Once upon a time, there was a B2B SaaS company named StarB*. The company was steadily growing and the CSMs of StarB also interacted frequently with the customers who were also satisfied by the product. Everything was going as per the plan.
Then Annie*, Customer Success Manager after reading several blogs on QBRs, decided to actually do one! She was excited to see whether they are actually beneficial or is another hyped-up fancy thing to do.
The results were completely shocking:
Basically, everything changed. She figured out “Unknowns”. These “Unknowns” lead to the massive growth of the company in directions that the company earlier didn’t know even existed.
In QBR, when the CSM interacted with the Sponsor they realised that the company was solving a complementary problem instead of the main problem. Even better, the main problem is a much bigger problem that is faced by companies throughout the world while product company needs to make a few minor changes to solve it.
Their customer’s company had more than 5 departments which had the same main problem but only one department was actually using their product. After making the minor changes, the product company was able to sell the same product to all of the departments and hence got a massive boost in revenue without increasing the CAC( Customer Acquisition Cost).
As the importance of customer success continues to increase in the B2B SaaS world, the responsibilities of customer success managers are also widening.
From reducing churn, increasing Lifetime Value (LTV) of customer base, proactively providing insights on feature adoption, providing references, case studies, customer stories to sales and marketing to creating upsell opportunities, facilitating renewals, the list goes on and on.
Bonus tip:Roles and responsibilities of Customer Success Manager
To help make CSMs lives easier there are powerful customer success software like ChurnZero, CustomerSuccessBox, Gainsight, Totango, etc. but one thing that customer success folks sometimes underestimate is the power of a Quarterly Business Review.
Pro tip: The essential guide to choosing a Customer Success Platform
Quarterly Business Review
In B2B SaaS, everyone knows that QBRs need to be done, most of us even do it but very few do it the proper way.
Proper Way?
What is the proper way and does it even exist?
Of course, it does! Otherwise, why would I have written this guide? ��
Doing effective QBRs can not only bring financial benefits but also help you improve your product.
In the SaaS world, along with a mind blowing product you have to do several other things to get recurring revenue like:
This leads to mammoth pressure on the customer success team. Here is where business reviews come into the picture.
QBR is a weapon in the arsenal of the customer success team that can help make your product indispensable for your customer.
Quarterly Business Review is something which cannot be skipped in this day and age. This ebook is for everyone related to business reviews.
From Customer Success Managers, Account Managers to Customer Success Leaders, this guide will help you not only get you started with QBRs but also will help you make one by using the template.
After reading the ebook, along with having knowledge of the different types of business reviews, advantages of business reviews, how to conduct QBRs you would actually be able to do effective business reviews in your company.
Here we have used the terms Quarterly Business Review (QBR) and Business review interchangeably so don’t get confused by the names.
Now let us get started!
Are there any differences between a QBR and a Business review?
Well QBR is a subset of business review. QBR is basically business reviews that are conducted quarterly.
There are usually 3 ways in which the different types of business reviews can be segmented:
Here the business reviews are set as and when important tasks/milestones are completed.
This is the first business review with the client and as the name suggests: is done after the customer has been onboarded. This is the first business review and everyone (executives, sponsor, CSM from the client-side and the account manager, executive, CSM from your team) are introduced to each other.
OBRs are usually conducted when the onboarding process is long (more than a month).
Expectations, the process to be followed, and targets are set along with the next business review date is finalized.
Pro tip: Onboarding Framework
As the name suggests this business review is conducted either pre or post-renewal.
Renewal is a completely different ball game that usually requires a separate business review.
All the rough edges and major doubts of the customer are taken care of along with explaining to the customer how your software will work in tandem with their product to produce even beer results. Here the new problems to be solved along with future targets are set.
These business reviews are conducted after a certain fixed me as per their names.
As the names suggest these business reviews are defined according to the frequency in which they have to be conducted.
Whether a customer needs a monthly, quarterly, or annual business review depends on the customer, the product, and also on the stage that the customer is in. Initially, till the customer gets used to the product or if a customer needs to achieve an important goal urgently, there might be monthly business reviews.
