Quarterly Business Reviews: QBR Tips, Template & Agenda

Are QBRs even worth it? Every customer success leader has questioned them at some point.

QBRs are a standard “best practice”, but they’re time-intensive in the preparation, the meeting itself, and the follow-up. And it’s not exactly easy to get customers to show up and stay engaged.

Our opinion: they’re absolutely worth it, as long as you eliminate most of the unnecessary busy work before and after the meeting.

QBRs, when done right, are well worth the time for both the CSM and the client and lead to closer alignment and more renewals. 

The key is creating a quarterly business review process that’s more efficient behind the scenes, makes better use of limited airtime with the client, and can be replicated at scale across your client base. 

In this guide, we’ll give you a QBR template, meeting agenda, and best practices to help you create a highly scalable QBR process.

👉 Just looking for a QBR template? Get our free QBR template here 

What is a QBR?

A quarterly business review (QBR) is a strategic meeting with a client held once per quarter to align on goals, performance, challenges, expansion opportunities, and future next steps.

QBRs allow your CSM team, as well as other internal teams like Sales and Product, to connect with key client stakeholders at regular, predictable intervals.

Some companies call them quarterly business reviews since they do them quarterly. Others call them executive business reviews. These companies tend to do them whenever it makes the most sense throughout the customer journey (for example, a few months before renewal).

Regardless of what you call them or how often you aim to do them, these are critical meetings for staying aligned with your customers and improving retention rates.

A great QBR should have a clear agenda and goals outlined before it even begins. The goals of each QBR should be about helping the customer see the value, ROI, and future trajectory of your product and service.

Why even have QBRs?

QBRs bring together key stakeholders from your customer's side as well as other team members from your side. This level of collaboration allows for more data-driven, outcomes-based conversations focused on the value and ROI the customer is experiencing with your product or service. 

QBRs:

• Keep stakeholders aligned
• Unearth pain points
• Identify expansion opportunity
• Warm-up renewal conversations

On the Grow & Tell podcast, Joseph Schmitt, SVP of Customer Success at Upkeep, shared why his CS team heavily prioritizes QBRs:

“We found that there's a strong correlation behind the number of QBRs 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.” 

Which clients should get QBRs?

Not every customer will benefit from a QBR. It’s in the best interest of the CSM and the customer to determine if they will benefit from a strategic meeting like this. 

Customers who benefit from QBRs

• Strategic accounts: Customers with complex needs, large contracts, or significant influence on your business. These relationships require regular high-level discussions to ensure ongoing success.
• Long-term customers: Established customers who are looking for ways to optimize their use of your product or service and explore new opportunities for growth.
• Customers showing signs of churn risk: A QBR can be a proactive way to address concerns, re-engage the customer, and reinforce the value of your offering.
• Customers who need re-implementation: Customers who haven’t fully adopted your solution may need more in-depth training and attention provided through a QBR. 

Customers who don’t need QBRs

• Low-touch/transactional customers: Customers with simple needs and limited engagement may find a QBR to be overly formal and time-consuming. On-demand calls with their dedicated CSM or automated reporting might be more appropriate.
• New customers (at first): While onboarding is still being rolled out, a full QBR might be premature in the very early stages of the customer lifecycle. Focus on initial implementation and adoption first.
• Customers with Extremely Limited Resources: If a customer consistently struggles to allocate time for meetings, a QBR might be an added burden. Consider more asynchronous communication approaches.

Who should be included in a QBR?

When coaching your CSM team on running effective QBRs, getting the right people in the room is so important. Here's a breakdown of key attendees from both sides:

Client-side attendees

• Executive sponsor: This is the person who ultimately holds the budget for your product/service within their organization. Their presence validates the importance of the partnership and allows for strategic discussions.

• Key users/influencers: These individuals are actively using your product/service daily. Their feedback is invaluable for understanding ground-level realities and identifying areas for improvement or expansion.

• Operational team members: Depending on the nature of your product/service, this could include IT, implementation, or support staff. They can provide insights into technical challenges, integration issues, and adoption rates. Having someone from the sales team may also be beneficial.

Your attendees

• Customer success manager (CSM): The primary point of contact and orchestrator of the QBR.

• Sales/account manager (optional): Particularly relevant for upsell/cross-sell opportunities or contract renewals. Their presence reinforces the ongoing customer relationship beyond implementation.

• Product specialist/technical expert (optional): Can provide deeper dives into product functionality, address complex questions, and showcase upcoming features. Especially useful if the client has specific technical needs or challenges.

How to get clients to attend QBRs

To get clients to attend your next QBR, you have to really drive home the value of what’s in it for them to show up. We’ve narrowed this down to three tactics your CSMs can easily implement:

Emphasize what’s in it for them

Right from the initial onboarding process, emphasize the strategic value of QBRs. Position them not as just a reporting exercise but as a collaborative forum for achieving shared goals—they bought your product for a reason.

The key is to present the idea of the QBR as an opportunity to do the following:

• Collaboratively review performance
• Discuss future goals
• Ensure alignment between your customer’s business objectives and the solutions you provide

Frame it as a valuable touchpoint for strategic discussion and mutual growth. 

Personalize the invitation

Generic calendar invites won't cut it. Tailor your communication to each attendee, highlighting the specific topics and outcomes relevant to their role. 

Share an agenda in advance

Send a detailed agenda outlining the topics to be discussed, highlighting opportunities for input and collaboration. This shows respect for their time and allows them to prepare.

