The Most Common QBR Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The biggest mistake I see with QBRs is not making it strategic.

If you have the correct audience, which should be your senior stakeholders (economic buyer, Champion, decision-makers), your QBR content MUST align with their interests. In nearly all cases, this can be simplified as: "Does this platform help us succeed with our company goals?" However, too often, CSMs want to present items that interest them more than the client.

One of the most significant risks of these mistakes is that you will lose the attention of your stakeholders, and they will be unlikely to attend future sessions.  

Some of the regular traps I see CSMs fall into:

Making it a roadmap presentation

Most CSMs know their product inside out and will receive many internal enablement sessions on upcoming features. Therefore, giving your client a full run-down of all the great things your Product team has planned to develop the product can be tempting. I am against this. Instead of presenting everything on the plan, you would do well presenting only those features that align with your client's goals. Make the connection on how your product directly solves their challenges. Seeing how your product continues to develop in line with their specific requirements will be more important to your stakeholders.

Instead

• Limit the presentation of new features to those that will directly assist with the client's challenges.
• Set up a seperate Roadmap Session. This is a worthy meeting in its own right and is a great way to allow your client to meet members of the product team and help shape the development of the product.

Going through basic tactical data

Please don't add a bunch of boring stats unless there is a specific challenge with license assignment or a complete lack of adoption. Your stakeholders aren't interested in this granular level of data.

Instead

• Demonstrate your product's value against the client's goals with success metrics.

"If the renewal was tomorrow, what would you re-sign?"

It became popular to ask provocative questions like this, typically at the end of a QBR. I'm guilty of doing this myself in the past, and it was awkward. The rationale is that you're trying to get a view of where your client is in their thinking. The problem is that they are not prepared for such a blunt question. It might seem clever, and not all creative tension is terrible, but questions like these are just too basic. It can come across as too aggressive and confrontational.  

Instead 

• Ask more subtle questions throughout the meeting, such as if they are confident you will be able to achieve the next quarter's objectives.

To ensure your client is prepared for questions, it can be a good idea to spend some time working together to agree on the agenda and content. I have written a short course on this subject which you can take for free here.

Not presenting an opportunity

Not presenting an upsell or expansion opportunity means your client is potentially missing out on further value and getting close to meeting their goals. Don't think of opportunities as increasing your ARR but delivering even more value for your client. Presenting commercial opportunities doesn't reduce your trustworthiness or damage the reputation you have built as a CSM.

Instead

• You have the required audience to raise these opportunities, so don't miss out on the chance to demonstrate the further value they could be receiving from your product.

A sales pitch

That said, a QBR isn't an out-and-out Sales pitch. It might be tempting to present the new premium features you've just launched or an entirely new product but stay away from pitching unless it will help the client meet their goals. This will damage your reputation as it demonstrates a lack of understanding of their business and shows you are more interested in pushing your products without diligence.

Instead

• Make sure you are fully aware of any additional features or products offered and how they align with your client's goals.
• Ensure you're already delivering a positive ROI before pushing other paid products.

In Summary

Your agenda must align with the interests of your senior stakeholders. Make sure you demonstrate that you are not only aligned with their goals but also how your product is delivering them. Thinking more about their broader company initiatives and how you play your part is far more strategic than focusing on how many people logged in or the fact that you have a new menu dropdown.

Failure to do this can make you considered a tactical individual focused on mundane issues. You also risk turning off your senior stakeholders, who will not join future QBR meetings.