A customer QBR (quarterly business review) is a meeting between the account team and the customer's sponsor to review the result the customer is getting, agree what they need next and surface any commercial decisions coming up. The account manager runs it, the customer success manager supports it, and it takes about 60 minutes, plus an hour of preparation.
Many QBRs are status updates: the vendor presents usage, the sponsor nods and everyone leaves with the picture they arrived with. Our earlier post the QBR is not a status update makes the case for changing that. This piece is the procedure. It sits inside our account expansion guide, which covers where the QBR fits in the year.
What a customer QBR is for
A QBR does three jobs, in this order: confirm the value delivered in the customer's own measures, hear what the customer is trying to do over the next 90 days, and look at the commercial implications that follow from it. Skip the first and the third reads as a pitch; skip the third and the meeting changes nothing.
- Minutes 0 to 5Open on their priority
- Minutes 5 to 25Value in their measures
- Misses first
- Minutes 25 to 45Their next 90 days
- The customer talks first
- Minutes 45 to 55The calendar together
- Renewal and expansion kept apart
- Minutes 55 to 60Owners and the next date
It is different from two meetings that share its name. An internal sales QBR is a quarterly review of a team's pipeline and numbers. An executive business review (EBR) is a QBR held with the customer's executive team, focused on results and direction. The procedure below works for both customer formats. The short definition is in what is a QBR.
The 60-minute QBR, step by step
1. Get the sponsor in the room
Invite the person who signed the contract or now holds the budget, plus the day-to-day lead. On your side: the account manager leads, the CSM covers adoption, and for top accounts an executive from your company attends. Good looks like: the sponsor accepted the invite. If the sponsor has skipped two in a row, the account is drifting, and that is the conversation to have before the next QBR.
2. Prepare from the quarter's conversations
Read the quarter's call notes and emails. List what the customer said they wanted last quarter, what you promised and what happened. Good looks like: one page with the customer's goals, the result against each in their measures, and every miss. The layout we use, one row per goal, shown filled in from the Arrowmere example below:
Goal they set (their words): Cut dispatch rework
Result (their measure): Rework down a third against their baseline
Miss, said first: Driver app three weeks late (our login problem)
What we changed: [the fix, one line]
Their question for this QBR: [from the agenda reply in step 3]
3. Send the agenda with one question
Send the agenda a week ahead and ask: "What is the one thing you need us to cover?" Good looks like: the sponsor's answer is on the agenda, near the top.
4. Open on their priority (minutes 0 to 5)
Before any slides, ask again: "What do you most want to leave with today?" If it differs from the agenda, change the agenda. Good looks like: you are discussing their question within five minutes.
5. Show value in their measures, misses first (minutes 5 to 25)
Present results against the goals the customer set: "At the start you were at X, you are at Y, the target was Z." Name any miss yourself, early, with what you are doing about it. Good looks like: the sponsor repeats a result in their own words. Keep usage figures as supporting detail, because usage is your measure and the sponsor reports results upward.
6. Let the customer describe the next 90 days (minutes 25 to 45)
Ask: "What are the things that matter most to you over the next 90 days?" The customer talks first and you write down what they say. Then connect each item to an action with an owner and a date. Good looks like: you have the customer's priorities in their words. Expansion threads come from here. If the sponsor says the warehouse team is struggling with the same handoffs, you can say: "When you mentioned the warehouse, it made me wonder whether the same fix applies there. Who runs that team?" That is discovery. Proposing a warehouse package at this point would be a pitch.
7. Look at the calendar together (minutes 45 to 55)
Cover the renewal date, any contractual items and any expansion conversation already in progress, with no surprises. If nothing commercial needs saying, say nothing. Keep the renewal and any expansion as separate conversations on separate timelines, as covered in how to run a renewal call. Good looks like: the sponsor knows the dates and nothing in this block was new to them.
8. Close with owners and the next date (minutes 55 to 60)
Read back what each side leaves with, book the next QBR before anyone hangs up and send a written summary within a day. Good looks like: the next QBR is in both calendars.
A worked example
This example is illustrative. Arrowmere is a fictional 600-person logistics company with 80 seats on the dispatch team; Sam is the account manager and Dana is the VP of Operations.
