湖南省湘西州全面深化改革专题培训在中改院开班

百度 比如，五年前的人口普查要发动几万名甚至更多的工作人员，要耗费整整半年甚至更多的时间；五年后因为了大数据支撑，我们再做同样的工作将会变得非常高效。

Starting a Quarterly Business Review process is daunting.

That’s why a lot of fast-growing SaaS companies put it off… or never get started at all. This post will help you start your QBR process, without the stress.

> Download your free QBR Cheat Sheet here. We've included extra email scripts and a simple QBR agenda that didn't quite fit into this post.

Let’s dive in!

Start with a partnership mindset

The goal of a QBR is to make your customer look like a superstar to their team, manager and company.

You achieve this by partnering with them to achieve their goals.

Consider the difference between these two conversations:

Executive sponsor: “Where are we at with XYZ product?”

Your confused customer: “Err, I’m not sure… I know it’s been kinda buggy lately. We logged ten tickets last quarter… (trails off)”

with…

Executive sponsor: “Where are we at with XYZ product?”

Your well-armed customer: "We hit last quarter’s goals. I’ll share our new goals with you after our next QBR. By the way... the XYZ CSM is a superstar, we should try and poach them for our team."

The second conversation will only happen when you have a partnership mindset.

Formalize the process

Let’s get the Quarterly Business Review on your customer’s radar.

Their time is precious, so be clear and specific. Set your customer up for success by explaining:

 

1. the purpose of the meeting
2. what they should expect
3. when you will get started

 

Here’s a field-tested template you can use to get the process moving:

***

Subject: Request for Quarterly Business Review meeting

Hi [client name],

I'd like to set up a 45 minute meeting with you to go through a Quarterly Business Review (QBR). In the QBR, we will review where we are today and set goals to work on together over the next quarter. We are formalizing the QBR process to ensure that you get the most value out of [your company name].

Here are some suggested times, do any of these work for you?

• [time, day]
• [time, day]
• [time, day]

Sincerely,

[your name]

***

When you propose times to meet, remember that it takes between 3 and 4 weeks to get people to commit to the process. The good news is that after you run a few excellent QBRs, your customers will start to set the meetings with you.

Practice before meeting your customer

When you’re just starting out, use practice runs to give yourself confidence.

You can role play a QBR with fellow CSMs and bring an executive sponsor into the mix, too. Ask your partners to throw you a few curve balls as you go through your presentation. It’s likely that your customers will do the same.

Remember to be 100% focused during the QBR. Close down anything on your computer that’s not related to your QBR. Find a quiet meeting room so your customer has your full attention. Be present and ready to listen with intent.

After one or two practice runs, you will be confident enough to present to your customer.

Keep it simple and strategic (KISS)

Don’t go into your first QBR with a 15 page slide deck.

We Customer Success folk love...

 

• event-based usage metrics
• NPS scores broken down by individual users
• ticket-by-ticket breakdowns and their responses times

 

Your customers might feel like this if you overload them with stats...

The Quarterly Business Review is the not the ideal forum to dive into the weeds.

Keep the discussion simple and strategic.

Be consistent and committed

The QBR process helps you to teach your customer on how to best use you.

If you cancel or bump your meetings, you will erode their trust and they may become disillusioned. This means you need to be consistent and execute this process like clockwork.

When you commit to the QBR process and get your machine up and running, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Thanks to Alex McClafferty for his contribution to this post.

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