Customer Summits and Customer Advisory Boards

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CUSTOMER SUMMIT AND CABs

What is a Customer Summit? A customer summit is a one-time event designed to bring customers together in much the same way you would for a customer advisory board meeting without the long term board commitment.

What is a CAB?A customer advisory board is a group of customers that meets with the company regularly to discuss strategic business topics. It is an ongoing board that has a defined structure.

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CUSTOMER SUMMIT AS PRECURSOR TO CABAs a first step to potentially setting up a Customer Advisory Board, one approach is to host a one-time Customer Summit

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It allows you to gather feedback and test enthusiasm for an ongoing board

Customers have the opportunity to meet your team as well as other customers in a relaxed setting

You can showcase how you would run advisory board sessions that are designed to maximize customer involvement and provide actionable feedback

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CUSTOMER SUMMIT STRUCTURETiming: Usually customer summits run a full day

# of Customers: The optimal size is no more than 20-30 participants and no fewer than 8-10 participants; staying within this range enables hands-on interaction as well as diversity of thought.

Location: Ideally you would hold the summit at a relaxed offsite location like a hotel, although hosting it at a company location works as long as the space can accommodate the group size and allow for breakouts and other interactions. Company Attendees: During the working session try to limit the number of employees so that the company representatives never outnumber the customers. Representatives from Engineering/Product, Marketing, and Strategy/Innovation are typically present, with Sales taking part in the social piece after the working session.

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SESSION DESIGNInteractive: The session should be interactive, with breakouts and hands-on exercises. Build in more time for the customers to speak rather than the hosts to speak. For example, a 15 minute roadmap presentation could be followed with a brief Q&A but then also include a breakout exercise during which customers articulate what future enhancements would be most valuable for them.* Customer-driven: Breakout sessions should only include the customers to give them the opportunity to interact without intervention from the host company.

Social: Often a customer summit is followed by some sort of social gathering or customer appreciation event, during which additional members of the team, like Sales, can attend.

*Clearworks has a toolkit of interactive exercises; ask us for more details

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SESSION PREPInvitation Criteria: Establish criteria for who you want to invite – i.e., role, level, length of time using your product, decision making influence, user versus non-user, etc.

Customer List: Develop a short-list of customers to invite based on established criteria

Date: Plan a date; you may want to pre-shop the date with top customers to be sure they can attend before finalizing

Invites: Draft and send invitations and follow up with a phone call

Agenda and Exercises: Develop the agenda and prepare interactive exercises and breakouts as well as a session deck and other session materials

Logistics: Plan for logistics (space, equipment, food, etc)

Thank You. At Clearworks we help our clients connect with their customers to create clear and compelling products, services and messages. We get what it takes to bring a product or service idea to life and how to create an actionable plan to get there. We understand what you need to know and how you’re going to use that information to make decisions. Let us bring clarity to your products and services.

customers. connections. clarity.

For more information:

Anne Bakstad anne@clearworks.net

Noël Adamsnoel@clearworks.net