Glossary
What is a quarterly business review (QBR)?
A quarterly business review, or QBR, is a regular meeting between a supplier and a customer to review results against the customer's goals, agree what to change, and plan the next quarter. Done well, it is about the customer's business, not your product. Done badly, it is a slide deck nobody wanted.
Published by Sellinger AI. Numbers and settings checked on 24 October 2026 against the fact register. Report an error.
What is a simple QBR agenda?
| Minutes | Part |
|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | Goals set last quarter, in their words |
| 5 to 20 | Results against those goals, with their data |
| 20 to 30 | What did not work, and why |
| 30 to 40 | Goals and changes for next quarter |
| 40 to 45 | Owners and dates for each change |
What should you prepare?
- The customer's own goals from the last review.
- Results with their bases, not vanity numbers.
- One or two honest problems and what you will do about them.
- Questions about their plans for the next quarter.
What are the common mistakes?
Presenting product features instead of results. Inviting only the champion and never the sponsor. Hiding problems the customer already knows about. And turning the QBR into an upsell pitch, which teaches the customer to decline the next invitation.
How Sellinger handles it
Sellinger does not run QBRs. A customer success agent can schedule and remind; a person should run the review. The Customer Success / Onboarding persona includes preparing QBRs among its goals, and the renewal check in email covers the invitation.
Common questions
Who should attend a QBR?
Is a QBR a sales meeting?
Do small customers need QBRs?
Sources and method
General customer success practice; the agenda is an example. Persona text from the in-product persona library.
Related: Customer health score, Net revenue retention, Renewal check in email, Customer success teams.
