Now that you and your team have created (and reviewed) all your customer advisory board (CAB) meeting content, provided meeting instructions to all your attending customers and procured and confirmed all meeting activities, you’re almost ready to hold your actual meeting!
We recommend one final internal meeting before engaging with your customers: the onsite prep meeting. This meeting should be mandatory for all host-company CAB meeting participants. You want to ensure everyone is informed before getting in front of your customers. It can take place right before your welcome reception, in the room where your meeting will take place, and for at least 90 minutes to go through everything.
Here’s what you should cover at the onsite CAB meeting prep:
1. Meeting guidance
Review with all your company attendees the meeting participation ground rules, and the meeting goals and objectives. Remind them that CABs are created to collect feedback and insights from members – not to sell them or attempt to rectify any isolated incidents. Such review is especially important to those attending your CAB for the first time, to ensure they do not sidetrack the discussion. Also review roles and responsibilities, including your meeting facilitator, note-taker, event planner (for any room needs), etc.
2. Meeting documents
Review any and all documents that will be a part of the meeting, including your post-meeting surveys, key takeaway forms (for host-company participants to complete) and any meeting content or pre-meeting handouts that were sent to members in advance (that your host-company attendees have hopefully already reviewed).
3. Post-meeting deliverables
Let your executives know the expected outcome materials from your CAB meeting. These should include a detailed CAB meeting report that can be shared internally within your company, and externally to your CAB members. In addition, describe how potential actions will be reviewed, prioritized and undertaken. (We recommend a robust action tracker document and process.)
4. Account reviews
We recommend reviewing all the customers who will be attending your meeting. Review their positions, how long they’ve been in their roles, duration of CAB program participation, meeting attendance, etc. More importantly, review what solutions of yours they use, how successful they’ve been, any issues or hiccups, and when they are (hopefully) renewing their purchase. Doing this will eliminate any account surprises, or prepare everyone for issues the customer may bring up.
5. Meeting agenda
Go through your entire meeting agenda, session lengths, break times, activity logistics, etc. While your company attendees may already know some of this, this will be the last time to review instructions and, again, eliminate any surprises.
6. All content
Your host company participants have (hopefully) been attending your pre-meeting content reviews. This prep-meeting is the last opportunity to review everything one final time before getting in front of your customers. Ensure you don’t have any issues with any customer-facing content. Your prep meeting will be the last chance to catch any outdated or sensitive content.
7. Breakout instructions
Be sure all participants know what they are doing during planned breakout sessions. While some may be leading these, make sure everyone is clear on their roles, breakout instructions and materials, what your customers are asked to accomplish and the desired breakout goals, outcomes and potential next steps.
8. Next Steps
Review with your executives the plans after your meeting ends. This can include when any follow-up communications will be sent, including distribution of the meeting report. But also include your next planned meeting dates; either online conference calls or the planned date and location of your next in-person meeting.
Don’t Skip the Onsite CAB Meeting Prep
Your onsite CAB prep meeting presents your last opportunity to prepare all your company participants for the engagement, what they will be seeing and doing and what to expect during and after the meeting. As such, all your company CAB meeting participants should be expected to attend – at your meeting’s own peril if they don’t. Need help getting your team ready for an upcoming CAB meeting – or for any aspect of your CAB? Connect with us to ensure you set up your next CAB meeting for success and high engagement.
Ignite Advisory Group is the leading global authority on Customer Advisory Boards and Customer-Led Boards. Ignite’s proven methodology for managing and evolving Customer Advisory Boards includes a 4-stage process, encompassing 48 deliverables and measured by 20 metrics to deliver a clear ROI. To learn more about Ignite, visit our website, read our blogs, and follow us on LinkedIn. To find out how your company can benefit from Ignite’s CAB methodology and process, contact us today.