‘Tis the season — for showing your customer advisory board you care about their contributions and time.
With Christmas rapidly approaching, it’s time to review our consultants’ favorite customer advisory board (CAB) gifts given to members. After all, we’ve highlighted our Halloween CAB horror stories, as well as the best CAB social activities for which we were thankful.
While never a requirement, giving a gift to your customer advisory board members is a nice touch to thank them for their service to your company and board member participation. There’s no need to go very expensive — some companies even have limits (e.g. $100) of how much they can accept in such gifts.
The best gifts should reflect the location or theme of your meeting, or support the social activity you held for them. Remember to keep the gift “carryon small” if your members will be taking their gift home with them via airplane.
And finally, don’t make determining the gift a time-draining science project that involves multiple, nth-level reviews from your executive management — you need to keep their focus on the strategic priorities and content of your CAB meeting itself.
Santa’s Customer Advisory Board Surprises
That said, here are our consultants’ favorite gifts given to CAB members over the last few years:
- US flag flown over Capitol building (following meeting held in Washington DC).
- Peaches (following a meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia).
- Ghirardelli Chocolate (for a meeting held in San Francisco).
- Country Music Hall of Fame booklet (for a meeting held in Nashville and following a tour taken by CAB members of the museum).
- Signed chef cookbook (after a meal held at a unique restaurant).
- Blanket (sent to members during the pandemic in conjunction with an online meeting).
- NASCAR toy helmet (after touring the museum in Charlotte, NC).
- Monogrammed chef aprons (worn during a team cooking competition, complete with the company logo and personalized for each member).
- Personalized, oversized LL Bean bag.
- Assouline photography books (for meetings held in Palm Beach and Miami Beach).
- Branded AirPods.
- Branded AirTags.
- Framed print of artist rendering of meeting city (River Walk in San Antonio).
- Personalized stationery note cards (with client’s initials) and pens.
- Rocketbook reusable digital notepad.
- Ember mug.
- Garrett popcorn tin (for a meeting held in Chicago).
- Personalized Yeti 20oz Ramblers.
- Waterford Crystal Set of Low-Ball Cocktail Glasses.
- Basket of packaged foods from the meeting city.
- Disney gift card (for meeting held in Orlando).
Related Article: Why We’re Thankful: Our Favorite Customer Advisory Board Social Activities
Unexpected Gestures Delight Customer Advisors
Get your CAB in the spirit of giving by considering providing a small token of your appreciation for your members’ service to your company in 2023. Such an unexpected gesture will likely delight your members — and keep them coming back to your CAB meetings.