Once the customer gets settled and starts getting optimum results you might only need quarterly or annual business reviews.
In these business reviews, the presence of certain people is essential.
This is just like the usual QBRs except that the frequency is not fixed but is set as per the need.
Here the executives from both sides (ie- The sponsor from the customer side and the Account Manager from your side) need to be present.
The most important person here is the sponsor who needs to be present. In EBR the sponsor will get a high-level view of what is happening, what are the current roadblocks along with a bird’s eye view of the possible upcoming challenges.
As a Customer Success Manager, you will also get an idea of the ever-evolving customer success outcomes. At the end of the review, as per the expectations, the next date of the review is fixed.
Periodic reinforcement of value delivered along with understanding the ever evolving desired outcomes of customers.
In B2B SaaS, usually, the sponsor is different from the people who actually using the software. A sponsor spends thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands, of dollars to buy the subscription of your software.
But is the company able to achieve the goals that were promised to them? If not, what are the roadblocks?
Business reviews help update everyone and bring them on the same page regarding the progress made along with discussing the future plans.
You also get to understand what other complementary problems the customer is trying to solve along with figuring out ways to solve as many of those problems as possible.
There are several other reasons which make business reviews critical for B2B SaaS companies which we are going to discuss later.
3 Quarterly Business Review Examples
Usually, SaaS companies have different pricing plans and each plan has several customers.
Some customer’s ACV would be $10K while other’s would be $100K. So should you do business reviews with all customers? The ideal answer is yes but the practical answer is no.
Start by doing business reviews with the key customers.
What do we mean by key customers here?
Customers in the top tier- Since these customers are paying the highest, they expect their major problems to be solved in the best way along with a great customer experience. Losing even a single customer can lead to a major drift in revenue. As these customers are the lifeline of the company so extra care must be taken so that they are achieving their goals without facing many difficulties.
Customers who have the potential to move to the top tier- Sometimes big customers start from a low tier to understand and see whether what the sales team had promised them is actually true or not. If they feel that this product is good they can be one of your highest paying customers in a couple of years. To actually make that move, business reviews play an important role as not only they get insights on the business they also get to know how the product can solve several of their other problems.
These are the customers who will actually derive benefits from the business reviews.
If you try to do business reviews from the lower-paying customers, they won’t be serious about it and it would be a wastage of resources. As the customers move to higher levels, the business reviews will actually give them insights that even impact their bottom line.
Business reviews are NOT catch up meetings or just another video call. There are certain people and things that make a business review effective.
The following table shows the important members who should be present during a QBR:
This is not an exhaustive list and more people can be added as per the requirements.
This is a common question but sadly it doesn’t have a fixed answer. It depends on several factors like your company structure, the agenda of the business review etc.
Usually, the respective customer success manager prepares the PPT and report as the only s/he is aware of the nitty-gritty related to that specific customer.
The business review is presented by the CSM or account manager as per the objectives decided beforehand.
Generally, if the focus is on retention then the CSM presents the business review but if the focus is on upsell then the account manager drives the presentation.
Of course, the other stakeholders also give their inputs while preparing the business review so that no major point is missed.
Ideally No. You should only do QBRs with your key customers.
Doing QBRs with customers having lower contract value will neither be fruitful nor will make economic sense.
But if you are an early-stage startup that is just starting customer success practice, QBR with any customer is good as you will at least learn some insights. Something is better than nothing and as you get high-value customers by that time you would have greatly improved your QBR process.
On-site QBRs are much more effective and fruitful. Your bond with the customer and their team is stronger as you form a more personal connection. But not every customer pays you that much to make on-site visits economical.
Wherever possible and required you should do on-site business reviews but for others, QBRs can be done via video conferencing.
Business reviews are usually done every quarter as it is an ideal timeframe to show what results the customer has got using your product.
But there is no hard and fast rule but ideally, it should be conducted as per the requirements. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have even a single business review in a year if everything is going well.
Regular business reviews are critical to making the customer successful over a long period of time.
