Customer Advisory Boards Keep Your Finger on the Pulse of the Customer

Does your business launch new products, or enhance existing products, based solely on the thoughts, opinions, and ideas of your product development and marketing teams? While these talented, intelligent people may be very good at their jobs, they are typically not the primary users of your business’ products or services. Consequently, their ideas are may be more theoretical rather than based on reality.

However, reality is as close as your customers. All you need to do is ask them. Many companies survey their customers on a periodic basis, and this provides them with an overview of customer opinion. However, if you really want to create and enhance products and services with your top customers in mind, you may want to take the time to create a Customer Advisory Board (CAB).

What exactly is a Customer Advisory Board?

CABs may take on any number of shapes, sizes, and roles, depending on the business, its product or service, and the nature of its customer base...

US Air Grounds Itself With This Passenger

As many of you know, the airline industry is at a difficult cross roads: vying for customers, increasing fuel costs, profitability eroding, some airlines even emerging from bankruptcy filings. Seems like a time when focusing on the customer would be a top priority, no? Well - not for every airline, apparently. Perhaps US Airways needs to communicate that imperative more effectively to their front line staff. Here's what it was like trying to be a US Air customer last week.

The situation begins at Continental. I had an initial flight with Continental, which was delayed, causing me to miss my connecting flight... I was exhausted after a long week, and frankly didn't want to get caught in between airlines. I needed to get a flight out. So I decided to see if I could get a flight at US Air. I had vouchers that would allow me to fly on any airline.

So off to the US Air ticket desk I went. The US Air agent looked at my vouchers, said there was a flight, started to book me, and then informed me that I would have to get my bags back myself, and have them rechecked before being put on the plane. One small problem: I didn't have my bags. They were already in the baggage loading area, having been checked at Continental, and then transferred to Delta. And I was not quite sure where they were currently...

Chief Customer Officer : Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action by Jeanne Bliss

This book offers a blueprint of how to put the customer at the focal point of your business, and offers diagnostic tools to understand if an organization's current operations enhance or harm the customer experience. It also helps the reader assess whether the position of Chief Customer Officer is needed, or would be effective, in his organization. Very much a hands-on book.

Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre

To quote the authors: "This book is a report from the front lines of the future of business. It is not a book of best practices. It is a book of next practices--a set of insights and a collection of case studies that amount to a business plan for the 21st century, a new way to lead, compete, and succeed. Our basic argument is as straightforward to explain as it is urgent to apply: When it comes to thriving in a hyper-competitive marketplace, 'playing it safe' is no longer playing it smart."

"Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business."

- Zig Ziglar