Validate the entire offering package. Work with CAB to define product/service features, pricing, support and future roadmaps.

Abbas Ravat Business Growth Strategist | Marketing Leader | Technology enthusiast

to innovate or otherwise to [take} action in a way you couldn't otherwise have.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

Killing dead weight: clear understanding of market needs and what products/service will cease to be relevant based on the trends.

Abbas Ravat Business Growth Strategist | Marketing Leader | Technology enthusiast

Identify early customers and configure sales initiatives.

Abbas Ravat Business Growth Strategist | Marketing Leader | Technology enthusiast

CABs are about communication so that a company can know its customers better and the customers know the company better.

Nick Wilsher Future of Work Venture lead

feedback on messaging, sales pitching, product roadmap planning, partner program definitions, and a great opportunity to gather references and case study opportunities.

Pam Cory Vice President Global Marketing at BitTitan

get very close to the AM who manages the day to day relationship with the customer, they know (should know..) the customer challenges in great detail.

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Social listening gives you access to what people are saying about your brand, industry, or competitors across social media and the web

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Blend online and offline...."Engage your online community ....then Invite the most engaged to come to an offline session'

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

Extend your outreach to others in the C Suite.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

invite some highly appreciated customers to special forums or round tables.... in a private setting

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Prospect crowd focus group....Focus on prospective customers....online focus group tool

Nick Wilsher Future of Work Venture lead

a human-focused approach

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Development of true IOT/AI mechanism’s

Mark Dildilian - MBA SITEK Inc.

Having everyone aligned on the same metrics (e.g., funnel conversion) is refreshing and powerful.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

concise, actionable and of benefit. In short, the “feedback loop” must also be structured with the following: -Collect -Discover/Discovery -Apply

Mark Dildilian - MBA SITEK Inc.

provided feedback to the person taking the time to do it

David Fradin President, Spice Catalyst; Distinguished Professor of Practice and Advisor Product Management Programs, WileyNXT Faculty, IIML-Wiley Data-Driven Product Management Program

Gathering customer feed back at multiple stages proves to be valuable in product development. The key is to keep open mind and truly listen to the customer feedback. Being open to feedback allows for uses or market expansion you may not have considered.

Kim Moten-Bogan Marketing Strategy & Operations; Branding

The CAB reduces greatly the chance of developing a product/service that misses the fit/acceptance of the market. Value measured in time and development costs.

Steve Borochoff VP Sales | Advisor | Software, Systems, Sensors | Enterprise, OEM, Embedded | Artificial Intelligence | IoT |

In Product-Led organizations, product owns the P&L, sales, marketing and support are costs involved in delivering the product,. It is all about getting feedback on the next version of the product

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

In Customer-Led organization, marketing or sales owns the customer and it is all about improving the customer experience and driving more revenue.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

My favorite CABs and the ones that have been the most valuable to my previous companies in the technology space were multi-purpose. In other words, they was centered around best practices, product direction, customer feedback and networking.

Bill Ziske Co-founder Z Natural Life

Patient specific CABs allows us to gauge the level of satisfaction & where current marketed medical products currently stand. A small diversified panel ensures each consumer party is represented. Our community needs to feel inclusive & know how future tech & meds will affect their quality of life.

Alexander Guizzotti Pharmaceutical Sales / Patient Advocate / Leader

CABs have clear discussion topics with a small group of dedicated senior decision makers, leadership + facilitator Intended to understand customers, their objectives/main challenges with 80% listening to customers sharing best practices, experiences, challenges etc. CAB should be ongoing & not adhoc

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

For a virtual CAB to work you need: Technology that is accessible for company & partner/customer Be Prepared. Prior to the meeting share the agenda & high level findings so the audience can prepare in advance Followup with next steps as there is an ongoing discussion

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

The best CABs have a healthy mix of 10-12 knowledgeable users and influencers. that represent a mix of various characteristics, have been with your company from the early days, or are new. The CEO should invite them to ensure the customer takes the commitment seriously.

Masarrat A Shah Business Program Manager - SIAM Process Architect

you cannot deliver, test or optimize great marketing without continuous customer involvement.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

The CAB becomes a mandatory component of effective marketing with increasingly more focus on customer centric versus product centric.

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

The panels that I have lead or participated in have been a combo of virtual + in person (hybrid). The purely virtual model lacks the human interaction & feeling of being a member of a team. The intro of some in person meetings bridges that gap..

Steve Borochoff VP Sales | Advisor | Software, Systems, Sensors | Enterprise, OEM, Embedded | Artificial Intelligence | IoT |

Virtual CABs are always effective when used as a follow-up to an in-person meeting & in general are effective. From my personal experience, the human element is so critical and often times the "golden nuggets" typically come from side conversations during breaks and meals.

