“What Is the Difference Between Focus Groups and Customer Advisory Boards?

• Focus Groups: This focus is always more feature, function, about a product rollout – it’s customer input but at the very feature, function, detail, and technical level. The biggest warning you need to know about focus groups is that a lot of the people who end up in this group are too close to the market and they will squash good innovation due to their own thought process, comfort level with current offerings, or even nostalgia.
• Customer Advisory Boards: Strategic executive level engagement, ongoing initiative, decision maker to decision maker, to find out where the customers are heading to get there before they do. When they need you, you’re already there, one step ahead. The biggest piece of advice I can give you on using a customer advisory board is to let an expert handle the process for you.”