Your customer likes you. They use your product. But your customer doesn’t want to meet with you. Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are the sacrificial lamb of double-booked calendars and meetings that run late. So how are you supposed to be a good business partner? How are you supposed to share innovations that truly will help them improve productivity, reduce costs, and increase revenue?
Let’s first break down how QBRs have evolved. Before, QBRs were used as a roadmap for the agreed-upon success plan. Now, QBRs have evolved into value reviews, which go a step further and incorporate quantified business value into desired business outcomes. However, this evolution has made it no less challenging to score that elusive time on your stakeholder’s calendars.
If value reviews and QBRs are critical to strengthening long-term relationships with clients, how can we make value reviews more dynamic and beneficial for all stakeholders? Is it an art reserved for the experienced and talented? Or is it a science, with a defined and “correct,” Order of Operation?
In a Customer Value Community webinar, Morris Wallack, former Senior Customer Success Executive at HP, and Jennifer Kamber, Vice President of Customer Success at Ecosystems, discussed how to make value reviews more science than art and more meaningful to help encourage stakeholders to be empowered to take control of their own value reviews.
Below are key takeaways from the event:
1. Flexibility in Agenda-Setting
While having a structured agenda is important, it's equally crucial to remain flexible and open to the direction the conversation may take. By allowing for organic discussions, valuable insights and opportunities may emerge that weren't initially planned. Having a shared space to document these additions not only helps clarify thoughts but also memorializes the interaction for reference.
Ecosystems’ partnership with both Gainsight and Salesforce ensures that all data collected at any stage of the sales cycle can be pulled directly into our platform, ensuring data at any point of the conversation is memorialized and utilized when relevant to achieve full value realization.
2. Leaving Room for Discussion
Sometimes, in the rush to cover all agenda items, there's little room left for meaningful discussion. Allocating sufficient time at the end of the meeting for open dialogue can lead to breakthroughs and deeper understanding between stakeholders. In addition, providing an environment where customers can digest information, return to the information, and update it, allows for more frequent and higher-quality conversations.
Freeing up time can be tricky, but with Ecosystems’ Collaborative Success Plan, this is made possible as you can asynchronously update and track progress over time against the targets you have set with your customer. And, with the help of Ecosystems’ partnership with Gainsight, the seamless handoff of information from the business case to the Collaborative Success Plan is made simple. Armed with the right information at your disposal, you can quickly steer the value review conversation in the right direction to better achieve your customer’s business objectives.
3. Bringing Insights, Not Just Information
Value reviews should go beyond presenting data, usage information, and statistics. Instead, they should offer valuable insights tailored to the customer's specific challenges and goals. Sharing industry trends, best practices, and peer benchmarks can add depth and relevance to the discussion.
For example, take a look at the image below of how HP used Ecosystems' Collaborative Value Assessment to demonstrate its value in quantitative sustainability metrics. Through the Ecosystems platform, HP was able to take ESG data, like saved trees and net carbon impact reduction, and curate a story of value around sustainability to take back to their customer and demonstrate value realized.
4. Benchmarking & Tracking Customer Maturity
Implementing a maturity model and scoring system can help organizations assess the effectiveness of their value reviews. By tracking key metrics and benchmarks, teams can identify areas for improvement and measure their progress over time.
Interested in measuring your maturity in customer value? Ecosystems’ Value Maturity Assessment, based on our Value Blueprint, is derived from 24+ years of empirical research, 250+ company-wide sales transformation initiatives, and collaboration with 35k+ sellers, which can help you determine your value maturity and give you a tailored report with next steps. You can take the Value Maturity Assessment here.
Ecosystems’ benchmarking data is pulled from our library that spans top B2B companies. And, with our partnership with IDC, our third-party benchmarking data can help you demonstrate value realized in comparison to your competitors.
5. Balancing Rear-View and Windshield Approaches
While it's essential to review past performance, value reviews should also focus on future opportunities and strategies (the windshield approach). Achieving the right balance between reflecting on past outcomes, measuring value realized, and planning for the future is key to driving continuous improvement.
Ecosystems’ roadmap within the Collaborative Success Plan also fosters easy future planning, as you are able to track your progress over time and demonstrate where you are at in your goals.
Ecosystems' Collaborative Success Plan
Ecosystems’ Collaborative Success Plan can help improve your value reviews by empowering you and your customer to dynamically collaborate and align on top priorities, partnership performance, and a roadmap for the future, helping you track progress and value over time. And, as the information from the Customer Value Assessment and Gainsight’s 360 Customer Success Plan is incorporated, it is easy to get a full picture of value and gain relevant insights. As the platform is fully collaborative, it is easy to make value reviews dynamic while allowing for self-authoring capabilities in between meetings. Learn more about our Collaborative Success Plan here.