Bill Ziske Co-founder Z Natural Life

For a virtual CAB to work you need: Technology that is accessible for company & partner/customer Be Prepared. Prior to the meeting share the agenda & high level findings so the audience can prepare in advance Followup with next steps as there is an ongoing discussion

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Very simply, this format offers the opp for experts to offer their opinion. The forum participants don't face the same crucible of decision making as they do in a real world environment; it is effective if the topic fits the format As for use with clients and within companies I'm in, potentially.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Effective measurement of customer loyalty include: -NPS score -Customer Retention Rate -Customer Churn Rate -Customer Lifetime Value -Upselling /cross selling Ratio -Participation in loyalty programs

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Every time I've created a CAB, I went to the specific action of creating a baseline. I made a specific point of mapping trends post that including other actions taken by management. From that, you can tease out insights as to what may be happening.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

If you're using a CAB for innovation and following a lean start-up model, you could easily track how many ideas were on the shelf and how many the CAB helped move to the next stage or kill. That leads to a speed to innovation metric. Ultimately, you've got cost, count and calendar.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

The open ended nature of this question leads you back to "what problem are you trying to solve with your CAB" and then what metrics that apply. How many new products pre/post CAB; success of market launches pre/post CAB; tracking consumer sentiment as a result of changes offered by the CAB.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Loyal customers generate more referrals., will continue buying from you, less susceptible to competitors’ marketing., more receptive to your other products/services, more understanding of issues & troubleshooting. more likely to provide feedback and reviews you can use to improve your retention

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Engage finance and sales early and get their buy-in that this is how you'll measure it ... good and bad. If you wait until after it's done, colleagues will be skeptical on the results (e.g., did you cherry pick them)?

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

An internal CAB can assess key causes of high turnover: -how smooth and effective is the recruitment/hiring process? Are 360 degree assessments included? -Identify key differentiators of the company from an employee point of view? - are we sure its the right fit, do they have the right DNA?

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Internal CABs may not only reduce employee turnover, which will help save the associated recruiting/training costs, but are also a way of getting relevant insights for the Product Roadmap without spending so much on Research.

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

A view not yet taken is to use a CAB of prior employees to find out more about why they left. In this instance, anonymity would likely be important and a third party CAB might pickup even more value. What the value is to the exiting employee would be an interesting question.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

We see Brand/culture education, identification, & messaging consistency (CIM), as putting our message out there & making it available to the masses. CABS could be an incredible place for EEs to define & learn from others. It should be an exploratory uncovering process for EEs.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

On the other hand, happy employees with a clear and consistent vision of the company's next steps are also brand's advocates, being marketing channels on their own.

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

Brand/culture ed etc (must) come from the top not from a CAB. It needs to be consistently repeated & pushed from top level management to the janitor. The piece everyone misses is Brand/Culture (must be) bought into and lived. Most of the time this falls apart in middle management.

Michael Elrod Director of Product Management\Chief Imaging Consultant at Medical Consultants of America

From an internal standpoint, ROI, is a dangerous phenomenon, the value should be quantified not just in dollars and sense, but also holistically. Utilize CABs for culture building, reframing it from CAB to discovery board, and you can drive value. ROI can be gauged by engagement & other metrics

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Measuring (CAB) ROI should take a more holistic approach including overall employee satisfaction, adoption of diversity , successful deployment of giving-back programs and NGO relationships. These elements often identify different achievements, not necessarily all measured in US$.

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

We were able to go wider and deeper in existing accounts and did increase competitive account takeovers.

Mark Dildilian - MBA SITEK Inc.

Ideally an internal CAB includes HR, leadership and several business functions

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

Considerations for an internal CAB: *What is the objective? i.e. process improvement, internal brand effort, culture development *Who leads? is it self directed? *A path to implement ideas that are developed from the group-things go wrong internally when feedback is not utilized.

Kim Moten-Bogan Marketing Strategy & Operations; Branding

Any framework that brings together stakeholders across functions, world areas and business units has the potential to drive value for enterprise/organizations. They key element in a CAB being successful is Senior Leadership and key players agreeing on the tool, process and prioritization.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

F2F Cabs work better for enterprise CABs, where relationships are longer-term in nature and participants are more senior. This is especially true where their is a joint need to co-develop & validate product development road-maps & related mutual support directions.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

F2F CAB makes sense because we need to see stakeholders connect, collaborate & gain from activities we perform. A great way to get members contributing and collaborating –& physically moving – is by conducting collaboration exercises or games focused on a shared industry challenges & solutions.

