A customer advisory board (CAB) is a group of select customers who provide strategic input, feedback, and guidance to a company's product and business development. It's a formalized relationship where your most important customers help shape direction in exchange for early influence and access.

Purpose of a CAB

For the company:

• Strategic feedback from key customers
• Early validation of roadmap direction
• Insight into market needs and trends
• Deeper relationships with important accounts
• Champions and references for sales

For customers:

• Influence on product direction
• Early access to features and roadmap
• Networking with peer companies
• Direct relationship with product and executive team
• Learning from other customers' use cases

Who Should Be on Your CAB

Ideal CAB members:

• Strategic customers (high revenue or strategic accounts)
• Long-term customers who know your product deeply
• Diverse representation across industries/segments
• Forward-thinking and willing to share openly
• Decision makers or strong influencers at their companies
• Customers you'd like to use as references

Size: Typically 8-15 members. Small enough for meaningful discussion, large enough for diverse perspectives.

Diversity: Mix of customer sizes, industries, use cases. Avoid echo chamber of similar customers.

CAB Structure and Cadence

Meeting frequency: Quarterly is most common. Monthly is too often (burnout risk), biannually is too infrequent.

Format options:

• In-person full day: Quarterly, at company HQ or conference city. Most engagement.
• Virtual half day: More frequent, lower commitment, broader participation.
• Hybrid: Annual in-person, quarterly virtual.

Typical agenda:

• Company updates (vision, recent progress, metrics)
• Product roadmap preview (6-12 months ahead)
• Discussion sessions on key strategic questions
• Member presentations (how they use product, results achieved)
• Networking time

What to Share with Your CAB

Do share:

• Strategic direction and vision
• Roadmap themes and priorities
• Early prototypes and concepts
• Market challenges and opportunities
• Metrics and business updates

Don't share:

• Specific ship dates (too much commitment)
• Competitive information
• Financial details (unless public company)
• Other customers' confidential use cases
• Everything (save some information for paying appropriate to relationship)

Most CABs operate under NDA, allowing candid discussion of future plans.

CAB vs. Other Feedback Mechanisms

CAB: Strategic, high-level, future-focused. Best for vision and direction.

User interviews: Tactical, feature-level, current-state. Best for specific validation.

Beta programs: Testing and validation. Best for feature feedback.

Surveys: Quantitative trends. Best for measuring patterns at scale.

Support/success: Operational feedback. Best for current problems.

Each serves different purposes. CAB doesn't replace other feedback—it complements.

Running Effective CAB Meetings

Prepare thoroughly: Send pre-reads, set clear objectives, plan discussion topics.

Listen more than present: If you're talking 80% of the time, you're doing it wrong. CAB should be dialogue, not lecture.

Ask strategic questions: "Where is your industry heading?" "What capabilities would change your workflow?" "How do you see this market evolving?"

Capture feedback systematically: Assign note-taker, document insights, share summary after.

Follow up: Show how their input influenced decisions. Close the loop on what you heard.

Foster peer discussion: Best insights often come from members talking to each other, not to you.

Common CAB Mistakes

Too sales-y: Using CAB as sales pitch for new features. Customers disengage.

Not acting on input: Asking for feedback but never implementing. Members feel used.

Wrong members: Inviting based on revenue alone without considering contribution quality.

Infrequent communication: Only engaging quarterly at meetings. Nurture relationships between meetings.

No clear ask: Vague agenda without specific questions. Members don't know how to contribute.

Talking past each other: Not enough structure to keep discussion productive.

Burning out members: Too much time commitment without commensurate value.

Measuring CAB Success

Qualitative:

• Are members engaged and contributing?
• Is discussion candid and strategic?
• Are you learning things you wouldn't learn elsewhere?
• Do members value participation?

Quantitative:

• Attendance rate (>80% is good)
• Response rate to between-meeting questions
• NPS of CAB members vs. other customers
• Retention rate of CAB accounts
• Number of actionable insights per meeting

Business impact:

• Features influenced by CAB feedback
• Strategic pivots validated by CAB
• Sales closed with CAB references
• Case studies and testimonials from members

Alternatives to Formal CABs

Advisory calls: Regular 1:1 strategic conversations with key customers without formal board structure.

Beta programs: Early access to features with structured feedback gathering.

Executive sponsor programs: Pair strategic accounts with company executives for ongoing dialogue.

Customer councils: Less formal, larger groups focused on specific topics (security, integrations, etc.).

Online communities: Private forums or Slack groups where customers engage continuously.

CABs work best at Series A and beyond with meaningful customer base and strategic questions to explore.