Why A Customer Advisory Board

Good relationships are about honesty, trust, and a shared commitment to agreed upon goals and mutual success. For clients to trust you, or anyone for that matter, you need to make commitments and follow through on the promises made or clearly communicate why the goal posts moved. One of the best ways to demonstrate this behavior is through a Customer Advisory Board.

Value of a Customer Advisory Board

Customer Advisory Boards are more than meetings, they bring your customers into your organization’s strategy and create an ongoing iterative process whereby your customers help you to make the best bets you can with your strategy and investments.The best Boards are those where customers are committed to helping your company succeed and offer unvarnished, trusted advice to you and your team that help you improve. In recent Board sessions we have seen our clients benefit from the following:

Validation and Evolution of Strategy

Sharing your strategy and perceived differentiation with your customers enables an open discussion to help further define and shape your business, product and services strategies.

New Product Ideas

In interactive discussions, clients will understand your product roadmap and provide their point of view on the market opportunity and competitive set.

Investment Prioritization

By understanding what is most important to your customers, you can prioritize your plans and investment dollars.

New Markets and Lines of Business

As you consider entering new geographies or new lines of business, customer advisory groups serve as a strong sounding board to test and evolve your assumptions.

Customer Advisory Boards bring tremendous value to you and your customers and through a well-defined approach can help to deliver ongoing reciprocal value for the long term. In our future posts we will provide details on how to facilitate meaningful and effective customer boards.