A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is a high-return, high-profile event that can heavily influence your company's competitive standing. A successful CAB provides a powerful format that turns customers into true advocates and provides executives with the information needed to align customer programs with company strategy. A formal Customer Advisory Board should be in your marketing and strategic arsenal for 2013.

A well structured Customer Advisory Board is a proven and dynamic program that helps executives and decision makers develop a deep understanding of market conditions while simultaneously building relationships with key customers. A CAB is the perfect avenue for B2B Companies that have more than 60% of their sales with their top customers to receive relevant feedback that can be used in strategic business planning. A Customer Advisory Board not only helps your organization retain your most profitable customers, a CAB will help increase revenue opportunities within your customer base.

A Customer Advisory Board creates a platform where you can leverage happy customers and drive innovation through customer co-design and collaboration. The end result is an overall market alignment in offerings, communications and strategy that will prepare your organization for profitability in 2013 and beyond.

 

The need for customer advocacy and its tremendous potential in business success is only recently being realized by businesses across the globe. In a nut shell, by integrating Customer Advocacy into their long-term strategic goals, businesses can enjoy higher levels of customer satisfaction, customer retention, and profitability.

What is Customer Advocacy?

Customer advocacy is a process that has essentially originated from customer services. The aim of customer advocacy is to focus on the various things that customers are most interested in, or that the business thinks are of immense appeal to them. Customer advocacy essentially redirects the strategic focus of the underlying culture of the business so that it becomes more customer-oriented or customer friendly when devising its marketing techniques and customer service agenda.

The Role of Customer Advocates

A customer advocate essentially serves as a liaison between the business and the customer where they focus their efforts on facilitating both the sides. A successful and effective customer advocacy business model is usually one that covers all facets related to customer contact. This can include products, sales, services and complaints. As a result, customer advocates are trained in a myriad of cross-functional roles so that they are well-equipped to assist valuable customers in all areas of the business.

Evolving Satisfied Customers to Advocates

The B2B Executive Playbook is a tremendous resource that discusses case studies of several B2B organizations that have successfully evolved satisfied customers to advocates through customer programs such as: Customer Advisory Boards, Executive Sponsor Programs, and Executive Summits to achieve sustainable, predictable and profitable growth.

 

With the threat of downsizing looming around the heads of employees in any basic firm, the whole concept of ‘working smarter’ has become the lifeblood and sustenance of employees in a work place, given the demand of efficiency despite the sparse budget and abysmal headcount.

What are the best tips for Accelerating Sales

There are some ways in which you can efficiently cause accelerating sales which benefit your company and its employees. These include Customer Advisory Boards or Councils and Executive Summits

Customer Advisory Boards (CAB) or Counciils (CAC)

A Customer Advisory Board is a high-return, high-profile event that can heavily influence your company's competitive standing. A successful CAB provides a powerful format that turns customers into true advocates and provides executives with the information needed to align customer programs with company strategy. A formal Customer Advisory Board should be in your marketing and strategic arsenal.

Executive Summits

Executive Summits are one-time centralized or regional events – that bring key decision-makers together to preview a strategy, product or market innovation. Through these focused exchanges, customers become first-to-know, first-to-buy and first to advocate your solution in the marketplace.

Rob Urbanowicz, Principal at Geehan Group wil be presenting at the CFG October Round Table in San Francisco October 11-13, 2011.

Session Outline:
The expanding role of the B2B chief marketer requires a rare skill and level of business savvy that is far beyond the messaging and creativity of a brand marketer in the B2C space.  Advancing the role of the B2B marketer to a strategist, innovation catalyst, growth generator, customer loyalty advocate and business partner is the new norm.

We will explore how B2B companies are rebalancing marketing budgets and focusing on the programs and relationships that propel organizations to develop executable growth strategies.  Participants will share perspectives regarding their challenges in executing customer engagement programs that drive strategic value.  Sharing real situations, Rob Urbanowicz will speak to the examples and approaches where “Top Customer” programs have advanced organizations to:

• Engage your most valuable customers in highly relevant and meaningful ways to capture market insight, align your senior executives and deliver a market driven strategy
• Differentiate you from other providers while systematically building deeper relationships and account penetration
  

For more information regarding this event please contact: meetings@cfgglobal.com

As the midyear approaches, have you taken a look at whether or not you are on track to reach your yearend sales goals? If you are behind or want to exceed your 2011 sales goals, now is the time to plan and execute an Executive Summit.

Benefits of Executive Summits include:
• Customers selling customers
• Executive contact with customers
• Accelerated sales cycles

Tom Webster from i-Trade Network was quoted: "By having customers talk about their solutions, it was exponentially more credible than presenting.  It was so real in content and a huge deal flow accelerator.  Those who attended this conference showed a close rate that was 300% higher than those who didn’t.   Time-to-close for this group was nearly cut in half as well, which was great for cash flow. “

An Executive Summit is a B2B Customer Program where your best customers become your true advocates with potential customers.  A properly designed and executed Executive Summit is a proven event that successfully drives and accelerates sales, and can be implemented across mulitiple industries.

There are many different names used to describe a Customer Advisory Board but the end goal of the Board, Council or Panel is ultimately the same. A Customer Advisory Board (CAB), Customer Advisory Council or Customer Advisory Panel are all terms used to describe a program that connects executives (decision makers) with current market conditions while simultaneously building relationships with their key customers.

Customer Advisory Boards create an environment where key customers or customer advocates can contribute and help drive internal alignment with your B2B Company Strategy and provide actionable feedback.  Professionally run and facilitated Customer Advisory Boards have proven to:

As excited as I get when we start working with a new client on a Customer Advisory Council, Executive Sponsor Program or Executive Summit, I must admit that even more, I love the long-term relationships we have established.  And to add to that, I REALLY get pumped when I see the results of a long-term plan successfully play out.

