So you’ve held your customer advisory board (CAB) meeting, and it seems to have gone well – congratulations!
You probably (hopefully) have pages of notes from your meeting note taker. You’ve got sheets of marked up flip charts and whiteboards, and plenty of feedback and ideas from your meeting attendees.
The next step after your meeting is to create a strong meeting report; one that will be shared internally within your company and shared with externally with all your participating CAB members.
After all, your CAB members will be pleased to know their input has been well documented, and that their suggestions will be well on their way to being implemented.
As it’s ideal for summarizing concepts and including visuals, PowerPoint remains the best format to use for your meeting report.
But what key elements should be included in your meeting report? Here are the top 10:
1. Meeting Attendees
Include a list of everyone that attended the meeting. Include customers (including their titles and company names), host company participants, and any outside speakers and third-party facilitators. Bonus points to include participants headshots and company logos.
2. Agenda
Include the meeting agenda, including each topic, session leader(s) and the timelines for all days, as well as all social activities. The idea is to include everything a reader who was not present at the meeting might want to know.
3. Survey Results
Your CAB members likely provided positive feedback to your meeting. It’s good to include their feedback, comments and scores early in the meeting report, so the reader (perhaps your superiors) will see them.
4. Executive Summary
A quick summary of each session and customer feedback heard is appreciated by those who may not have time to read your entire report.
Plus, the summary can serve as an enticement for those folks to read the entire report.
Finally, the summary can be ideal if you are asked to quickly present the results of your meeting to your superiors or perhaps at a company all-hands meeting.
5. Photos
Keep your meeting report visually interesting. Include photos taken at your meeting – of the attendees in the meeting and ideally a fun group shot taken at an interesting location, such as your social activity or with a cityscape in the background. Also, be sure to capture any notes written on flip charts or whiteboards.
6. Session highlights
While you don’t need to include a lot of detail on what was presented (you have the slides after all), it’s important to summarize customer input, feedback, ideas, desires, complaints, etc. No need for a transcript; just include the big ideas.
Be honest with all feedback good and bad; these ideas will help drive the actions that can be taken as a result of your meeting.
7. Best comments and questions
Often, a customer comment or question can help encapsulate and summarize the discussion itself. For example, if a customer comments, “I didn’t even know you offered a support line,” a resulting action you may want to take would be to better communicate and promote your available support phone number.
8. Potential actions
Speaking of actions, it’s a good idea to include potential ones right in the report – ideally next to the customer comment. Remember, you are not obligated to act and complete each and every potential action – that’s up to you and your management.
But the reader – and ideally your customers – will see that you are taking their input seriously and using it to make material improvements.
9. Topics for next meeting
Often in CAB meetings, additional topics come up – from your customers or your own management – that you may not have time to get to. Capture these on a flip chart sheet to ensure you don’t forget them, and include these in the meeting report.
In addition, your post-meeting surveys should ask about desired topics for future meetings, so include these suggestions here as well.
10. Communication timeline
All meeting participants and report readers should know what the next steps are in your CAB program. That means including the dates and location of the next meeting and any planned interim conference calls. Doing so not only shows how well organized your CAB program is, but increases participation by your customer members as well.
Use your meeting report to propel your CAB forward
A strong meeting report serves as a record of your CAB meeting and a springboard to taking actions as a result of the input your heard. The meeting report also serves as a roadmap to the next steps in your program. Doing a great job on this will show your customers and your management that their investment in your program has been an insightful and valuable one.
At Ignite, we help you craft detailed and actionable CAB meeting reports that capture the essence of your discussions and provide clear next steps. Our expertise in facilitating CAB meetings ensures that all voices are heard and that the insights gathered are effectively translated into strategic actions. If you’re looking for help to manage these critical customer engagements – your CAB program – let us know and we’ll connect you with an Ignite CAB expert.
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.