Five tips for successful public sector customer communities and advisory boards

Anyone selling to public sector (PS) organisations knows they often have different business drivers, product or service requirements, and timelines than private companies.

These differences alone are reason enough to have customer communities and advisory boards to gain the necessary insight to best engage and serve PS customers. Add the extraordinary demands on them over the pandemic and ongoing recovery, and it means engaging them directly is more critical than ever before.

How do you set up PS communities and boards given their differences? Here are 5 tips to help:

1. Don’t assume separate PS communities or boards are necessary

Many topics are the same for public and private customers, who like to connect with each other regardless of industry. If you have a small customer base or limited resources to support multiple communities and boards, it’s fine mix of public and private.

If you have many customers in a particular segment, member-chaired Special Interest Groups (SIGs) or committees can focus on specific topics. Having a member chair them takes the pressure off you to do all the coordination.

If you have a large customer base and resources to support multiple communities and boards, consider starting with geographic-specific groups given country/state-specific regulations, financial years and election cycles.

2. Tailor topics for different member types

Even with only a single community, it’s important to have content and discussions that are relevant to all member types. Just as end user and decision maker audiences have specific information needs, so too do those at different government levels and geographies. The more you tailor topics the more engagement you'll get.

3. Include alliance and channel partners

Partners can provide additional perspectives, market intelligence and contacts, and supplement your resources for member recruitment, content, speakers and funding. As you plan a community connect with partners to see if you can complement each other’s programs given you share customers.

4. Leverage business and industry groups

Senior PS stakeholders may not have the time, interest or permission to engage in vendor communities or boards. These programs also typically don’t include policy-setting stakeholders. Alternative channels such as independent groups can assist you to those stakeholders, whose insight can help you understand customer needs and identify issues to be covered in your own programs.

5. Be mindful of restrictions

PS employees have many limitations in relation to vendor engagement, such as caps on the cost of meals, travel and gifts. Some have restrictions on certain communication channels due to security. Therefore, it’s advisable to check with customers before you book that 5-star meeting venue or set up TikTok or WhatsApp community channels.

To discuss setting up a community or board, or doing a 'tune up' on your existing programs, reach out for a chat.