First QBR should be ideally done after the onboarding process is over. This is where you connect with all the stakeholders and product champions. Along with the progress, targets and date should be set for the next business review.
Usually, business reviews are completed within 1-3 hours. The exact duration depends on the agenda of the business review. But don’t drag it unnecessarily.
Business reviews provide the perfect opportunity to build a relationship with stakeholders. In some cases, if you are not aware of the right stakeholders- it will help you get connected and understand the perceived value of the product/service you are providing.
Moreover, it also gives you the closest answers to critical questions like:
As discussed earlier, everyone will get to know the exact progress the customer has made.
Here you will learn about the customer’s future plans. This will give you an edge in preparing yourself and improving your product so that you can help the customer achieve more goals in the future.
Understand what other problems the customer is facing. Sometimes an existing feature in the customer’s current plan (which has not been taught to them) can solve it. Other times maybe a new feature in the upgraded plan helps the customer tackle this problem.
If yes, it might provide you an upselling opportunity in the future, so make sure you nurture it Sometimes customers also have specific feature requests. Here you need to make a note and share it with your product team so that they can check the feasibility and hopefully give a timeline.
If you’re looking for a Customer Success management software that can help you with upselling signals, probably CustomerSuccessBox can help you in this .
Business reviews also provides an opportunity to discuss how your product is going to shape up in the future along with the direction your industry is progressing in. In every fruitful association, it is essential that both know the future plans of each other.
The Customer Success department might be rocking but what is the position of the company? Is the company going as per the plan or have they hit some roadblocks? Depending on the customer’s answer, it helps you plan your future association better. For example, if the customer is going through financial turmoil, it is not a good time to push an upsell.
Learning about the priorities of the customer helps you set your priority for them too. Customer priorities can be divided into short-term and long-term priorities. Short-term priorities can be 3 months goals like configuring the customer success software and setting up the dashboard while long-term priorities can be annual goals like reducing churn. If the customer’s focus is on reducing churn rate, you shouldn’t be trying to reduce onboarding time for their customers.
Each industry is going through rapid changes with the advent of technology. Just staying up to date is not enough in this competitive world but to actually succeed you have to be ahead of the curve. This is where your existing customers operang in different segments can give you that extra leverage.
Business reviews give you an opportunity to know about the inside scoops of the various industries that your customers are operating which allows you to strategies in advance on how to make your product better for both the existing and future customers.
This will give you hints on where you can get more customers. If the industry is growing and your customer is among the market leaders, they can not only introduce you to other potential customers but also guide you to help you close the deal with them.
The executive will need to know the ball is in whose court and who needs to provide a push so that the engine continues to accelerate and run smoothly.
After the business review, you will also be able to identify the owner of the various pending tasks and by when they would be completed.
Not only this; did you know that business reviews help you reduce churn and eventually even increase MRR.
It helps you to reduce churn by:
Pro tip: 5 fail proof ways to reduce churn
Most companies understand the business impact of the product they buy but are not happy with the execution. Business Reviews help you streamline the process & concentrate on – where is the biggest blocker or where is the biggest impact.
For all your high-value customers you must & should carry out the Business Reviews in a structured way. Below are a few general guidelines on how a business review should be conducted:
Make it a part of every customer success journey
These business reviews are conducted after a certain fixed me as per their names.
Pro-tip: For all the new customers, you can block the calendar of stakeholders for QBR in the kick-off call itself. Your regular customers should be more inclined to business reviews as with their previous experience they would already be aware of its value proposition.
An effective way to push the CSMs to conduct business reviews is to measure them on How many QBRs due this month Vs number of QBRs Completed.
i) Prepare a report of business metrics along with their improvements & vice versa in the last 3 months. Even if the reports are available in your product, still show this in PPT, as there are high chances that executives may not have seen it.
ii)Share some “Behind the scenes” reports that are not available in the product.
According to Wikipedia:
Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies.
Benchmarking helps the company know exactly where they stand compared to other companies in the same industry. This is the data that customers crave for as it shows where all they need to put in their efforts.
Customers are also looking for a suggestion from your Customer Success team which may not be related to your product. They would like to know your recommendations on how to improve their metrics.
