to be real meaty topical dialogue and discussion time for bigger questions than just products and services. Having a skilled facilitator to help draw out strengths and mutual blind spots can yield major insights for you to build into your strategic planning. The facilitator needs to be a neutral party, and keep the group on track for mutual value add, steering the conversation between the ditches to allow everyone to make their contribution and build their hunger to participate. A facilitator can monitor the group and diplomatically ensure that quiet members are heard, that breaks are taken to maintain energy, and create pivots that keep the dialogue rich, original, and fresh.
Lastly, the establishment of a quality chairman from your firm cannot be overemphasized. This person must be purposeful, diplomatic, and create a zone where the balance of the group looks forward to participating.
The Pitfalls
As you can imagine, these can go off the rails in a variety of ways. Common issues are:
- Burning out from meeting too frequently (quarterly is way too often)
- Getting off to a great start, and then fading (don’t just meet because it’s time – have an agenda that creates fresh ground)
- Having customers substitute junior executives in lieu of the named leader
- Be sure to have a legal team member brief you on anticompetitive pitfalls before you inadvertently wander into a discussion that is across the line
The Practices
There are some practices I’ve used that can forestall some of the above and yield a natural vibrancy.
- Exclusivity. This needs to be a small group, something like +/- 12 people. Any more and it’s hard to get a quality single table (or single zoom screen) dialogue underway. The participants will quickly recognize whether this is a quality use of their time, and one of the biggest ways you can validate that is to have true most senior executive peers in attendance.
- Curated. In the spirit of having a vibrant group, be sure to specifically architect the participants by their level of insight, technical knowledge, and willingness to collaborate. There should be a collegial atmosphere, and a willingness to speak the truth diplomatically.
- Purposeful. Each session needs to be themed and have a jointly developed agenda that takes the group into deep water discussions that people recognize are fresh and don’t occur anywhere else. This is not the time to have a lengthy, one-way presentation from the sponsoring team – there are other pathways for those. This needs to be bi-directional, tight, and consistently valuable.
- Coherent. You’ll want to be sure that you haven’t mixed firm sizes and needs in the creation of the group. One of the fastest ways to get off the track is to have one boisterous firm that is an outlier dominate the meeting and pull the agenda sideways.
Holding these virtually ups the need for preparation and planning. It’s important to make an investment in socializing the agenda, and ideally have short discussions prior to the meeting to be sure to have the right balance of focused pre-determined discussion, development of the group’s agenda, and “flex time” to follow the highly valuable spontaneous dialogue.
A Neutral Voice
The start-up phase of these groups set the culture, momentum, and pattern that will live on within the group. I’ve had the privilege of sponsoring, participating, facilitating and advising clients on their formation.
If you’d like to explore whether this approach would serve your needs, (or relaunching one that has gone off the track) please reach out to me at 847-651-1014, or set up a 20-minute chat using this link.
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