Executive Business Reviews: EBR tips, agenda & template

Executive business reviews (EBRs) are a double-edged sword for customer success managers. 

Despite being recognized as a cornerstone for account growth, many CSMs struggle with EBRs because they’re not just a typical “check-in” call.

When a CSM is preparing to meet with multiple stakeholders from a high-stakes account, the pressure mounts, knowing that this session isn’t about simply touching base but about delivering value, addressing key pain points, and showcasing future product plans. 

It’s an opportunity that can either cement a strong customer relationship or create friction if expectations aren’t aligned. 

This high-stakes dynamic, where meaningful results and deep insights are expected, is what makes EBRs such a hot topic in the customer success space.

What is an executive business review?

An executive business review (EBR) is a strategic meeting between your customer and your organization to accomplish three things:

1. Review performance
2. Assess goals
3. Align on future plans 

All of this helps to maximize the value your customer is experiencing with your product or service.

The reality is that EBRs can be pivotal for growth and alignment, but they require significant preparation, insight into customer needs, and the ability to steer strategic conversations—all to foster a win-win relationship. 

Done right, they’re not only a powerful retention tool but a springboard for continued growth. Done poorly, they can reveal a misalignment that may jeopardize the partnership.

EBRs vs. QBRs

Another joy of being in customer success is that you never run short of three-letter acronyms (TLAs) you need to memorize.

Quarterly business reviews (QBRs) are similar to executive business reviews in purpose but differ in timing. QBRs are scheduled once per quarter, whereas EBRs are more flexible and planned around key milestones, achievements, or shifting goals.

At Dock, we lean towards EBRs instead of QBRs for our clients because they allow us to schedule reviews at strategic points when they offer the most value. However, there are scenarios where both QBRs and EBRs can play a complementary role:

• Stable, mature partnerships: For longstanding clients with established success metrics, QBRs provide a predictable touchpoint to discuss ongoing goals and foster accountability, while EBRs can be saved for deeper discussions when major milestones or strategic shifts arise.
• High-growth or expanding accounts: Clients undergoing rapid growth or new projects may benefit from both QBRs and EBRs. QBRs keep communication regular, ensuring both sides stay aligned, while EBRs are reserved for when the client hits key project milestones or enters new phases that require a detailed strategy update.
• Complex, multi-stakeholder accounts: Accounts involving multiple teams and leaders can benefit from a combination. QBRs ensure frequent operational check-ins, while EBRs can serve as a platform for high-level strategic discussions that involve key decision-makers who may not need to meet quarterly.

QBRs are often easier to schedule, given their fixed cadence, while EBRs take careful planning to ensure the presence of key stakeholders. 

For us, balancing both formats—when appropriate—helps maximize value without straining resources, ensuring each session is tailored to the client's current needs and phase of engagement.

Which customers should have an EBR?

Not all customers are created equal, which means that not all customers warrant an EBR. Some customers are pretty self-sufficient and simply don’t want to meet regularly, while others may be in a scaled or digital pool of customers who don’t have a dedicated CSM. 

One piece of advice for deciding which customers should be asked to participate in an EBR is not to focus solely on the size of the customer (MRR/NRR, headcount, etc).

Just because a customer is “smaller” doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from an EBR.

Here are some key characteristics of customers to prioritize for upcoming EBRs:

• Expansion opportunities
• Upcoming renewals
• Churn risks/low adoption
• Any high-value account
• Major changes (key contact left, M&A, etc.)

Best practices for your next EBR

Before you start planning your next EBR, it’s best to take a look at your onboarding process. 

Let us explain…

1. Create a shared success plan during onboarding

A key part of every EBR is to review the goals and desired outcomes of your customers. These goals and outcomes should have been established during the onboarding process and should live in a success plan or customer portal that your CSMs can reference consistently. 

But customer goals change and evolve along the customer journey.

So, the CSM should update the goals and desired outcomes continuously. This sheet or document that outlines customer needs and their business goals should always be referenced and discussed by your CSMs and customers, especially during EBRs. 

We recommend using Dock to create a shared success plan as part of a greater onboarding workspace when you’re onboarding a customer.

Here’s a rough example:

Having this success plan living in Dock at all times helps your CSMs stay on top of the ever-evolving needs and goals of your customer base and refer back to these goals during your EBRs. 

It also acts as a North Star for all customer interactions and makes account transitions much more seamless for all involved. 

Bottom line: Have some kind of a shared high-level success plan so your EBRs are set up for success. 

2. Who should be involved? 

It’s important to know who from your company and who from the customer’s company should be present during the EBR.