Though you may feel that you know everything about the company, you might have missed some crucial aspects which would be captured in the questionnaire.
Pro tip: QBR template
Each business review has different goals that is usually pre decided before the QBR. Here are some of the success metrics that can be used for measuring how effective the QBR was:
Bonus tip: Customer Success metrics to monitor
It is the job of the customer success leaders to ingrain business reviews in the customer success managers schedules. But first they must be taught and convinced the importance of business reviews.
Here are a few steps that will help you bring in the culture of business reviews in your organisation:
i) Professional email templates for the invitation to stakeholders stating clear agendas .
ii) Professional-looking PowerPoint presentations with the right flow of information .
iii) A slide with the revised product roadmap .
iv) Infrastructure to get fetch analytics for respective customers.
v) Create a Playbook for QBR to get clear visibility & know-how of all the customers .
vi) Drive first few QBRs yourself
vii) Set up a meeting every 2-3 months to get feedback from the team & make changes in the process if required.
It will take some time before the whole team is actually convinced of the value of the QBRS as business reviews don’t show instant results. But keep pushing the team in the right direction and soon you will see the exponential benefits of business reviews.
Internal Quarterly Business Review is a strategic activity used by customer success teams to assess performance with their managers during the preceding quarter and think about how to renew customers, work through forthcoming obstacles, and perceive possibilities in a new way.
Internal QBR helps analyze what worked for the team and what didn’t. which tools were frequently used and which are needed for the next quarter to deliver results.
Looking at the advantages, it’s important you have a good document process for conducting an internal QBR. The first step is to set the requirement expectation of each participant- one who is presenting and as well as one who is attendeing.
The other steps and the process is can be found in the blog- The detailed process for Internal Quarterly Business Review
It is important to make adjustments after each business review so that each time you get better results. As you start getting value from business review, not only will you be excited but customers too will be eagerly waiting for the business review as it provides them with a chance to collaborate, learn and grow the business together as a team
Start doing business reviews and take not only the customer success team but the whole company to the moon.
Once upon a time, there was a B2B SaaS company named StarB*. The company was steadily growing and the CSMs of StarB also interacted frequently with the customers who were also satisfied by the product. Everything was going as per the plan.
Then Annie*, Customer Success Manager after reading several blogs on QBRs, decided to actually do one! She was excited to see whether they are actually beneficial or is another hyped-up fancy thing to do.
The results were completely shocking:
Basically, everything changed. She figured out “Unknowns”. These “Unknowns” lead to the massive growth of the company in directions that the company earlier didn’t know even existed.
In QBR, when the CSM interacted with the Sponsor they realised that the company was solving a complementary problem instead of the main problem. Even better, the main problem is a much bigger problem that is faced by companies throughout the world while product company needs to make a few minor changes to solve it.
Their customer’s company had more than 5 departments which had the same main problem but only one department was actually using their product. After making the minor changes, the product company was able to sell the same product to all of the departments and hence got a massive boost in revenue without increasing the CAC( Customer Acquisition Cost).
As the importance of customer success continues to increase in the B2B SaaS world, the responsibilities of customer success managers are also widening.
From reducing churn, increasing Lifetime Value (LTV) of customer base, proactively providing insights on feature adoption, providing references, case studies, customer stories to sales and marketing to creating upsell opportunities, facilitating renewals, the list goes on and on.
Bonus tip:Roles and responsibilities of Customer Success Manager
To help make CSMs lives easier there are powerful customer success software like ChurnZero, CustomerSuccessBox, Gainsight, Totango, etc. but one thing that customer success folks sometimes underestimate is the power of a Quarterly Business Review.
Pro tip: The essential guide to choosing a Customer Success Platform
Quarterly Business Review
In B2B SaaS, everyone knows that QBRs need to be done, most of us even do it but very few do it the proper way.
Proper Way?
What is the proper way and does it even exist?
Of course, it does! Otherwise, why would I have written this guide? ��
Doing effective QBRs can not only bring financial benefits but also help you improve your product.
