How to Write an Effective Quarterly Business Review (QBR): A Guide for CSMs

Imagine you're preparing for a performance review – except this time, the spotlight is on your relationship with a customer, not just your own goals. Welcome to the Quarterly Business Review (QBR), a pivotal meeting that can make or break customer relationships and set the tone for future success. 

A Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a strategic meeting held every three months between a vendor and a customer to review the customer's business performance, discuss the progress of ongoing projects, and align on future objectives. 

As Customer Success Managers (CSMs), mastering the QBR isn't just about ticking a box on your quarterly checklist. It's about demonstrating value, deepening trust, and aligning goals with your customers in a way that fosters long-term partnership.

In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to write a Quarterly Business Review and provide practical tips and insights to elevate these meetings from routine to remarkable. 

How to write a Quarterly Business Review (QBR)

The aim of a QBR is to ensure that both parties are on the same page ultimately fostering a stronger partnership and driving mutual success.

Preparation is the foundation of a successful quarterly business review. Ensuring that you have all the necessary data, a well-structured agenda, and clear objectives will set the stage for a productive and insightful meeting. Here are the steps you will need to follow:

Data collection and analysis

• Identify key metrics and KPIs to track: 

The first step in preparing for a QBR is identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most relevant to your customer's business goals. 

These might include metrics related to product usage, customer satisfaction, revenue growth, and customer health scores.

• Methods for uniting siloed data: 

Data often resides in various systems and platforms, making it challenging to gather and analyze. Utilizing integrated systems can help bring all this data together in a cohesive manner. 

For example, a Customer Success tool like Velaris can unite siloed data, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions and performance metrics. This integration enables CSMs to pull relevant data quickly and efficiently, reducing the time spent on manual data collection.

• Monitoring customer health:

Understanding the overall health of your customer is crucial. Velaris offers tools to monitor customer health scores, alerting you to any potential issues before they escalate. 

By keeping a close eye on these metrics, you can proactively address problems and improve the customer experience.

Setting the agenda

Outline the typical agenda for a QBR:

• Introduction: Briefly recap the previous quarter and set the stage for the discussion.
• Review of past performance: Highlight key achievements, challenges, and learnings from the past quarter.
• Customer feedback: Discuss feedback received from the customer and any actions taken.
• Future planning: Align on goals for the upcoming quarter and discuss strategies to achieve them.
• Q&A: Open the floor for any questions or additional feedback from the customer.

Tailoring the agenda to customer needs: 

While a typical agenda provides a structure, it is essential to tailor it to meet the specific needs and goals of each customer. This customization demonstrates your understanding of their business and shows that you value their unique challenges and objectives.

Structuring your QBR presentation

An effective QBR presentation is well-structured, clear, and engaging. It should provide a comprehensive review of the past quarter, highlight key insights, and outline strategic plans for the future.

Opening and setting the stage

• Introduce the review and its objectives: Start your QBR by briefly introducing the purpose of the meeting. Clearly state the objectives and what you hope to achieve by the end of the session. This sets the tone and ensures that both you and your customer are aligned on the meeting's goals.
• Highlight significant achievements and milestones: Begin with positive news to set a constructive tone. Highlight the major achievements and milestones reached during the past quarter. This could include successful project completions, increased usage of your product, or significant improvements in customer metrics. 

Using Velaris, you can easily pull these highlights from your data dashboards, ensuring that your presentation is backed by solid data.

Reviewing past performance

• Analyze what went well and areas for improvement: Provide a balanced view of the past quarter by discussing both successes and areas that need improvement. Use visual aids such as charts and graphs to make the data more digestible.
• Overview the success of projects and tasks: Discuss how specific projects and tasks contributed to the overall performance. By showcasing how task management was streamlined, you can demonstrate the tangible benefits of your efforts.

Future planning and strategy

• Set goals for the upcoming quarter: Collaboratively set clear, achievable goals for the next quarter. These goals should align with the customer's broader business objectives and be specific enough to track progress effectively. Ensure that these goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
• Develop action plans and strategies: Outline the strategies and action plans to achieve the set goals. Break down the steps needed and assign responsibilities to ensure accountability. 
• Bringing customer collaboration and communication into one place: Emphasize the importance of streamlined communication and collaboration in achieving the goals. 

A successful QBR doesn’t end with the meeting itself; it’s the follow-up actions that ensure progress and accountability.

Follow-up actions

Creating a structured follow-up plan is essential to address the insights and decisions made during the QBR.

Creating a follow-up plan

Outline the steps to follow up on QBR outcomes:

• Summarize key points and agreements: After the QBR, send a summary to all participants, highlighting the key points discussed, decisions made, and agreements reached. This helps in maintaining a clear record of the meeting and ensuring everyone is on the same page.
• Assign responsibilities and deadlines: Clearly define who is responsible for each follow-up action and set realistic deadlines. Assigning specific tasks to team members or stakeholders ensures accountability and helps in tracking progress.

Ensure accountability and track progress:

• Regular check-ins: Schedule regular check-ins to review the progress of follow-up actions. This could be weekly or bi-weekly meetings to ensure that tasks are on track and any issues are addressed promptly.
• Progress updates: Keep your customer informed about the progress of the follow-up actions. Regular updates can build trust and demonstrate your commitment to their success.
• Adjust plans as needed: Be flexible and adjust your plans based on the progress and any new insights that emerge. This adaptability can lead to better outcomes and a stronger partnership with your customer.

Challenges you might face while writing a QBR

Of course, while preparing for a QBR, CSMs often face various challenges. Some of them include:

• Data gathering: Collecting relevant and accurate data from various sources can be time-consuming and complex. CSMs need to consolidate data from different systems to provide a comprehensive overview of the customer's performance.
• Creating insights: Analyzing the gathered data to generate meaningful insights that resonate with the customer is challenging. It requires a deep understanding of the customer's business and the ability to translate data into actionable insights.
• Follow-up actions: Planning and executing follow-up actions based on the QBR discussion is crucial for driving progress. Ensuring accountability and tracking these actions can be a significant challenge for CSMs.

Velaris can help CSMs overcome these QBR challenges by streamlining the entire process. For data gathering, Velaris unites siloed data from different departments – such as sales, marketing, and support – into one centralized platform, automatically populating the necessary customer performance metrics and making data collection seamless. 

When it comes to creating insights, Velaris’ AI-driven analytics tools can help by analyzing customer data, identifying trends, and providing actionable insights that resonate with the customer’s business needs. 

Finally, for follow-up actions, Velaris allows CSMs to set automated reminders and track progress on agreed-upon actions, ensuring that follow-ups are executed and accountability is maintained, all within the same platform. This helps keep everyone aligned and ensures that post-QBR plans drive meaningful progress.

Conclusion

Quarterly business reviews (QBRs) are essential for maintaining strong customer relationships and ensuring alignment on business goals. By following a structured approach and leveraging the right tools, CSMs can create impactful and efficient QBRs.

By continuously improving your QBR process and leveraging powerful tools like Velaris, you can drive better results and build stronger, more successful customer relationships.

Ready to transform your QBRs and enhance Customer Success? Discover how Velaris can help you – book a demo today.