Client stories · Customer advisory boards
“Don’t Overthink It, Do It”: Inside InfoTrust’s Customer Advisory Board
Following strategic feedback on urgent and expensive customer problems leads to fearless execution.
Client: InfoTrust · Firm type: digital analytics consulting and software · How we worked together: Advisory (Coach) · Board Started: 2025 · Board: 11–12 members, quarterly
InfoTrust’s customer board stopped a product bet already in motion, then pointed the roadmap somewhere else entirely. Most firms know they should talk to customers in a structured way. Few build the mechanism to actually do it.
A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is a structured feedback mechanism used by professional services firms to gather strategic insights from a representative group of clients. By establishing a recurring cadence of one-on-one and group sessions, firms like InfoTrust use these boards to validate product roadmaps and identify urgent market problems. This formal approach to customer feedback enables firms to move beyond anecdotal insights and execute productization strategies with high confidence. Understanding how a customer advisory board drives productization is essential for firms looking to align their development efforts with real-world market needs.
Five lessons from InfoTrust’s board
- Meet on a set rhythm. Pairing one-on-ones with a 90-minute group call let InfoTrust go a layer deeper each round, instead of hunting for the core problem in a thirty-minute one-off.
- Pick members who make or shape the buying decision. An eager client outside that decision won’t give you the feedback you need, so InfoTrust filled its board from its ideal customer profile.
- Keep your side of the call small and let members talk. InfoTrust’s first group session had more of its own people on the line than customers, and the sharpest insights came once the team cut back on slides and listened.
- The cost is mostly time: about 20 to 25 hours a quarter for InfoTrust, mostly from two people. Members take part unpaid.
- Expect returns beyond the roadmap. One member asked to join a pilot, and a couple who changed companies brought new business to InfoTrust.
Identifying the Strategic Feedback Gap in Professional Services
InfoTrust already spent real time with customers. Executive business reviews, renewal conversations, the usual touchpoints. What they did not have was a formal way to gather strategic feedback on where the business and the product should go. Michael Loban, InfoTrust’s Chief Growth Officer, called the absence “a miss in our strategy.” The feedback they were getting was informal, one-off, and hard to build on.
InfoTrust recognized that to gather strategic, decision-shaping feedback, they needed a mechanism for ongoing relationships with new voices who matched their ideal customer profile, not just the same trusted few they kept going back to.
The Benefits of a Recurring Customer Advisory Board Cadence
Working with Vecteris coach and consultant, Sean Gillispie, on early product testing, InfoTrust decided to stop treating those strategic relationships as one-off conversations and start running them on a deliberate cadence. Not a replacement for other feedback, an addition to it.
Tom Lundin, InfoTrust’s product manager, put it plainly. When every conversation is a one-off, you have thirty minutes to find the core problem before you start over with the next person. A recurring board let the team build rapport and go a layer deeper each quarter instead of scratching the surface every time.
“When every conversation is a one-off, sometimes you have thirty minutes to find the core problem. The recurring cadence lets us go deeper.”Tom Lundin · Product Manager, InfoTrust
Structuring a Customer Advisory Board for Maximum Insight
InfoTrust runs its board on a quarterly rhythm with two parts. Each quarter includes one-on-one sessions of about an hour with individual members, plus a ninety-minute group session on Zoom. The board sits around eleven to twelve members, and roughly two-thirds join each group call.
They were selective about who got a seat. Members are current or former customers, people who already came to InfoTrust for advice, and roles that make or shape the buying decision, all inside InfoTrust’s ideal customer profile. Someone thrilled to talk but outside the buying decision, as Michael put it, would not give them the feedback they needed.
Optimizing Customer Advisory Board Facilitation and Format
The team quickly refined the Customer Advisory Board format. The first group session had more InfoTrust people on the call than customers, which felt like a fishbowl. Now, if you are not actively speaking, you watch the recording. They also learned to talk less. Going lighter on slides and leaving room for members to talk to each other is where the sharpest insights surfaced. Those lessons line up with Forrester’s list of common customer advisory board mistakes.
10 of 11
first-quarter calls named data integrity
Quarterly
one-on-ones and a 90-minute group call
20–25 hrs
per quarter, mostly two people
How Strategic Customer Feedback Pivots Product Roadmaps
In the first quarter, data integrity came up in ten of eleven one-on-one calls. That signal validated the pain InfoTrust suspected was central, and it shaped the direction of their integrated suite. Round by round, they moved from naming the problem to understanding its specific impacts to testing early solution concepts with the same trusted group. This process demonstrates how a customer advisory board drives productization by turning raw feedback into actionable roadmap pivots.
Some of the most valuable input was never on the agenda. The best material, Michael said, is what people say between the questions. That is how InfoTrust caught early signals, including the growing gap between what AI is expected to deliver and what it actually delivers, well before it became a widely discussed trend.
“We were about to make this decision, and it stopped because of the feedback that we received.”Michael Loban · Chief Growth Officer, InfoTrust
The relationships paid off in ways they did not plan for. Members who valued the board enough to meet for free were giving InfoTrust the kind of feedback they had previously paid outside services to source. One member asked, unprompted, to join a product pilot. Another listed the advisory board on their LinkedIn as work experience. When a few members moved to new companies, they brought business back to InfoTrust.
Evaluating the ROI and Resource Requirements of a Customer Advisory Board
InfoTrust is honest about the cost. The board runs on roughly twenty to twenty-five hours a quarter, mostly from Michael and Tom, and they admit the return is hard to put a clean number on.
They would still tell you to do it. Asked what he would say to a peer CEO weighing whether it is worth it, Michael did not hesitate.
“It’s impossible to predict the ROI, but the feedback is crucial. I can’t see a downside in this.”Michael Loban · Chief Growth Officer, InfoTrust
Three ways Vecteris can help you build a Customer Advisory Board
InfoTrust built their board in-house, with Vecteris recommending the model and helping them stand it up. That is one way we help. We can also share the load, or run the whole board for you when the time is not there. You choose how much lands on your team.
| Coach | We help you design the board, pick the right members, build the discussion guides, and sharpen your facilitation. You run the sessions. This is what we did for InfoTrust. Part of Advisory. |
|---|---|
| Co-Run | We share the load: facilitation, synthesis, and preparation with you, so your team keeps the relationships without carrying every hour. Part of Consulting. |
| Execute | We run it end to end. We recruit the members, facilitate every session, and turn what we hear into board-ready direction. For firms that want the insight without the internal lift. Part of Consulting. |
Thinking about a customer advisory board?
Michael’s advice was simple: don’t overthink it, do it. Vecteris can help however much you need, from coaching your team to running the whole thing.