Remember, this isn’t your typical customer call or webinar. The CSM and the main point of contact shouldn’t be the only people in attendance. 

When it comes to internal stakeholders from your organization, here are a few key contacts and team members who should be in attendance: 

• AE/Sales leader assigned to the account 
• Direct supervisor of the CSM 
• Any product or engineering reps that can speak to the complexity of the product 
• Executive leadership who may have a close relationship with the account 

For your client, it’s important to get as many key stakeholders on the EBR as possible. Some of these contacts can include:

• Contract signer 
• Champion
• Executives
• Managers & leadership involved in onboarding
• Key customer personas

Yes, all of these people are very busy. It’s very likely all won’t be able to make it. 

One of the best things the CSM or Account Manager can do with their main point of contact is determine who should be on the EBR. 

💡 Pro Tip: The CSM should work hand-in-hand with their main point of contact to determine which key stakeholders from the customer’s organization should be on the EBR. 

The CSM should then send a personalized email to each of these contacts with the main contact CC’d. Doing this two to three weeks in advance is ideal so they can prepare and offer agenda item recommendations. 

Once this list is finalized, the CSM then sends each of them a personalized invitation via email along with the actual invitation so it’s on their calendar. In the personalized invite, the CSM can ask the recipient if they have any questions or outstanding items they want to be addressed in the EBR. 

This ensures that each contact knows what they can expect if they are able to attend the EBR and also humanizes your CSM a bit more. 

Above all, it answers the question, “What’s in it for me?!” 

All of these executives are going to be wondering if you’re able to answer that through a personalized invite asking for their input, and you’ll increase the likelihood of them attending. 

3. What should happen directly before the review?

Before the EBR starts, it’s important to prep way before Zoom starts dinging with “participant has arrived” notifications. 

First and foremost, every person who was invited to the EBR (internal or external) should receive an agenda. This is a common courtesy to ensure everyone is on the same page and knows what to expect ahead of time. 

💡 Pro Tip: Check the deck! Check for things like the spelling and titles of any external names, as well as ensure the deck is formatted well and covers all needed info from the agenda. 

With Dock, you can create an EBR page template that can be added to your customer portal at any time, which can also be shared with customers before the EBR.

4. What should be covered in the EBR?

Alright, you’ve made it to the EBR. 

The question now is: What really needs to be covered in order for the EBR to be effective for everyone involved? 

Knowing what to cover comes down to two main categories: Key Topics and Key Questions.

Here are some topics and questions to consider for your next EBR:

Key Topics to Discuss

• Success metrics & ROI: Review how your client is achieving ROI from your product/service. This can include data like cost savings, increased revenue, time efficiencies, or improved customer satisfaction.
• Product/feature adoption & engagement: Highlight the client's usage of different product features and offer insights on new or underutilized features that could benefit their specific goals.
• Industry trends & best practices: Share relevant industry trends and how they might affect the client’s business. Offering insights on best practices can position the CSM as a strategic partner, not just a service provider.
• Challenges & risks: Discuss any potential roadblocks the client is facing and offer proactive solutions. Identify areas where the client might not be getting the full value out of the product and offer assistance.

Key Questions to Ask

• Business objectives & challenges: What are your top business objectives for the upcoming quarter/year? Have there been any new challenges or shifts in your business strategy since our last meeting?
• Product/service utilization: How are you currently utilizing our product/service to achieve your goals? Are there any features or functionalities you're not using that you would like to explore?
• Results & metrics: Can we review the results you've achieved with our product over the last period? Are there specific metrics or KPIs that matter most to you? How are we performing against those?
• Experience feedback: How has your overall experience with our product and team been so far? Are there any areas where we can improve your experience or better support your team?
• Future plans & roadmap: What are your future growth or expansion plans, and how can we support those? Are there any upcoming projects where you think we can add value?
• Budget & renewal: Do you foresee any changes in your budget that might impact your relationship with us? How can we help ensure that you continue to see value and success as we approach your renewal period?

It’s important to keep in mind that EBRs are seldom the same for different customers. 

While it’s important to tailor the bulk of your EBR content to the needs and goals of the customer, it’s also a good idea to train CSMs to ask qualifying questions throughout the EBR. 

Having a set of questions to keep in mind as well as certain key topics, is a great way to help your CSMs get the most out of each EBR.

5. What metrics should be discussed? 

As mentioned above, metrics that show ROI for your product or service are the best metrics to use for a successful EBR. Some examples include:

• Cost savings
• Increased revenue
• Time efficiencies
• Improved customer satisfaction

For example, when we run a business review with a client at Dock, we show them:

• Dock product usage so the customer can see how much their team is adopting Dock.
• How Dock is impacting KPIs they care about (using our product data), such as the utilization rate of their content and engagement rate from customers.

