I am a huge fan of users groups. (Here's a bunch of stuff I've written in the past.) A client of mine recently attended their users group meeting, and I was reminded once again of one of the key values of the users group: peer assistance and validation.

As I like to joke with my clients, when it comes to AMS software, no one believes what the vendor says, and few believe what the consultants say. But most everyone believes what their peers tell them. And that's where users groups shine.

Some examples my client gave:

• A staff member responsible for report writing met with several other users and discussed how reporting works, which gave that staff person much more confidence about the system and the types of reports she could get out of it.
• The accounting team got a better understanding of revenue recognition which helped them determine how they would do that moving forward.
• Another customer, a long-time user of the software, explained how they had "over customized" and were moving back to baseline, which helped my client feel better about their decision to customize as little as possible.

In all three examples, both the vendor and the consultant (me) could have provided this information. But the simple fact is, staff is much more likely to accept this information from their peers.

And that's why users groups are so valuable.