One of my clients has literally done things by the book (and by "book" I mean The B2B Executive Playbook by Sean Geehan).  This particular organization has successfully implemented global Customer Advisory Counicls that are second to none and which have resulted in market alignment that has them emerging as an industry leader in an industry undergoing major transformation.

After the foundation of their customer engagement program was solidified via their Councils, they then began a series of Summits, leveraging some of their customer advocates through relationships which were built through the Councils.  These customers not only agreed to, but actually volunteered to speak on behalf of our client at industry functions and educational forums. Their circle of influencers has grown significantly as a result of these customer engagement initiatives.

In this day of layoffs, reduced budgets and travel allotments that have all but been eliminated, I find this next comment to be phenomenal.  The Summit they are conducting as we speak is SOLD OUT!  Industry leaders from all over the United States have gathered in California to hear what our client and their customers have to say, and they actually had to cut off the attendance more than a week prior to the event.

It's often tempting to look at customer engagement initiatives as one-off events rather than a roadmap to long-term success for sustainable growth.  But for those companies which take a long-term, strategic approach, and then facilitate the engagement of their senior leaders with the senior leaders of their top customers, the rewards can be exponential with each passing year.

The title of this blog is also the answer to my last blog, Do You Want Satisfied Customers, Loyal Customers or Customer Advocates?  You definitely want Customer Advocates!

We understand the differences between satisfied customers, loyal customers and customer advocates.  But more important to understand is ... How do I go about getting customer advocates?

One way is through a Customer Advisory Board program.  These initiatives are made up of 15-25 decision makers from your top accounts.  Unlike other marketing or sales activities that are focused on lead generation or closed deals, Customer Advisory Boards are focused on building and enhancing relationships at higher levels and securing market insight necessary to keep your business ahead of the competition.  These programs provide the "voice of the customer" to your executive leadership team through a structured program where you can:

• Engage in business-level discussions to understand "their world" and the direction of the market
• Gain the input you need to drive your organization's strategy, internal alignment and priorities
• Integrate customer feedback to ensure market alignment, organizational direction and improve the relevancy of your offerings
• Become a trusted advisor and deliver value that differentiates you from other vendors

By helping your top customers solve their biggest problems and achieve their biggest aspirations, they naturally become advocates for you in the market.  They are willing to tell others about their experiences with you in a number of ways: 

• Speak at an event
• Co-author a white paper
• Serve as a reference
• Participate in a case study

Earlier this year, Geehan Group conducted research of over 70 companies who operate a variety of Customer Programs.  Here is what the research told us:



How would you like to have up to 94% of your top customers Willing to Recommend your products, services and/or solutions?  Those are truly customer advocates! 

Take time today to review your list of top customers, then imagine having them all in a room together with your leadership team discussing their biggest challenges.  You'll learn ways you can help solve those challenges and build closer, more valuable relationships ... while planting the seeds for future customer advocates!

When developing a Customer Engagement Program, it is imperative not to think of the Council meetings, Summits, and Executive Sponsor meetings as one-off events to cross off your list of things you have to do.  When viewed as an ongoing initiative, the results are much more formidable and lasting.

Case in point:  One of our long-term clients could be viewed as a poster child for how to effectively create a customer engagement program and then above that, how to leverage the heck out of it.

After 4+ years of conducting advisory councils around the globe, the list of customer advocates they have created has grown significantly.  In fact, so strong are the relationships that at an upcoming Advisory Council meeting, three council member alums have agreed to not only come back to attend the meeting, but also to take on an active role in the agenda, speaking on the topic of collaboration opportunities with their end-users.  Our client is the conduit for discussions not only between themselves and their customers, but also between peers in their particular industry.  I believe it would be hard to find someone who could argue that this interaction does not solidify account retention. 

I can't overstate the importance of including Customer Engagement in your B2B strategies.  Additionally, thinking for the long-term is of extreme importance not only for market alignment, but for creating customer advocates to help validate your standing as a trusted adviser.

For more on leveraging happy customers, go to www.geehangroup.com/services/executive-summits/

You've previously heard me talk about the benefits of Customer Advisory Panels from the vantage point of the host company.  Among the many benefits is that these panels often create advocates, the power of which is undeniable.

Springer, a publisher of Science, Medical and Technology (STM) content just released their quarterly eNewsletter to members of their Global Library Advisory Board (LAB) program.  In it were not one, but two articles penned by members of their councils.  Not only is this significant because of what they had to say, but these members are influential within their industry and respective geographic regions, and people naturally pay attention to what they have to say.

Rob Haran, Electronic Resources Manager at Shire in the UK and a veteran LAB member had this to say about the benefits of collaborating with Springer via the advisory council:

"This innovative interaction with a major supplier benefits Shire and the other customers in two principal ways:  Firstly, we (the customers) have an early insight into future Springer developments which is essential if we are to develop our own information resources to to take advantage of these developments.  Secondly, industry has a chance to communicate directly with the supplier experts and collectively influence Springer strategy."

Another LAB member, Houeida Kammourie-Charara from Lebanon noted the importance of having direct access to the leadership team at Springer. 

"Springer spirit was a major factor in the sucess of the LAB.  The presence of Presidents and VPs and their interaction with other colleagues is a model that, in my opinion, should be followed by other companies."  She continued, "One of the LAB objectives was to improve the strategic partnership between Springer and their customers.  I think Springer attained this objective in a bright way."

So if you have customers who will advocate on your behalf and who clearly recognize the value of engaging in high-level strategic discussions, why would any company make a conscious decision not to take the same course of action?