The Ideal Quarterly Business Review (QBR) Structure

Are you struggling to get your client services teams excited about quarterly business reviews (QBRs)? We get it, QBRs aren’t exactly everyone’s favorite meeting on the calendar. It’s tough to know the right approach with clients, especially when discussing big picture goals and forecasting. But QBRs can be an integral player in building customer engagement, long-term successful relationships, and what we all want, reduced customer churn come renewal time. 

Unfortunately many businesses gloss over the potential of the QBR. Client service managers email stats instead of having a conversation; they prepare materials a few minutes before the meeting; meetings are boring and disengaging; tough conversations are hurried or never had; and more often than not, the right people just aren’t at the table. 

We’re here to help break down the potential of QBRs as a key player in successful engagement. 

What is a Quarterly Business Review
Traditionally held each quarter (your call), QBRs offer an opportunity for clients and customer success teams to talk about how things are going. Past activities are reviewed in relation to client goals, and often there’s a discussion about future planning, strategic goals, forecasting and more. Anyone can be involved in the QBR meeting from CEOs to interns. However, the best QBRs involve your cheerleaders, critics and decision makers. 

The Ideal QBR Structure
QBRs come in all shapes and sizes. The structure that’s right for your business varies based on the product and specific relationship goals you have for your client. Generally, here’s what we recommend: 

Summarize current activity

We love taking a visual approach here in using stats, graphs, charts and metrics to show how your product is helping (or not helping) the client reach their goals. This section should be short and precise and relate specifically to client goals. Don’t forget to show the good and the bad. This is an opportunity for open and honest conversation which can take you far in customer engagement and relationship building. 

Make room for discussion

Beyond progress reports and forecasting, a huge benefit of QBRs is building collaborative relationships with your clients. Open discussion not only provides invaluable insights for possible next steps and solutions, it lays the building blocks to a strong relationship and brand loyalty. Listening to your clients shows them you’re on their side and understand their goals.

Offer solutions with future planning and forecasting

You’re the experts in helping the client reach their goals, so assert yourself with insightful ideas into how they can meet them with the use of your product. Recommendations should be developed well ahead of the meeting, but be quick on your feet in responding to possible next steps learned from open discussion. 

Keep the information front and center via a mutual action plan

What happens to QBR data after the meeting? Likely, it gets buried. Prevent the data shuffling by making the information readily available and accessible to your client. Future goals and initiatives should be implemented efficiently. Results, front and center of not only for the day-to-day users, but key decision makers and stakeholders along the way. 

Showing your customers the value in using your product is vital for customer engagement. And relationship building opportunities at every turn, a killer QBR process is something to invest in. At Proteus, we believe customer engagement leads to big opportunities in keeping and growing your revenue. And luckily, we’ve got a full engagement platform helping you stay fully connected with clients. Learn more about how QBRs fit into your centralized workspaces by scheduling a demo today.