Here’s how that looks in a Dock workspace:

One of our recent podcast guests, Eloise Salisbury, CCO at AutogenAI, talked about how her organization implemented what they call the Triple Metric. 

They track how their main KPIs perform for the day-to-day users, the middle management, and the executives. The Triple Metric is referred to constantly by their CSMs in EBRs and other customer meetings.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.

6. What should the outcomes and deliverables be? 

Once the EBR is done, how can we ensure the customer has received maximum value? 

Expansion Opportunities: A good rule of thumb is that a conclusion to a great EBR should include some clear expansion opportunities. Upselling or cross-selling additional products or services to align with the client’s evolving needs should at least be touched on at the end of an EBR. 

Future Training Sessions: The executive review should also highlight any training sessions or enablement activities that could improve the client’s use of the product. Customers who know how to learn about the product are likely the ones who will adopt it the most. 

Renewal Discussions: Discussions around renewal timelines and satisfaction levels should also be prioritized to ensure a smooth and timely renewal process.

When all is said and done, your EBR should accomplish three key outcomes:

• Foster stronger client relationships
• Uncover growth potential
• Reinforce long-term retention

We recently had Joseph Schmitt, SVP of Customer Success at UpKeep, on our podcast, and he shared his thoughts on EBRs based on his team’s results: 

“What we found is that there's a strong correlation behind the number of [EBRs] we hold per rep versus the number of PQLs that they're able to identify for expansion opportunities. So we do definitely know that that's a money activity there.”

🎧 Listen to the full episode here. 

7. What should follow-up look like?

Most of the real work has to happen post-meeting. So your EBR follow-up should be action-packed. 

Take a look at GitHub’s EBR handbook for their CSMs. Follow-up includes:

• A summary email with key takeaways for participants
• Action items captured during the EBR
• A refreshed success plan

It’s the CSM's job to ensure action items are clearly outlined in the recap email and are completed in a timely manner by the customer. If it makes sense, send the client the deck that was used for the EBR for the customer’s records. 

Dock makes this easy by combining the deck and the checklist of action steps outlined for the customer to complete post-EBR.

For example, you can share action items and an embedded instructional video right within the EBR page.

This is way easier for your customers than sending a bunch of links — everything is conveniently centralized in one workspace.

Go above and beyond: Here are some action items or next steps you can give customers after an EBR that can actually drive the customer to action:

• Invite them to enroll their teams into workshops or trainings your organization has coming up 
• Propose a quarterly “ROI check” where you meet with them quarterly to measure and evaluate the ROI they are receiving from the product or service. 
• Ask them to work through all the outstanding action items in the shared success plan in Dock that the CSM and contact will evaluate moving forward. 

EBR Agenda & Template

Creating an EBR agenda that revolves around things like product adoption, key milestones, customer questions, pain points, and health scores may not sound too simple. 

But it can be!

It will take some strategic planning, but at the end of the day, the overall agenda can look something like this:

• Welcome & Introductions: Briefly introduce the attendees and set the stage for the meeting.
• Meeting Objective: State the purpose of the EBR (e.g., review progress, discuss future plans, etc.).
• Business Overview: A high-level overview of the client’s business goals and how the product/service aligns with them.
• Performance Metrics: Review KPIs or metrics that demonstrate the value delivered.
• Challenges & Opportunities: Discuss any challenges faced by the client throughout their lifecycle and opportunities for improvement or growth.
• Product Updates & Roadmap: Share any new product features, playbook improvements, or upcoming changes relevant to the client.
• Recommendations & Next Steps: Present tailored recommendations to help the client achieve their goals and outline any actions to be taken.
• Client Feedback: Open the floor for client feedback, questions, or concerns.
• Recap & Closing: Summarize the key points discussed, agree on next steps, and set a date for the next meeting.

👉 Get the template: Dock’s client portal template comes with a pre-built business review page template, that includes placeholders for:

• Business review slides
• Key recommendations
• Previous business reviews
• Annual business review questions

Make your EBRs stick with Dock

Your customers want to know they are being taken care of and their desired outcomes are being met. A well-planned and executed executive business review is a key piece to ensuring your customers feel this is being accomplished. 

It’s also an opportunity to really dial in on how your customers are adopting the product and getting the most out of their relationship with your organization. 

Following the advice outlined in this article will help your CSMs take their EBRs to new heights. 

Using Dock can and will make your EBRs an even more enriching experience for all involved. 

‍Sign up with Dock today for free.