QBR Deck Skill

QBR Deck Skill

Produce a complete Quarterly Business Review deck — structured, data-backed, and customer-focused. A good QBR demonstrates value delivered, aligns on goals for the next quarter, and strengthens the executive relationship. It should never feel like a product demo or a vendor update.

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not already provided:

• Account name, CSM name, and customer stakeholders attending
• Contract details — ARR, contract start date, renewal date
• Last quarter's goals (from previous QBR or kickoff)
• Usage and adoption data — key metrics for the quarter
• Support summary — tickets raised, resolution time, any escalations
• Business outcomes the customer cares about — what success looks like for them
• Product updates or new features relevant to this customer
• Goals for next quarter
• Any open commercial conversations (expansion, renewal, at-risk signals)

QBR Principles

• Lead with customer outcomes, not product features
• Every metric should connect to a business result the customer cares about
• The agenda is a conversation, not a presentation — build in time for customer input at every stage
• Close with mutual commitments, not just vendor actions

Output Format

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QBR: [Account Name] × [Your Company]

[Quarter] [Year] Business Review

Date: [Date] | Location / Call link: [TBC] Customer attendees: [Names and roles] [Your company] attendees: [Names and roles]

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Slide 1: Agenda (5 min)

Time	Topic	Owner
0:00	Welcome and introductions	CSM
0:05	[Last quarter] — how did we do?	CSM + Customer
0:20	Value delivered — business impact	CSM
0:35	What's coming — roadmap preview	CSM / Product
0:45	[Next quarter] — goals and priorities	Customer
0:55	Actions and mutual commitments	CSM
1:00	Close

Talking point: "We've kept today to 60 minutes. We want as much of this to be a conversation as possible — please push back, redirect, and ask questions throughout."

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Slide 2: Where We Are Together (2 min)

Partnership snapshot:

• Customer since: [Date]
• Contract value: £/$/€[ARR]/year
• Renewal date: [Date]
• Active users: [N] of [N] licensed seats ([X]% adoption)
• Products / modules active: [List]

Talking point: "Before we dive in — a quick picture of where we are. [X] months in, [Y] active users, and this is our [Nth] QBR together."

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Slide 3: Last Quarter — Goals We Set Together (5 min)

Goal	Set in [Last QBR / Kickoff]	Status
[Goal 1]	[What we committed to]	✅ Achieved / ⚠️ Partial / ❌ Missed
[Goal 2]	[What we committed to]	✅ Achieved / ⚠️ Partial / ❌ Missed
[Goal 3]	[What we committed to]	✅ Achieved / ⚠️ Partial / ❌ Missed

For any partial or missed goal: state what happened and what changes next quarter.

Talking point: "Let's start with accountability. Here's what we said we'd achieve last quarter — let's be honest about where we landed."

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Slide 4: Usage and Adoption (5 min)

Quarter-over-quarter trend:

Metric	[Q-1]	[Q]	Change
Monthly active users	[N]	[N]	+/-X%
Sessions per user per week	[N]	[N]	+/-X%
[Key feature 1] adoption	[X]%	[X]%	+/-X%
[Key feature 2] adoption	[X]%	[X]%	+/-X%

Highlights:

• [Positive adoption trend to call out]
• [Feature or workflow with strongest engagement]

Opportunity:

• [Feature with low adoption that could drive more value — link to their goals]

Talking point: "Usage is [up / stable / something we want to talk about]. The area I'd like to focus on is [feature] — we're not seeing the adoption we'd expect given [their goal], and I want to understand why."

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Slide 5: Business Impact — Value Delivered (10 min)

Lead with outcomes, not activity.

[Outcome 1: customer's primary success metric]

• Before: [baseline]
• Now: [current state]
• Impact: [quantified business result — time saved, revenue influenced, cost reduced, risk mitigated]

[Outcome 2]

• [Same structure]

[Outcome 3]

• [Same structure]

Customer evidence (use if available):

"[Quote from champion or user about value experienced]"

Talking point: "This is the section I most want your input on. Are these the outcomes that matter to your business? Are there other ways you're measuring success that we should be tracking?"

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Slide 6: Support Summary (3 min)

Metric	This quarter	Last quarter	Trend
Tickets raised	[N]	[N]	↑ / → / ↓
Average resolution time	[X hrs]	[X hrs]	↑ / → / ↓
P1 / critical issues	[N]	[N]	↑ / → / ↓
CSAT score	[X/10]	[X/10]	↑ / → / ↓

Notable issues this quarter:

• [Any escalation or major ticket — brief summary and resolution]

What we're doing differently:

• [Any process change or improvement based on support patterns]

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Slide 7: What's Coming — Roadmap Preview (5 min)

Focus only on what's relevant to this customer's goals. Do not dump the full roadmap.

