How to Run a Prescriptive QBR That Actually Drives Revenue

Introduction: Moving Forward from the Past

For most companies, the Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is an activity centered around discussing what happened in the previous quarter. The Customer Success Manager prepares reports regarding usage, mentions support tickets and completed projects, and highlights the adoption rates of products. Although this data is valuable and important, looking back is not something that can influence customers' success in the future. Just explaining what was done during the last period becomes one of the greatest missed opportunities of the customer lifecycle.

In today's world, customer success means another thing. Now the customer expects more from vendors than just reporting the results. The customer wants to work with strategic partners who would help him succeed in his goals by making recommendations and improving processes. As a result, the Prescriptive QBR became an innovative solution to the problem, which allows getting ahead of the game and influencing the future of clients.

A Prescriptive QBR doesn't limit itself to discussions and reporting progress. Such reviews include finding opportunities, identifying potential risks, recommending strategic actions, and building a roadmap for the next 90 days.

What is a Prescriptive QBR?

Prescriptive QBR changes Quarterly Business Review from the reporting session to a strategic one. Instead of spending most of the time reviewing the historical KPIs, Customer Success Managers use customer information and business analysis to offer recommendations for action that lead to better future results. Reporting information changes to achieve business outcomes through these actions.

The first responsibility of prescriptive QBR remains in reviewing outcomes. Customers need to know what has been done since the last review and if the initial business goals are met. But, instead of just reporting numbers, there is an explanation of the business impact of the results and an evaluation of the overall progress towards strategic goals.

The second responsibility of prescriptive QBR is to offer recommendations for future actions. Customers need to identify ways to increase adoption, increase operational efficiency, achieve executive alignment, or address new business challenges.

Recommendations should be pragmatic, measurable, and relevant to customer needs.

In general, prescriptive QBR is responsible for driving strategic change. It makes customers think about the way to move forward in their business, and the Customer Success Manager becomes an advisor rather than a reporter. This approach creates much more value compared to reporting.

Using Data to Make Strategic Decisions

While data continues to be an integral element in any Quarterly Business Review, the function of data changes in the context of Prescriptive QBR; it is used not to report on what happened, but to figure out what should be done next. All data becomes a tool for making decisions and is no longer a report statistic only.

Adoption metrics give important information regarding customer behavior and engagement levels. With feature adoption rates, user activities, and workflow adoption, Customer Success Managers can understand the customer's strong and weak sides. Instead of sharing the adoption rates numbers, they should interpret them and show how they affect business performance and further development.

Customer objectives matter too. Objectives may change in the course of the year due to various factors such as changes in organization, market trends, or strategic goals. Taking them into account will help make sure that recommendations have practical value and relevance.

Business performance metrics add more information to the picture. Irrespective of whether you concentrate on improving productivity or saving costs, increasing efficiency, or making money, Customer Success Managers need to show how technology can contribute to achieving business results.

Developing a 90 Day Roadmap

One of the features inherent to the Prescriptive QBR is the development of a structured 90-day roadmap. Instead of summarizing the actions already performed during the meeting, Customer Success Managers develop priorities together with the customer, which allows making each QBR result-oriented.

At first, several high-priority initiatives are identified. Trying to cover all of the available initiatives is not always effective because it distracts from important actions. In addition, organizations should agree on several key initiatives, which can bring benefits to the business in the near future.

In most cases, adoption initiatives form the 90-day roadmap. They may involve such aspects as increased feature usage, new user onboarding, adoption across departments, and more active platform usage by employees. For each of these initiatives, it is possible to specify owners, deadlines, and measurable success criteria.

Improvements in operational processes should also be included in the plan. A Customer Success Manager can recommend certain actions, like process automation, workflow optimization, better reporting for executives, or other measures. By documenting these actions, both the customer and the Customer Success Manager will have a list of actions to be completed within the next 90 days.

Expansion from Prescriptive QBR Recommendations

One of the biggest advantages that Prescriptive QBRs have is the ability to create expansion opportunities naturally. Instead of introducing more products in a sales-oriented way, Customer Success Managers make expansion an automatic consequence of making recommendations that allow customers to reach their business goals.

Unmet needs usually come up in the course of strategic conversations. Customers may mention business needs that go beyond the current solution or organization changes that require new recommendations for the customer's needs.

Cross-functional adoption may happen during these discussions as well. A department that has had measurable success with the product can prompt the rest of the company's departments to try out the solution as well.

Finally, the most important thing to keep in mind during expansion efforts is that expansion is supposed to be tied to customer value. Recommendations are supposed to solve business problems, not just increase the deal size. With such understanding, Customer Success Managers turn expansion meetings into collaboration on the plan.

Following Up After the QBR

The effectiveness of Prescriptive QBRs relies heavily on follow-up. No matter how valuable the recommendations, their effectiveness will not be great unless there is a systematic follow-up process. Continual engagement turns strategies into business successes.

First of all, accountability is crucial. Every action item suggested in the course of the Quarterly Business Review must have an owner, a deadline, and a result. Mutual accountability guarantees the commitment of the client and the Customer Success Manager to execute the plan that was agreed upon.

Secondly, Customer Success Managers should hold progress reviews regularly rather than waiting till the next Quarterly Business Review in three months. This way, Customer Success Managers show partnership and alignment of efforts with the changing business needs of the client.

Finally, continued engagement builds customer relationships. Not only does this ensure commitment to the client's success, but it also shows that the Customer Success Manager is concerned about the customer's success rather than holding regular meetings. In this way, Customer Success Managers build confidence in executives throughout the whole customer lifecycle.

Conclusion

The conventional QBR tends to spend too much time interpreting the past events rather than influencing the future. Although there is a need for review of the past events, customers will always benefit more from the discussions that help them plan for their future. This is the reason why prescriptive QBR has become one of the best strategies for helping customers succeed.

Prescriptive QBR utilizes business results, customer goals, adoption analysis, and operational information to come up with strategies that are going to be implemented within the next 90 days. Rather than just presenting information, the Customer Success Managers prescribe actions that will help their clients get more value, solve new challenges, and reach their strategic goals.

Most significantly, Prescriptive QBRs serve as revenue growth engines for organizations. In meeting the gaps, expanding adoption, and making relevant recommendations based on customer objectives, organizations create automatic prospects for retaining and expanding. It becomes easier for customers to commit more money to the company through proactive and regular business advice that enhances business operations.

In a highly competitive world of subscriptions, one of the most effective Customer Success Managers knows that the best quarterly business reviews are not only telling customers where they came from, but also how they are supposed to move in the future. The forward-thinking approach ensures that each QBR creates more value for customers.