Playbook: Designing a Peer Circle That Works

# Format: Best Practices & Playbooks

# Community

A practical framework for creating small, high-impact community discussions that drive real collaboration.

December 5, 2025 · Last updated on March 3, 2026

Jenn Delconte

Joshua Zerkel

Peer Circles offer a focused way to turn engagement into meaningful connection. They create a space where customers can share experiences, learn from one another, and build relationships that strengthen both community and business outcomes.

At Klue, Jenn Delconte built Peer Circles to address a familiar challenge. Customers were active at the surface level but not deeply connected to each other. After meeting with more than 25 customers, she learned that what people wanted most was not more content or events, but genuine interaction with peers who understood their work.

Her solution was to launch small, invitation-only sessions that encouraged dialogue instead of presentation. Each Peer Circle connected six to eight customers from similar segments or roles and focused on one shared theme. Internal leaders from Product, Customer Success, and Marketing joined to listen rather than lead.

“It’s not about big numbers,” Jenn said. “It’s about creating a small, trusted space where people can actually talk and where we can listen.”

The model worked. Peer Circles produced deeper insights than any survey could, improved collaboration inside Klue, and created a repeatable rhythm for engagement.

Step 1: Start with listening

Every strong Peer Circle begins with discovery. Before building her first session, Jenn conducted a listening tour across Klue’s customer base, meeting one-on-one with more than two dozen people to ask simple questions:

What would make community time valuable for you?

What are the biggest challenges you are working through right now?

Where would you want to connect with others in your role or industry?

The takeaway was clear. Customers wanted structured time to exchange ideas with people like them.

Jenn used these insights to identify the right themes for the first Peer Circles. She looked for areas where customers were curious, not just where Klue wanted feedback. This foundation helped ensure each session addressed a real need and delivered value from the start.

Step 2: Keep it intentionally small

Peer Circles work best when they are small enough for everyone to participate. Jenn capped each session at six to eight people, selected by segment, role, or stage in the customer journey.

Enterprise leaders met together to talk through AI adoption, while early-stage users joined separate sessions on onboarding and best practices. Smaller companies were grouped with others facing similar constraints.

This size limit helped participants feel comfortable sharing and created space for relationships to form. It also encouraged attendance since customers did not want to miss their chance to join.

Jenn shared, “We kept it small to build trust and create a sense of FOMO. When people see that others like them are in the room, they show up ready to engage.”

Step 3: Design the conversation, not the slides

Peer Circles are built for participation. Instead of presentations or demos, each session centers on three or four guiding questions that invite open discussion.

Jenn’s examples included:

What’s working well for you right now?

What’s your biggest blocker?

How is your team approaching this challenge?

What would help you make progress faster?

These prompts created a consistent structure that made it easy for participants to prepare while leaving space for new ideas to surface.

Jenn reminded us that the key is not to focus on your product but on the customer’s experience. “The goal is to open it up so people are sharing what’s really happening in their day-to-day,” she said. “That’s where the insights come from.”

Step 4: Prepare your facilitators

Facilitators ensure Peer Circles run smoothly. Their job is to guide the discussion, not lead it. Jenn’s rule of thumb was that customers should do about 70 percent of the talking, the guest expert or internal leader about 20 percent, and the facilitator about 10 percent.

Before each session, facilitators received a short guide that included:

The topic and questions for discussion

A list of who would be attending

Notes on managing timing and encouraging quieter participants

A reminder to leave five minutes at the end to direct participants back to the community

This preparation helped facilitators feel confident and ensured that each session followed the same high-quality structure.

Jenn added, “The facilitator isn’t the expert in the room. Their role is to help everyone else feel comfortable enough to share.”

Step 5: Close the loop and share insights

The real value of Peer Circles comes after the session ends. Jenn built a process for capturing, analyzing, and distributing insights so they could be used across the company.

Each discussion was recorded with participants’ permission and transcribed. Jenn used Gong and ChatGPT to create summaries that highlighted themes, quotes, and next steps. These summaries were shared with Product, CS, and Marketing teams to inform roadmaps, training, and messaging.

One outcome was a new internal training guide developed by Customer Success. “Our CS team used what we learned to help other customers who weren’t in the room,” Jenn said. “It helped them empathize more and support people in a deeper way.”

By turning conversations into actionable data, Peer Circles became a key input for decision-making across Klue.

Step 6: Learn and iterate

Like any community program, Peer Circles evolved over time. Jenn and her team tested new formats and refined their approach after each round.

Her key lessons:

Keep topics narrow for more focused discussion.

Share ownership across teams so insights flow both ways.

Avoid turning Peer Circles into lead generation. Authenticity drives participation.

Use repetition to build momentum and trust.

Each new session built on the last, creating a rhythm that kept customers engaged and internal teams aligned.

The impact of doing it right

At Klue, Peer Circles helped unify the customer voice across departments. They led to faster feedback cycles, clearer messaging, and stronger partnerships between customers and teams.

Jenn reflected, “Peer Circles show that meaningful community work doesn’t have to be complicated. When you focus on connection and follow through on what you hear, the impact shows up everywhere.”

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