A Two-Tier Customer Community Architecture
Building the Talent Leadership Council and Product Pioneers for a Global Talent Acquisition SaaS Platform
Industry | Buyer Personas | Engagement | Program Duration |
Talent Acquisition SaaS (B2B) | CHROs, VPs of Talent Acquisition, TA Practitioners | VP Customer Marketing — build, launch, scale | 12 months to full scale; ongoing |
The Challenge
A leading global SaaS platform in the talent acquisition category was running a fragmented customer engagement model. Multiple siloed communities, disconnected advocacy efforts, and an executive customer base that was visible to Sales but not to Product or Marketing at any coordinated cadence. Practitioners who used the platform every day had no structured way to shape future functionality, and the CHROs and VPs of Talent Acquisition who made the buying decisions had no forum where the company could hear them, influence the roadmap, or build executive-level relationships across the top-tier accounts.
The business need was concrete: grow retention and expansion inside the existing customer base, strengthen product-market fit through direct practitioner feedback, and give the executive buyer persona a seat at the table — in a way that produced measurable pipeline, not just goodwill.
The Approach — One Community, Two Tiers
The solution was a two-tier customer community architecture designed so each tier served a distinct audience with a distinct engagement model, and together they covered both ends of the buying and using committee — executive decision-makers and day-to-day practitioners. The two programs were built in parallel, under a single owner, on a coordinated calendar, with a single reporting line into GTM leadership.
Tier 1 - Executive CABTalent Leadership CouncilA curated executive forum of CHROs and VPs of Talent Acquisition from the company’s most strategic accounts. | Tier 2 - Practitioner CommunityProduct PioneersA virtual, always-on community for the practitioners who use the platform every day — the recruiters, TA ops leaders, and power users who know exactly what’s missing and what’s working. |
What it does:
| What it does:
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Critically, the two programs were never treated as standalone efforts. Insight from Product Pioneers (“this feature is broken in daily use”) fed directly into Talent Leadership Council conversations (“here is how we’re fixing it, and we want your point of view”). The CHRO-level strategic signal from the council shaped where the practitioner community focused next. The two tiers functioned as a single feedback loop across the buyer — and a single coordinated engagement layer for the company.
The Operating Model
The build was deliberately cross-functional and single-owner. Customer Success partnered on executive member identification and account-level signal. Product Management owned the content and programming inside the practitioner community. Sales leadership sat on the council for context and to activate references. Customer Marketing — the named program owner — governed the audience, the programming calendar, the communications, and the measurement.
- Named, governed member lists for both tiers — no ad-hoc outreach, no over-approached executives.
- Single, coordinated calendar of executive asks so the company’s engagement with top accounts was intentional and measured.
- Consolidated community technology onto a single platform that replaced the earlier fragmented stack.
- Measurement framework tied to practitioner engagement, executive account coverage, and program-influenced expansion revenue.
$8M | 500+ | 200% | 1 |
in incremental revenue driven by expanded executive council engagement and ancillary solution adoption. | practitioner members joined the Product Pioneers community in the first year of the program. | quarterly growth in community membership, achieved by consolidating fragmented community technologies into a single program. | governed, cross-functional owner for executive engagement — eliminating the fragmented, uncoordinated asks of top accounts. |
Results
Beyond the headline numbers, the two-tier model produced something structural: a standing feedback loop from the practitioner layer to the executive layer to the product roadmap and back — the kind of signal architecture that compounds quarter over quarter. Practitioners who felt heard became advocates; executives who shaped the roadmap became references; references became expansion conversations; expansion conversations fed new practitioner onboarding that refreshed the community.
Why This Worked
Audience-first, not program-first. Both tiers started with a named, governed list of the people who mattered. The programs were built to the audience — not the other way around.
Two tiers covering the full buying committee. CHROs and TA practitioners are different buyers with different questions. A single community structure cannot serve both. Two tiers, one coordinated architecture, solved it.
Cross-functional by design, single-owner by governance. Customer Success, Product, Sales, and Marketing each had a clear role. But Customer Marketing owned the calendar, the measurement, and the accountability — which is why the executives never got over-approached.
Measurement tied to revenue. The council’s success was measured in executive account coverage and program-influenced expansion revenue. The community’s success was measured in practitioner engagement and retention signal. Both ladders laddered up to retention, expansion, and product-market fit.
About the Work
This case study is drawn from Sara Melo-Pereira’s in-house work as the VP of Customer Marketing and Events at a global SaaS platform in the talent acquisition category. My CMO LLC offers the same Customer Programs architecture — governed executive CAB plus practitioner community — to B2B companies that need to build the function from zero or scale what they have.
Client company name is withheld by request. Industry and buyer personas are accurate. Numbers and program structure are factual.