Dock gives customer success managers the opportunity to create a personalized customer workspace—complete with a QBR agenda that can easily be shared with all attendees. The benefit of sending a Dock workspace is you can also share meeting slides, important files, and anything else you want to embed.

What to include in your QBR

The most effective customer success teams know that simply taking a pulse check or “checking in” with customers is a thing of the past. 

Wynne Brown, Former CS Leader at GitHub and DocuSign shared this advice on Grow & Tell:

“Every touch counts, and every touch should give value to the customer. And if you're writing an email like, ‘Hey, just want to touch base. Do you have time,’ don't send it.” 

So make sure your QBR is much more than a check-in meeting. Here’s what we recommend you have planned for each QBR:

1. Success criteria & desired outcomes 

Revisit the goals set at the beginning of the customer journey when you created your success plan.

Discuss not only their goals directly related to your solution but also their upcoming business plans, goals, and anything that may have changed in their world in the past quarter. The client’s business should be at the forefront of every goal and desired outcome you discuss.

2. Performance metrics & KPIs

Review your quarterly performance against the success metrics and KPIs you set with your client during onboarding. This helps keep performance discussions relevant, objective, and tied back to their measurable business goals.

If your customer has any new stakeholders on the call, this is a great opportunity to highlight the business outcomes you’re driving for them.

💡Pro tip: Many CS teams like to use QBRs to cover metrics like product usage or adoption, but that’s not always in the best interest of the customer. Consider whether increased product adoption ties back to their goals—or whether it’s of self-interest to your company.

3. Challenges & risks

Talking openly about any challenges encountered in the quarter builds transparency and trust between the CSM and the customer.

Give your customer the space to call out any issues that haven’t been brought up yet—it’s better to know now than at renewal time.

This will give your CS team the opportunity to either address the customer’s challenges in real-time, or create a plan on how they will solve them in the upcoming quarter. 

4. Key learnings

Looking back at the previous quarter, what insights does your CSM feel would be most beneficial to share? These could be based on the customer’s performance metrics, new features being added, or other client success stories from the last quarter. 

5. Recommendations

Have new products or features been released recently? Are there any implementation steps that should be revisited? Does the customer have an upcoming renewal? These are all questions the CSM should consider when putting together the QBR presentation.

Ditch the long QBR slide deck

QBRs should be for strategic discussions—not reading off bloated slide decks. Traditional slide-heavy presentations make QBRs feel like a one-sided lecture rather than a collaborative discussion. Dock provides a better way.

Instead of spending hours assembling slides that get outdated as soon as the meeting ends, Dock’s client portals give you a dynamic place to house your QBR notes and all your other client-facing materials.

With Dock, CS teams can create onboarding portals that transition into a place to host QBRs, renewal conversations, and any other important client touchpoint.

Get our free QBR template

Our free Quarterly Business Review Template transforms QBRs from tedious presentations into dynamic, collaborative workspaces. 

The template gives you a repeatable, interactive framework for structuring your QBRs—saving time before and after each QBR, and making customer conversations more effective.

Our QBR template has placeholders for:

• An executive summary of goals, challenges, and recommendations
• A next-steps, action-item list
• Meeting slides
• Meeting recordings and notes
• Product usage
• Product updates
• Past QBR slides

You can customize your own copy of our template and add it to any client workspace. Then, all you have to do is send them a link to the QBR page before and after the meeting.

Example QBR Agenda

Here is a rough outline of an effective QBR agenda your team can use:

1. Goals and Desired Outcomes Review

• Revisit initial customer journey goals
• Discuss progress and set goals for the next quarter
• Address outstanding items from previous QBRs

2. Performance Metrics Review

• Present key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics
• Showcase data-driven analysis of customer success
• Review performance trends

3. Challenges, Risks, and Issues Discussion

• Openly discuss challenges and risks
• Address unresolved customer issues
• Formulate action plans for resolution

4. Key Learnings and Insights

• Share insights based on performance metrics
• Highlight relevant new features or product updates
• Share applicable client success stories

5. Recommendations and Next Steps

• Suggest new products or features on the roadmap
• Review re-implementation steps as needed
• Discuss upcoming renewals

How to follow up after a QBR

Always follow up within 24 hours of the QBR. This is the CSM’s opportunity to share the following:

• A summary of what was discussed
• Action items and the dates they need to be completed by 
• Emphasize what they will do over the next quarter to help the customer achieve their desired outcomes 

The easiest way to follow up after the QBR is to send them the link to the Dock workspace that you already reviewed together during the QBR. 

Embed things like a summary of what was discussed, action items, meeting recordings, and any other links or files discussed during the meeting.

This way, everyone is on the same page, and no action items slip through the cracks. 

Standardize your QBR process with Dock

Here’s why Dock workspaces are a game-changer for your QBRs:

• All your QBR content in one place: No more juggling between PowerPoint, Google Docs, and spreadsheets. Dock centralizes customer goals, progress updates, and key metrics in a single interactive workspace.
• Live & evergreen data: Unlike static slides, Dock workspaces update in real-time. Embed dashboards, reports, and feedback forms that evolve as your customer’s needs do.
• Collaborative, not just a presentation: QBRs aren’t just about reviewing past performance; they’re about planning for the future. Dock lets you create action plan checklists so both sides leave with clear next steps.
• Track engagement post-QBR – Unlike slide decks that get buried in inboxes, Dock workspaces give visibility into customer engagement. See who’s reviewing what, ensuring follow-through on action items.

Ditch the slide decks. Move your QBRs to Dock, and turn them into an ongoing conversation—not a one-and-done presentation​.

👉 Try Dock for free with 5 clients here

👉 Get our free QBR template