In the SaaS world, along with a mind blowing product you have to do several other things to get recurring revenue like:
This leads to mammoth pressure on the customer success team. Here is where business reviews come into the picture.
QBR is a weapon in the arsenal of the customer success team that can help make your product indispensable for your customer.
Quarterly Business Review is something which cannot be skipped in this day and age. This ebook is for everyone related to business reviews.
From Customer Success Managers, Account Managers to Customer Success Leaders, this guide will help you not only get you started with QBRs but also will help you make one by using the template.
After reading the ebook, along with having knowledge of the different types of business reviews, advantages of business reviews, how to conduct QBRs you would actually be able to do effective business reviews in your company.
Here we have used the terms Quarterly Business Review (QBR) and Business review interchangeably so don’t get confused by the names.
Now let us get started!
Are there any differences between a QBR and a Business review?
Well QBR is a subset of business review. QBR is basically business reviews that are conducted quarterly.
There are usually 3 ways in which the different types of business reviews can be segmented:
Here the business reviews are set as and when important tasks/milestones are completed.
This is the first business review with the client and as the name suggests: is done after the customer has been onboarded. This is the first business review and everyone (executives, sponsor, CSM from the client-side and the account manager, executive, CSM from your team) are introduced to each other.
OBRs are usually conducted when the onboarding process is long (more than a month).
Expectations, the process to be followed, and targets are set along with the next business review date is finalized.
Pro tip: Onboarding Framework
As the name suggests this business review is conducted either pre or post-renewal.
Renewal is a completely different ball game that usually requires a separate business review.
All the rough edges and major doubts of the customer are taken care of along with explaining to the customer how your software will work in tandem with their product to produce even beer results. Here the new problems to be solved along with future targets are set.
These business reviews are conducted after a certain fixed me as per their names.
As the names suggest these business reviews are defined according to the frequency in which they have to be conducted.
Whether a customer needs a monthly, quarterly, or annual business review depends on the customer, the product, and also on the stage that the customer is in. Initially, till the customer gets used to the product or if a customer needs to achieve an important goal urgently, there might be monthly business reviews.
Once the customer gets settled and starts getting optimum results you might only need quarterly or annual business reviews.
In these business reviews, the presence of certain people is essential.
This is just like the usual QBRs except that the frequency is not fixed but is set as per the need.
Here the executives from both sides (ie- The sponsor from the customer side and the Account Manager from your side) need to be present.
The most important person here is the sponsor who needs to be present. In EBR the sponsor will get a high-level view of what is happening, what are the current roadblocks along with a bird’s eye view of the possible upcoming challenges.
As a Customer Success Manager, you will also get an idea of the ever-evolving customer success outcomes. At the end of the review, as per the expectations, the next date of the review is fixed.
Periodic reinforcement of value delivered along with understanding the ever evolving desired outcomes of customers.
In B2B SaaS, usually, the sponsor is different from the people who actually using the software. A sponsor spends thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands, of dollars to buy the subscription of your software.
But is the company able to achieve the goals that were promised to them? If not, what are the roadblocks?
Business reviews help update everyone and bring them on the same page regarding the progress made along with discussing the future plans.
You also get to understand what other complementary problems the customer is trying to solve along with figuring out ways to solve as many of those problems as possible.
There are several other reasons which make business reviews critical for B2B SaaS companies which we are going to discuss later.
3 Quarterly Business Review Examples
Usually, SaaS companies have different pricing plans and each plan has several customers.
Some customer’s ACV would be $10K while other’s would be $100K. So should you do business reviews with all customers? The ideal answer is yes but the practical answer is no.
Start by doing business reviews with the key customers.
What do we mean by key customers here?
Customers in the top tier- Since these customers are paying the highest, they expect their major problems to be solved in the best way along with a great customer experience. Losing even a single customer can lead to a major drift in revenue. As these customers are the lifeline of the company so extra care must be taken so that they are achieving their goals without facing many difficulties.
Customers who have the potential to move to the top tier- Sometimes big customers start from a low tier to understand and see whether what the sales team had promised them is actually true or not. If they feel that this product is good they can be one of your highest paying customers in a couple of years. To actually make that move, business reviews play an important role as not only they get insights on the business they also get to know how the product can solve several of their other problems.
