Numbers to Know When Planning Your Customer Advisory Board Program

We often get questions around best practice “numbers” when initiating or improving a customer advisory board (CAB) program. And while these might vary depending on your company, industry or program maturity, here are the best practice figures we’ve distilled after hundreds of engagements, and that we recommend for any CAB program:

3: Minimum years duration a CAB program should be established.

CAB programs should be established with long-term benefits in mind in order to maximize invested time and resources. They should never be started with a single meeting and then “see where it goes” from there.

6: Months recommended before holding your first meeting.

We recommend following a proven process before setting the date of your first CAB meeting. Establishing a charter, recruiting customers the right way, engaging with your members to prioritize topics for your meeting all take time – rushing steps will only produce an inferior meeting experience for your members.

2: Number of years commitment requested for recruited CAB members.

We recommend you ask your CAB members to commit to participate in your program for two years for them (and your company) to maximize their benefit. Members of well-run programs can and do stay longer should both parties be benefitting from ongoing participation.

30: Number of executive customers you should nominate to recruit for your CAB program.

You’ll need to target more CAB members than you’ll need, as some may not be able to join your program for myriad reasons. These can include they don’t have the time, their role is changing, they’re too new to your product, etc. Although, in our experience, most executives invited will accept your offer, you have to recruit knowing that some will simply be unable to do so.

15-18: Number of members on your CAB roster.

We’ve found this is a good, healthy number of current, active members for a robust CAB program.

12-14: Number of CAB members attending your meeting.

This is an ideal amount to attend your meeting (either in-person or virtual) to ensure time so that everyone is heard and contributes. Keep in mind that not all of your CAB members will be able to attend your meeting due to, again, myriad reasons such as professional (e.g. audit season) or personal (e.g. vacation) conflicts, and it’s always a challenge to find an ideal date and time that works for everyone. Lastly, plan on a couple members bailing out on your meeting last minute for myriad reasons (sickness, travel issues, urgent business developments, etc.).

20-23: Total number of people attending your CAB meeting.

Your CAB meeting should be a gathering of like-minded business colleagues with shared challenges. That means you don’t want to overwhelm your members by having too many of your own host company executives attending. In fact, we recommend you budget about half the amount of company attendees compared to customers attending. Anyone from your company attending a CAB meeting should have a purpose (e.g. leading a session or be a relevant department head). Those not attending can learn customer insights from the created meeting report. Do include a skilled meeting facilitator and note-taker – ideally experienced third parties.

2: Number of in-person meetings held per year.

Any more is likely too much of a burden on your CAB members. Any less (i.e. one) creates too long of a time period between meetings. (Quarterly conference calls can also keep CAB meeting momentum going.

80: Percent your CAB members should talk during your CAB meeting.

Following the 80/20 rule in which your members speak most of the time (host company just 20 percent) will ensure discussions are lively and focused on desired solutions. That means your company should not just present to your CAB members the whole time, but pose meeting goals, decision options be reviewed, and engaging exercises conducted to get members out of their seats and prioritizing issues and desired product capabilities.

5: minutes spent opening and closing each session.

When starting a new session, start by introducing the topic – why you are discussing it, from where the topic came up previously, etc. – and your session goals and the questions you are attempting to get answered by your CAB members. Starting your session with this information “frames” the discussion and gets members thinking about potential solutions.

On the other end, each session leader should close each session with a summary of what they heard, potential actions and remedies, and next steps towards potentially addressing these.

24: Percentage higher on average of annual sales enjoyed by businesses with strong customer advisory board programs compared to companies who don’t have one.

In addition, according to that study on advisory boards, sales growth was stronger after instituting an advisory board. In the first three years after an advisory board was set up, sales grew 66.8% compared with a growth of 22.9% in the three previous years.

Set up your Advisory Board for success

Organizing your CAB program with these figures in mind can set expectations of your members and management, and ensure your program is set for maximum success. Ignite CAB experts can help you design a high-impact advisory board—tailored to your goals, structured for engagement, and optimized for long-term impact. Contact us today to schedule a free CAB strategy call.