All companies can benefit from customer feedback. However, sometimes you need something beyond what a focus group can offer. A customer advisory board works with you to actively solve problems and improve upon existing products and practices.
Some great insights can be gained about your business from these groups. The synergy of multiple people in the discussion can provide better ideas than one-on-one conversations.
Josh Patrick in a blog post for the New York Times offers the following advice:
1. Make sure there is a curmudgeon in the group.
“I put an outspoken customer in one of our groups — again, by accident,” said Patrick. “This time we were working on strategies for our catering division. For the first half hour, I felt like I was pulling teeth. Everyone was being way too polite. Finally, the outspoken member saved the meeting. When he started talking, it was like a floodgate opened. All of the sudden, everyone had ideas about what we could do better — and I got an earful about all of the things we were doing wrong.”
It can be difficult to listen to criticism, but the honest feedback will give something to work with.
2. Let board members speak from only their own point of view.
“At one meeting, several advisory board members were adamant that health food should be sold in our vending machines,” said Patrick. “They said it wasn’t fair that we only sold junk food and suggested we would stand out from our rivals if we offered healthy alternatives. This sounded like a reasonable idea to me. We bought a significant quantity of health food and loaded it in our machines — and then, as the expiration dates came due, we took it out of the machines and threw almost all of it away. At our next meeting I asked our members if they had bought any of the health food. None had.”
The lesson here is that unless people are willing to spend their own money on an idea, it’s probably a lousy idea.
3. Make sure your members take home something of value.
“When customers join your advisory board, they’re doing you a big favor,” said Patrick. “I found that if I wanted their continued participation, I needed to make it worth their time. Offering members the chance to talk with each other about their best practices is a compelling lure. At our vending advisory board meetings, we encouraged the participants to discuss their purchasing policies for services like ours.”
It’s also a good idea to send your advisory board members a report on what you’ve done with their suggestions. When they feel a stake in the success, these members will become ardent advocates for your company.
4. Rotate the membership.
“The purpose of the board is to make your business better,” said Patrick. “If you have eight customers on the board, it’s a good idea to swap out two at every meeting. By rotating members, you bring in people with fresh ideas. Just be sure to keep at least one curmudgeon around.”
While it depends on the nature of your business, your board could meet twice a year. If you meet more often, you may not have anything new to discuss. Less often, and you may lose continuity.