These are the customers who will actually derive benefits from the business reviews.
If you try to do business reviews from the lower-paying customers, they won’t be serious about it and it would be a wastage of resources. As the customers move to higher levels, the business reviews will actually give them insights that even impact their bottom line.
Business reviews are NOT catch up meetings or just another video call. There are certain people and things that make a business review effective.
The following table shows the important members who should be present during a QBR:
This is not an exhaustive list and more people can be added as per the requirements.
This is a common question but sadly it doesn’t have a fixed answer. It depends on several factors like your company structure, the agenda of the business review etc.
Usually, the respective customer success manager prepares the PPT and report as the only s/he is aware of the nitty-gritty related to that specific customer.
The business review is presented by the CSM or account manager as per the objectives decided beforehand.
Generally, if the focus is on retention then the CSM presents the business review but if the focus is on upsell then the account manager drives the presentation.
Of course, the other stakeholders also give their inputs while preparing the business review so that no major point is missed.
Ideally No. You should only do QBRs with your key customers.
Doing QBRs with customers having lower contract value will neither be fruitful nor will make economic sense.
But if you are an early-stage startup that is just starting customer success practice, QBR with any customer is good as you will at least learn some insights. Something is better than nothing and as you get high-value customers by that time you would have greatly improved your QBR process.
On-site QBRs are much more effective and fruitful. Your bond with the customer and their team is stronger as you form a more personal connection. But not every customer pays you that much to make on-site visits economical.
Wherever possible and required you should do on-site business reviews but for others, QBRs can be done via video conferencing.
Business reviews are usually done every quarter as it is an ideal timeframe to show what results the customer has got using your product.
But there is no hard and fast rule but ideally, it should be conducted as per the requirements. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have even a single business review in a year if everything is going well.
Regular business reviews are critical to making the customer successful over a long period of time.
First QBR should be ideally done after the onboarding process is over. This is where you connect with all the stakeholders and product champions. Along with the progress, targets and date should be set for the next business review.
Usually, business reviews are completed within 1-3 hours. The exact duration depends on the agenda of the business review. But don’t drag it unnecessarily.
Business reviews provide the perfect opportunity to build a relationship with stakeholders. In some cases, if you are not aware of the right stakeholders- it will help you get connected and understand the perceived value of the product/service you are providing.
Moreover, it also gives you the closest answers to critical questions like:
As discussed earlier, everyone will get to know the exact progress the customer has made.
Here you will learn about the customer’s future plans. This will give you an edge in preparing yourself and improving your product so that you can help the customer achieve more goals in the future.
Understand what other problems the customer is facing. Sometimes an existing feature in the customer’s current plan (which has not been taught to them) can solve it. Other times maybe a new feature in the upgraded plan helps the customer tackle this problem.
If yes, it might provide you an upselling opportunity in the future, so make sure you nurture it Sometimes customers also have specific feature requests. Here you need to make a note and share it with your product team so that they can check the feasibility and hopefully give a timeline.
If you’re looking for a Customer Success management software that can help you with upselling signals, probably CustomerSuccessBox can help you in this .
Business reviews also provides an opportunity to discuss how your product is going to shape up in the future along with the direction your industry is progressing in. In every fruitful association, it is essential that both know the future plans of each other.
The Customer Success department might be rocking but what is the position of the company? Is the company going as per the plan or have they hit some roadblocks? Depending on the customer’s answer, it helps you plan your future association better. For example, if the customer is going through financial turmoil, it is not a good time to push an upsell.
Learning about the priorities of the customer helps you set your priority for them too. Customer priorities can be divided into short-term and long-term priorities. Short-term priorities can be 3 months goals like configuring the customer success software and setting up the dashboard while long-term priorities can be annual goals like reducing churn. If the customer’s focus is on reducing churn rate, you shouldn’t be trying to reduce onboarding time for their customers.
