Tips for Building Strong Virtual Relationships with Customer Champions and Advocates

Kay Balabis · 2026-09-14T12:20:01.650Z

hi cma community! new here, so lmk if there's an existing thread about this. wondering if you have any tips/tricks in building a strong relationship with your customer champions/advocates virtually? we've tried following them in Linkedin and having an invite-only slack channel. Traveling to events for meet-ups is not on the books right now, so trying to see how we get past being another spam email in their inbox. 😆

7 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Kyle Harris
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Hi Kay! Are you in B2B or B2C? If B2B, the relationship should definitely be built with the account managers and customer success teams. We've seen huge relationship success by leveraging the AM/CS teams and creating events or resources based on their feedback to them.
Gabrielle Herrera
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Following them isn't really building a relationship. Do you do any virtual events or even office hours where you are speaking and interacting with them?
Todd Nilson
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Hello Kay, I would second what Gabrielle said. Really focus in on running virtual events or office hours where they can drop in, where you have regular get-togethers with that group. I would create opportunities to call out contributions or accomplishments that they may have made, so that it's an opportunity to praise them in front of their peers. You might give them some public spotlights and kudos as well. I think that'll deepen the trust in the relationship that's there. Also, from time to time, send a personal thank-you note, something handwritten. If you've got a mailing address for them, maybe send them a bit of swag as a thank-you: a T-shirt or some kind of item that they might be interested in.
❤️1
Kay Balabis
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Thank you for all the lovely suggestions! These are all good points 🙂
Mary Green
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I'm trying to build a better community approach to making connections between people, and I'm going to use AI to help me with that. I'm hoping that will create more community. Traditionally, I've been doing roundtables to bring in our customers and discuss things, but we have 75 products, so that'd be really hard to do across all of our products. I still have to think through that.
Kay Balabis
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Mary Green we are definitely in the same boat! i'd have to re-watch your last AI community session I know I'll learn tons. Would love to automate some of those things
Mary Green
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I haven't gotten to the 1:1 intros yet, but it's coming. If I can help with AI, let me know.

Kyle Harris
·
·
Hi Kay! Are you in B2B or B2C? If B2B, the relationship should definitely be built with the account managers and customer success teams. We've seen huge relationship success by leveraging the AM/CS teams and creating events or resources based on their feedback to them.
Gabrielle Herrera
·
·
Following them isn't really building a relationship. Do you do any virtual events or even office hours where you are speaking and interacting with them?
Todd Nilson
·
·
Hello Kay, I would second what Gabrielle said. Really focus in on running virtual events or office hours where they can drop in, where you have regular get-togethers with that group. I would create opportunities to call out contributions or accomplishments that they may have made, so that it's an opportunity to praise them in front of their peers. You might give them some public spotlights and kudos as well. I think that'll deepen the trust in the relationship that's there. Also, from time to time, send a personal thank-you note, something handwritten. If you've got a mailing address for them, maybe send them a bit of swag as a thank-you: a T-shirt or some kind of item that they might be interested in.
❤️1
Kay Balabis
·
·
Thank you for all the lovely suggestions! These are all good points 🙂
Mary Green
·
·
I'm trying to build a better community approach to making connections between people, and I'm going to use AI to help me with that. I'm hoping that will create more community. Traditionally, I've been doing roundtables to bring in our customers and discuss things, but we have 75 products, so that'd be really hard to do across all of our products. I still have to think through that.
Kay Balabis
·
·
Mary Green we are definitely in the same boat! i'd have to re-watch your last AI community session I know I'll learn tons. Would love to automate some of those things
Mary Green
·
·
I haven't gotten to the 1:1 intros yet, but it's coming. If I can help with AI, let me know.