Feature / Improvement	Expected	Why it matters to [Account Name]
[Feature 1]	[Q+1]	[Direct link to their goal or pain point]
[Feature 2]	[Q+1 / Q+2]	[Direct link]
[Feature 3]	[H2]	[Direct link]

Talking point: "I've filtered the roadmap to what I think matters most to your team. I'd love your reaction — are these the right priorities from your perspective?"

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Slide 8: Next Quarter — Your Goals (10 min)

Customer input section — facilitate, don't present.

Prompt questions:

• "What does success look like for your team in [next quarter]?"
• "What's the biggest challenge you're trying to solve in the next 90 days?"
• "Is there anything about the way you're using [product] you want to change?"

Capture live:

Goal for next quarter	Owner (customer)	How we'll support it	How we'll measure it
[Goal 1]	[Name]	[CSM / product action]	[Metric]
[Goal 2]	[Name]	[CSM / product action]	[Metric]

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Slide 9: Mutual Commitments (5 min)

[Your company] commits to:

1. [Specific action — owner — by when]
2. [Specific action — owner — by when]
3. [Specific action — owner — by when]

[Account Name] commits to:

1. [Specific action — owner — by when]
2. [Specific action — owner — by when]

Next touchpoint: [Date of next check-in or mid-quarter review]

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Slide 10: Thank You + Open Q&A (5 min)

• Recap the one headline from today: [The single most important thing you want them to remember]
• Confirm actions are captured and shared after the call
• Ask: "Is there anything we didn't cover today that you wanted to raise?"

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Preparation Checklist

• Usage data pulled and QoQ comparison calculated
• Last QBR goals reviewed — status confirmed before the meeting
• Business outcomes framed in customer language (not product language)
• Roadmap filtered to this account's specific use cases
• Customer's goals for next quarter researched or pre-confirmed with champion
• Executive sponsor briefed on any sensitive topics before the call
• Actions from previous QBR reviewed — any outstanding items addressed

Deeper Materials

This skill ships with support files — use them when they are available:

• references/value-narrative.md — The QBR Value Narrative: Their Numbers, Not Your Features. Apply it while producing the output; it carries the calibration and judgment calls the method summary above compresses.
• templates/qbr-outline.md — a fill-in version of the deliverable with the quality gates inline. Offer it when the user wants to work the document themselves rather than have it generated.

Scoring Rubric (0–40)

Score any output of this skill before handing it over; 32+ is ship-quality.

Dimension	0	5	10
Outcome framing	Value slide is product activity (logins, sessions, features shipped) dressed as impact	Business outcomes present but unquantified, or quantified in vendor units rather than the customer's own metrics and currency	Every value claim is a before/after in the customer's units (hours, spend, attrition, £/$), and shaky attribution is disclosed rather than claimed
Accountability honesty	Last quarter's goals missing, or every goal quietly marked achieved; problems and escalations omitted	Goals graded but misses lack a cause and a changed plan; support issues mentioned only in passing	Every goal graded ✅/⚠️/❌ with cause and corrective plan for misses, and the quarter's worst moment (outage, escalation, disputed number) gets its own airtime with what changes next
Customer airtime & facilitation	Deck is a one-way vendor presentation; no customer input sections	Agenda nominally includes customer slots but talking points don't actually hand over the floor, or airtime totals under 20 minutes	Customer holds 20+ minutes by the agenda, the goals slide is pure facilitation with prompts and a live-capture table, and multiple talking points explicitly invite pushback
Commitments & relevance	No mutual commitments; roadmap is a full product dump	Commitments exist but are vendor-only or undated; some roadmap items lack a link to this customer's goals	Both sides own named, dated commitments, every roadmap row states why it matters to this account, and a next touchpoint is booked before the deck ends

Quality Checks

• Every slide has a talking point, not just a title
• Value slide leads with business outcomes, not product activity
• Roadmap preview links each item to a customer goal
• Mutual commitments section has real owners on both sides
• Customer has at least 20 minutes of airtime in the agenda

Anti-Patterns

• Do not fill the QBR with product activity metrics — lead with business outcomes the customer cares about
• Do not present a roadmap without linking each item to a customer goal — vendor priorities are not a QBR agenda
• Do not run a QBR as a one-sided presentation — it must include structured time for the customer to speak
• Do not close a QBR without documented mutual commitments with named owners on both sides
• Do not skip the "what's not working" slide — suppressing problems erodes trust and misses renewal risks