Masarrat A Shah Business Program Manager - SIAM Process Architect

F2F meeting are well suited for brainstorming and relationship-building.

Jack C Crawford Managing Partner at Datalog.ai | AI Maven

Without clear agendas & clearly defined outcomes, all meetings suffer from distractions and inattention. This is far more of a risk in a virtual environment when participants cannot observe their colleagues. Nevertheless, travel is expensive & conference calls have filled the gap.

Jack C Crawford Managing Partner at Datalog.ai | AI Maven

There is an opportunity to establish "Vertical or Industry VABs" to deep-dive into these verticals or customer sub-groups at much lower costs. These VCABs can each be stood up for say three month and can rotate through key verticals each year.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

Depending on global or non-global I would switch which CAB I would be working with. For most other meetings I would prefer virtual.

Michael Elrod Director of Product Management\Chief Imaging Consultant at Medical Consultants of America

F2F CABs have a relevant role in discovery, the same way in-depth one-to-one interviews play an important role at the exploratory step of research. After getting insights from these F2F CABs, we should have enough info (options, hypothesis, & potential solutions) to scale the research to vCABS.

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

A combination can be both successful and cost effective. The CAB should have an initial F2F kickoff to outline objectives and to allow the group to set communication norms. When you move into the vCAB piece, keep the sessions short, have clear objectives & feedback loops.

Kim Moten-Bogan Marketing Strategy & Operations; Branding

Face to face CABs will have a stronger impact & better connect; Virtual CABs may have wider coverage. When we solicit feedback from Enterprise vs SMBs, they have different sets of issues/ preferences. It's critical to have a combination of F2F and vCAB to identify the right Next Best Action!

Amit Garg Head of Analytics | Customer Experience

I believe in Collaboration and Connection which benefits all: our stakeholders, customers and most important our Organization. So, I am sure you will consider my proposal of more Face to Face CAB meetings and less Virtual meetings.

Masarrat A Shah Business Program Manager - SIAM Process Architect

VCABs are a cost a fraction of an annual CAB. I am not in any way suggesting that you replace F2f Cabs, but more along the lines of extending & supporting you overall customer engagement program.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

Your challenge is that vendors like KPMG takes a relatively long time from start to finish to report, they are expensive, & your budgets are constrained. The Currnt platform can significantly reduce final reporting time, it is easy to use & allows direct engagement with global knowledge leaders.

Carola van der Linden Marketing Manager Alteryx

CAB Invite: Discover how to quickly and easily learn what your customers, leads and employees are really saying about your company & brand allowing your organization to respond in real-time to needs and potentially diffuse a situation before it damages your brand's reputation. 

Mark Dildilian - MBA SITEK Inc.

I am finding that our customers don't feel heard or engaged by us. This is actually leaking out at the trade shows as potential prospects are mentioning our lack of customer engagement in the development process. To that end I would like to recommend forming a Customer Advisory Board.

Michael Elrod Director of Product Management\Chief Imaging Consultant at Medical Consultants of America

Refine - Customer Insights represents tweaks to already existing paradigms. These tweaks might only be 1-2 standard deviations from current conventional Thinking.

Vic C

Refine your Business by thinking outside of the box about what makes you different? 1. Test Your Idea by using surveys, polls & focus groups. to get to know your customer & understand their business needs & expectations. 2. Size Up the Competition by becoming a customer of the competition

Masarrat A Shah Business Program Manager - SIAM Process Architect

Solutions refine your thinking only if you are trying to solve one problem. In my mind a solution is a group of products that solve many problems for an organization or company/customer. This solution could turn into an ecosystem of products solving multi-tiered problems across various levels.

Michael Elrod Director of Product Management\Chief Imaging Consultant at Medical Consultants of America

Redefine Market Intelligence-I'm looking at "what are the new markets". to innovate products, packaging solutions & processes in a "blue ocean" or "white space" instead of evaluating them in an existing market (a red ocean).This can still be labeled redefine but I prefer "reimagine".

Vic C

Redefine your Business through Innovation in digital technology to redefine & recreate business models leading to new value propositions for existing customers & pontentially change the customer set. However, Digitization will need to be supported by the due diligence,contracts & financial flows.

Masarrat A Shah Business Program Manager - SIAM Process Architect

If you are not redefining your thinking about your brand, marketing, or products, you soon won't be in business. . Companies that reach the zenith of the mountain, strap on wings, & start flying will continue to penetrate new markets & challenge their own products with newer better ones,

Michael Elrod Director of Product Management\Chief Imaging Consultant at Medical Consultants of America