Skip to content
Case Study

Executive Listening: 5 Sessions and an Always-On Community for a Fortune 50 Health Insurer

Two ways to listen, roughly 100 customers in the room with the C-suite, and six recurring themes now shaping product design



What Is an Executive Listening Program, and Why Does It Matter?


An executive listening program creates a direct, ongoing relationship between senior leaders and the customers they serve. Instead of relying solely on research reports, dashboards, or summaries of customer feedback, leaders have regular opportunities to hear customers describe their experiences in their own words and ask questions in the moment.

That distinction matters because customer insight can lose something as it moves through an organization. A score can show that satisfaction has declined, and a research report can help explain why, but there is still value in hearing a customer tell the story firsthand. When the person describing the problem is sitting across from the person who can help address it, the conversation can lead to a different kind of understanding and, ultimately, a different kind of decision.

Client Opportunity

A Fortune 50 health insurer engaged Andrew Reise to bring the customer voice closer to enterprise strategy. The organization already had extensive customer research and measurement, but leadership wanted a more direct and consistent way to hear from the people it served.

The goal was to create a connection that would continue beyond individual research projects: a way for senior leaders to regularly hear what customers were experiencing, understand the context behind the data, and bring those perspectives into the decisions they were making.

The Challenge

The insurer had no shortage of customer information. The challenge was creating a consistent connection between that information and the leaders responsible for acting on it.

Research happened in bursts

Customer research provided valuable insight, but it tended to happen in cycles. A study would launch, produce findings, and eventually wrap up, leaving leadership with fewer opportunities to hear what customers were experiencing between studies.

Scores needed more context

Quantitative measures helped the organization understand what was happening across the member base. But the numbers did not always tell the full story. Leaders needed to hear the experiences behind those measures to understand what was driving them and where action could make a difference.

The C-Suite was too far from the customer

Senior leaders had limited opportunities to hear directly from customers on a recurring basis. Their exposure to the customer voice often depended on which research project was underway, rather than being part of an ongoing leadership practice.

Our Role

Andrew Reise designed and executed an Executive Listening Program that brings customers and senior leaders together through live conversations and an always-on community. The two formats work together to give leadership both a deeper view of individual experiences and a way to stay connected to the customer voice over time. 

Two ways to listen

The program combines live executive-led conversations with an ongoing customer community. CEO- and executive-led town halls, along with board and executive roundtables, give customers an opportunity to ask questions and share their experiences directly with leadership.

Between those sessions, a private advisory community keeps the conversation going through polls, forums, surveys, and video. This gives leaders a way to continue listening and explore emerging questions rather than waiting for the next formal research project.

Together, these two formats make customer listening part of the regular rhythm of leadership.

The right people in the room

Getting the right customers into these conversations is just as important as creating the opportunity to listen. Andrew Reise uses validated segmentation and influencer archetypes to identify participants who can bring meaningful perspectives to the discussion and help reveal what may influence the broader customer base.

The process begins with screeners and interviews to confirm the right mix of segments, articulacy, and community influence. Participants are then profiled by segment and archetype, prepared through pre-activities and pre-reads, and supported with clear logistics and consent processes.

Behind the scenes, Andrew Reise prepares the discussion guide, executive briefing, room, technology, and materials so leaders can focus on the conversation itself. Sessions are leadership-led, live moderated, and fully captured for analysis afterward.

What happens after the conversation

The conversation does not end when the session ends. Andrew Reise synthesizes and themes what customers shared, briefs leadership on the most important findings, and brings participants into the always-on community.

That ongoing connection is what gives the program its value over time. Individual conversations become part of a larger body of customer insight that leaders can return to as they make decisions, track changes in customer sentiment, and consider where the experience needs to evolve.

Industry
Insurance

Case Study Attribute
Executive Listening Program, Qualitative Research, Voice of Customer, Executive Facilitation, Customer Community

Results

  • 5 executive-led sessions in 2026, across 2 listening formats
  • Roughly 100 customers engaged live with the CEO, executives, and board
  • 6 recurring themes surfaced now informing product design and planning
  • 1 always-on advisory community, launched from the first town hall and growing with every session
  • A cadence leadership can keep: monthly pulses, quarterly deep-dives, and new customers onboarded after each session
  • Participants became advocates, with most joining the community after their first session and continuing the conversation

Contact Us

Ready to Put Your Leaders in the Room?

We'll design an executive listening program around your customers and run it alongside your team.

Resources

Read our latest experience insights

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an executive listening program?

An executive listening program is a structured, recurring way for senior leaders to hear from customers directly rather than through a report. In practice it combines live sessions (town halls, roundtables, or advisory panels led by the CEO and executive team) with a method for keeping the conversation going between them. The defining feature is cadence. A single customer event produces goodwill. A program produces a stream of unfiltered input that leadership can plan around.

How is executive listening different from a Voice of Customer survey program?

A Voice of Customer survey program measures. It tells you how many customers feel a given way, how that's trending, and where the score is moving. Executive listening explains. It surfaces the reasoning, the emotion, and the specific circumstances behind the number, in the customer's own language. The two work best together: survey data identifies where to look, and executive listening tells leaders what they're actually looking at.

How do you select customers for an executive listening session?

Participant selection is a research decision, not a convenience sample. Candidates are recruited against validated segmentation and influencer archetypes, then screened (through a screener and screening interviews) for segment fit, articulacy, and influence within their own networks. The goal is a room that represents the customer base and includes the people most likely to research, share, and shape others' opinions. Each participant is profiled and tagged before the session so leadership knows who they're hearing from.

What is an always-on customer community, and how does it work with in-person sessions?

An always-on community is a private, standing group of customers who stay engaged with the organization between formal research moments, through polls, forums, surveys, and video. Paired with live executive sessions, it solves the problem of research going quiet: participants who attend a town hall are onboarded into the community afterward, so the relationship continues instead of ending at the door. It also gives leadership a fast way to pressure-test an idea without commissioning a new study.

How often should executives meet with customers?

Cadence matters more than volume. A workable rhythm is a small number of live executive sessions across the year, supported by monthly pulses and quarterly deep-dives in the community between them. That pattern keeps customer input current for planning cycles without demanding more executive calendar time than leadership can sustain. A cadence that gets abandoned in Q3 is worse than a lighter one that holds.

How do you turn what you hear in an executive listening session into decisions?

Through disciplined synthesis after the room. Sessions are captured in full, then themed across participants and sessions so that recurring patterns separate from one-off comments. Leadership is briefed on those themes rather than on individual anecdotes, which is what makes the input usable in product design, planning, and prioritization. Without that step, an executive session produces a memorable afternoon and very little else.

Want to elevate your business' experiences?

Let's Connect
LOW-AdobeStock_617477667