Each industry is going through rapid changes with the advent of technology. Just staying up to date is not enough in this competitive world but to actually succeed you have to be ahead of the curve. This is where your existing customers operang in different segments can give you that extra leverage.
Business reviews give you an opportunity to know about the inside scoops of the various industries that your customers are operating which allows you to strategies in advance on how to make your product better for both the existing and future customers.
This will give you hints on where you can get more customers. If the industry is growing and your customer is among the market leaders, they can not only introduce you to other potential customers but also guide you to help you close the deal with them.
The executive will need to know the ball is in whose court and who needs to provide a push so that the engine continues to accelerate and run smoothly.
After the business review, you will also be able to identify the owner of the various pending tasks and by when they would be completed.
Not only this; did you know that business reviews help you reduce churn and eventually even increase MRR.
It helps you to reduce churn by:
Pro tip: 5 fail proof ways to reduce churn
Most companies understand the business impact of the product they buy but are not happy with the execution. Business Reviews help you streamline the process & concentrate on – where is the biggest blocker or where is the biggest impact.
For all your high-value customers you must & should carry out the Business Reviews in a structured way. Below are a few general guidelines on how a business review should be conducted:
Make it a part of every customer success journey
These business reviews are conducted after a certain fixed me as per their names.
Pro-tip: For all the new customers, you can block the calendar of stakeholders for QBR in the kick-off call itself. Your regular customers should be more inclined to business reviews as with their previous experience they would already be aware of its value proposition.
An effective way to push the CSMs to conduct business reviews is to measure them on How many QBRs due this month Vs number of QBRs Completed.
i) Prepare a report of business metrics along with their improvements & vice versa in the last 3 months. Even if the reports are available in your product, still show this in PPT, as there are high chances that executives may not have seen it.
ii)Share some “Behind the scenes” reports that are not available in the product.
According to Wikipedia:
Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies.
Benchmarking helps the company know exactly where they stand compared to other companies in the same industry. This is the data that customers crave for as it shows where all they need to put in their efforts.
Customers are also looking for a suggestion from your Customer Success team which may not be related to your product. They would like to know your recommendations on how to improve their metrics.
Though you may feel that you know everything about the company, you might have missed some crucial aspects which would be captured in the questionnaire.
Pro tip: QBR template
Each business review has different goals that is usually pre decided before the QBR. Here are some of the success metrics that can be used for measuring how effective the QBR was:
Bonus tip: Customer Success metrics to monitor
It is the job of the customer success leaders to ingrain business reviews in the customer success managers schedules. But first they must be taught and convinced the importance of business reviews.
Here are a few steps that will help you bring in the culture of business reviews in your organisation:
i) Professional email templates for the invitation to stakeholders stating clear agendas .
ii) Professional-looking PowerPoint presentations with the right flow of information .
iii) A slide with the revised product roadmap .
iv) Infrastructure to get fetch analytics for respective customers.
v) Create a Playbook for QBR to get clear visibility & know-how of all the customers .
vi) Drive first few QBRs yourself
vii) Set up a meeting every 2-3 months to get feedback from the team & make changes in the process if required.
It will take some time before the whole team is actually convinced of the value of the QBRS as business reviews don’t show instant results. But keep pushing the team in the right direction and soon you will see the exponential benefits of business reviews.
Internal Quarterly Business Review is a strategic activity used by customer success teams to assess performance with their managers during the preceding quarter and think about how to renew customers, work through forthcoming obstacles, and perceive possibilities in a new way.
Internal QBR helps analyze what worked for the team and what didn’t. which tools were frequently used and which are needed for the next quarter to deliver results.
Looking at the advantages, it’s important you have a good document process for conducting an internal QBR. The first step is to set the requirement expectation of each participant- one who is presenting and as well as one who is attendeing.
The other steps and the process is can be found in the blog- The detailed process for Internal Quarterly Business Review
It is important to make adjustments after each business review so that each time you get better results. As you start getting value from business review, not only will you be excited but customers too will be eagerly waiting for the business review as it provides them with a chance to collaborate, learn and grow the business together as a team
Start doing business reviews and take not only the customer success team but the whole company to the moon.
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