Nothing Beats Face-to-Face Conversations with Customers
For organizations with an uncompromised commitment to customer engagement, there is no better way to interact with your most strategic clients than by incorporating a Customer Advisory Board into your overall strategy. Meeting in person at an off-site location two to three times per year provides the atmosphere needed to not only gain great insights, but also to build deeper trusting relationships.
We build your meeting agendas to provide ample opportunity for 1:1 conversations, group networking and fun activities that all lead to trust, respect, and loyalty.
“As someone who has built and sold multiple companies, I can say with certainty that a Customer Advisory Board is one of the best investments an organization can make to ensure long term growth and sustainability. I have witnessed The Congruity Group’s world-class delivery of a critical initiative for the C-Suite, and I highly recommend you make the call today to talk with Congruity.
“Customer Advisory Boards are mutually beneficial to participating customers and the host company. There exists a symbiotic relationship between the customer and product/service provider. The CAB affords participating customers the opportunity to provide critical feedback and influence future offerings, and the vendor gains invaluable information re: its products and services and market trends.”
Providing a unique value proposition
for your customers is a competitive advantage.
Oftentimes people ask why high-level executives would take time out of their busy schedules to help a supplier or vendor. There are many answers to this question, including:
- Ability to influence the direction of a key partner
- A chance to engage with peers who share similar challenges
- Opportunity to see future product roadmaps
- Insight into the strategic direction of the host company
- Sharing of best practices
- Working together to address issues within the industry
- Co-innovation with service providers
- Build deeper relationships with industry peers
- Providing meaningful thought leadership
Offering your customers these and other unique advantages is of high value and builds loyalty in a way that your competitors are likely overlooking. The very best way to create these key strategic outcomes is to meet in person in an atmosphere that is conducive to dialogue, relationship building, and fun.
FAQs for Customer Advisory Boards
The following areas in which executive input/availability is required to maintain a successful Customer Advisory Board:
- Approval of Board Charter, member invitation list, selected communications, high-level agenda, meeting content (Approx. 8-12 hours per year)
- Availability to attend 2-3 pre-meeting prep sessions (~1 days per year)
- Availability to attend 2-3 off site Customer Advisory Board Meetings (6-8 days per year)
- Availability to attend post-meeting debrief (2-3 hours per year)
- Availability to attend between-meeting virtual calls with members (2-3 hours per year)
We recommend assigning an internal project manager to be our point person throughout the engagement. This generally requires a 1-hour weekly touchpoint meeting with our team and internal management of the process. We work directly with this contact and guide the process, doing as much of the heavy lifting as possible to create a highly impactful Customer Advisory Board.
We have a 26-point recruiting methodology to ensure we construct an advisory board that is balanced and with whom we know we can gain the insights you are seeking. A few of our criteria are: Account value, tenure as customer, strength of relationship, products/services purchased, gender, geographic location, and many more. We establish rolling terms to ensure continuity while new ideas and energy are brought to the conversations.
This is the fun part! Congruity will help design a meaningful agenda that provides value to your company and the board members. There are many areas of the business in which customers can (and should) be invited to provide feedback. Some of the most popular session topics we’ve experienced include:
- Corporate strategy
- Technology
- Industry trends and drivers
- Operational excellence
- Customer priorities
- Pricing and business models
- Product roadmap
- Brand or Product Marketing
Your Congruity team gathers all of the feedback from the meetings, and then synthesizes, evaluates, and presents the findings, including suggested action items. This information is presented in a virtual Debrief meeting to the executive team where we can collectively discuss and agree on the path forward. We then work with our project manager to ensure that the action items are getting traction so that progress can be reported back to the board.
The cost is dependent upon each company’s current situation; however, in most cases, the annual cost to set up and manage a Customer Advisory Board from the ground up is roughly equivalent to the cost of hiring a mid-level experienced salesperson.