Prep. Sam's one-pager: Dana's goal last quarter was to cut dispatch rework. Rework is down by a third, in the number Dana's team tracks. The miss: the driver-app rollout slipped three weeks because of a login problem on Sam's side.
Opening. Dana's priority: "I need something I can show the CFO at budget time."
Value, miss first. Sam opens with the slip: "The driver app was three weeks late, that was on us, and here is what we changed." Then the result: rework down a third against the baseline Dana's team set. Dana: "That's the number the CFO will want."
Next 90 days. Dana talks for twelve minutes. Peak season is coming, and the warehouse team, run by Lee, has "the same mess with handoffs we had in dispatch". Sam writes it down and asks who Lee is and whether Dana would introduce them. He does not mention seats or pricing.
Calendar. Renewal in four months, on the current terms. No expansion is in progress, and Sam says so.
Close. Sam owns a one-page CFO summary by Friday. Dana owns the introduction to Lee. Next QBR booked.
After the meeting, the account has evidence it did not have before: a result the sponsor will repeat, and a named problem with a named owner in another team. In the stage table from the expansion guide, it has moved from "Value confirmed" toward "Need named", and the next conversation is with Lee.
Where it goes wrong
A QBR usually goes wrong in the preparation: a deck built late, from the team's own measures.
The deck is built the night before. A deck built from memory shows what the account team remembers. Build it from the quarter's conversations and the customer's goals.
Usage stands in for value. Logins and active users are your measures. A sponsor cannot take a weekly active user count to their CFO. Translate usage into the result the customer bought the product for, or leave it in the appendix.
The miss comes from the customer. If the sponsor raises a problem you knew about, you spend the meeting defending. Name it first, with the fix.
The last block is a pitch. Gong's six-part agenda ends with a "sneak peek of upcoming product developments" (Gong). That can work when the customer asked for it. As a default, it turns the final ten minutes into a sales presentation and teaches the sponsor to send a deputy next time.
Nothing is booked. A QBR that ends without the next date and owners on both sides becomes an annual review.
Preparing every QBR on every account
An account manager with forty accounts runs more than a hundred QBRs a year. The manager can help prepare a handful. The rest get prepared the night before, if at all, and that is where QBRs turn into status updates.
On Replicate Labs, the account manager prepares the QBR on a call with Caty. They talk through the account, the result and the miss; Caty has them say the opening and the miss out loud and plans for the sponsor's likely pushback with them.
After the QBR, they bring Caty what the sponsor said and plan the first conversation with the other team. Typing is there for when talking is not possible. Managers get a Monday read of the team from Bryce: which deals need attention this week and which carry buyer evidence. More on the approach is in how to coach account managers and on drive deal execution. To get every QBR on the book prepared this way, talk to us.
FAQ
How do you run a customer QBR?
Run it in three parts, in order. Show the result the customer is getting in their own measures, naming any miss first. Let the customer describe their next 90 days while you write it down. Then cover the commercial calendar. Open by asking what they most want to leave with, and close by booking the next QBR.
How long should a QBR be?
About 60 minutes for most accounts, and up to 90 for top accounts with an executive on each side. Preparation takes about an hour. A QBR that runs much shorter usually skipped the customer's next 90 days, which is the part that produces expansion threads and renewal warnings.
Who should attend a customer QBR?
The customer's sponsor, meaning the person who signed or now holds the budget, and their day-to-day lead. From your side, the account manager leads, the customer success manager covers adoption, and an executive joins for top accounts. If the sponsor misses two in a row, treat the account as drifting.
How do you bring up expansion in a QBR?
Bring it up only when the customer's own plan leads there. When the sponsor describes a problem in another team, ask who owns it and whether they would introduce you. The next step is that introduction and a first conversation with the other team's owner, booked before any proposal.
What is the difference between a QBR and an EBR?
An EBR, or executive business review, is a QBR held with the customer's executive team. It focuses on results and direction more than operational detail. The structure in this guide works for both: value in the customer's measures, their priorities, then the commercial calendar.
What should a QBR presentation include?
A QBR presentation should include the customer's goals, the result against each in their measures, any misses with the fix, a blank page for their next 90 days and the commercial calendar. Keep usage data in the appendix unless the customer asked for it. Leave room to talk; a 40-slide deck leaves none.