Do you need a CAB?

[641 words; 3 min read]

If you’re now hoping to read some discourse on public transport, black cabs and Uber you’re in the wrong place. This about a different sort of CAB, a Customer Advisory Board.

My first learnings of CABs came from Pragmatic (read their CAB thoughts here). There’s a lot written about running a Customer Advisory Boards but, usually, most of the content seems to be aimed at larger organisations. Read some of these and you’ll quickly be approaching your boss (which may well be you) for budget to recruit a full-time ‘CAB Manager’.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be too complicated. Here are some thoughts if you’re considering a CAB.

It’s never too early to start.

Early customers, especially at Enterprise level, may be taking a big risk in using your solution. Don’t underestimate the value of getting early customers together as soon as you can. As soon as you have 10 or so customers; try to get some of them together at least once or twice a year. You should be having regular conversations with them individually but there is value in a group get together. They’ll know your small so there’s no point hiding it and the chances are your customers will welcome the chance to meet the team and each other. It’s a sign you’re growing and will help to re-assure your customers made the right choice.

keep it relaxed.

If you’ve been doing some research on CABs you’ll no doubt have read lots of suggestions about CAB charters. Sure, you can do this (have a look at Oracle’s BI CAB charter as an example) but, initially at least, the value will come from simply engaging with your customers as a group. Talk to them, listen to them and try to identify what they have in common. Oh, and have fun. The formality can come later.

arrange around something else.

In my early days of arranging CABs our first attempts failed as it was difficult to convince our customers to take time out to travel to one place at the same time. They were all too busy and, to be honest, we weren’t necessarily viewed as a critical supplier. Then, we hit on the idea of holding our event dinner at another event, an event our customers would naturally attend. Finding a conference or event that some (or all) of your customers will be attending can drastically reduce and/or remove some of the logistical challenges involved in organising your first few events and increase the number of attendees. I’ve used conferences to great effect previously as have others - Salesforce.com annual customer conference ‘Dreamforce’ has now become a hub for many AppExchange partners’ annual customer gatherings (and often the best parties).

Be inclusive.

As you grow, you will have the opportunity to think about the ‘right’ person to invite and whether to split customers according to industry type; size etc. Initially, it’s probably worth inviting everyone - regular users, budget holders, sponsors. It will probably be more difficult than you think to get people to come and in the early days it really will be a case of ‘the more the merrier’. From experience, you are always better in a smaller room with too many people than a larger room with too few people.

Be true to your values.

I recently spoke to a SaaS founder who was a little stressed because he felt the need to present a 6/12 month roadmap to his customers. “Do you run a 6-12 month roadmap?” I asked. He replied they didn’t. “Then why present one?”. After a conversation, he decided to share detail about their current roadmap (next quarter) and spoke around their longer term goals and vision. The point here is you shouldn’t feel the need to adapt your business to what others do or what you’ve read you should do.