Inside a high-growth MSP’s quarterly business review process

Many MSPs leave significant value on the table when it comes to quarterly business reviews (QBRs). Rather than treating them as routine check-ins, QBRs can become powerful opportunities to build trust and growth, but only if approached in the right way.

“Customer retention is all about trust, and the ability to follow through on the things you committed to do,” says Peter Melby, CEO of New Charter Technologies. “We look at the QBR progression as first continually getting better at meeting their needs, then knowing where to provide more value and upselling. If you skip past building a solid foundation and focus on expansion, you’ll fail.”

Here’s what three high-growth MSPs have to say about the real opportunity QBRs can offer.       

The QBR opportunity you’re likely missing

“The deeper we engage with our customers, the more we recognize there are continued unmet needs. There’s no limit to what businesses need from their IT teams. But we often don’t know it because we don’t get into the right conversations or ask the right questions,” says Melby.

QBRs are where those conversations happen. Specifically, they offer the chance to:

• Confirm you’re solving the problems that actually matter to your client
• Uncover the technology challenges they haven’t told you about yet
• Build the kind of trust that makes churn a non-issue

They are also a great tool to show the real value of your work as an MSP. “When we’re doing a good job and the customer is not feeling that there are any issues in the environment, it’s super important to show customers the value of what they are paying for,” says Zaid AlChalabi, COO of Far Out Solutions.

The real value of QBRs

Customer roadmaps are where QBRs prove their real value. Use them to surface recurring problems, diagnose the root cause and give clients a clear path to a lasting solution; not just a fix, says AlChalabi. “I always tell my team, we are not there to sell the customer more products or more services—we are a solution provider,” he says. “We are providing the right solution for the right problem.”

QBRs are a chance to connect mundane technology problems to the client’s business outcomes, making them more likely to find the budget to replace that outdated printer, for example.

The goal is to “connect the dots between technology and how it can make their business better, safer and more secure. We [want to] put our technology in alignment with their business goals. … [When] we find that synergy between where they’re at and where they could be, they can see that difference,” says Jason Hamende, President of Advanced Computer Specialists.

But above all, “the most important part of the QBR is building the relationship,” AlChalabi says. “The minute that the customer trusts you and knows you are not trying to sell them on something, you own that customer. You will be an advisor instead of a vendor. That’s what we really want as an MSP.”

What a good QBR looks like

There are a few key components to a quality QBR. “An effective QBR process is a combination of the right model, structure and the right person doing it,” Melby says. “The mistake I see a lot of MSPs make is either they use their most capable conversation holders, but execution and follow-up suffers, or they put a very rigid process in place and think the process itself is going to build a deep relationship with the customer. It has to be process, system and person all together.”

The value of prep work can also not be understated, agree Hamende and AlChalabi. “Definitely do your homework,” says Hamende. “Just printing out some reports and walking in there doesn’t do it right.”

“Data is always the best tool and the best weapon for you. Being friendly and talking with the customer about their day is cool, but without data and facts, it’s not going to be an effective QBR,” says AlChalabi. “I highly recommend preparing full reports about network health, computers’ health and security score. Build a scorecard for your baseline, then show the customer the data—where they are and where they’re supposed to be.”

Knowing which data and reports to pull is crucial. Aligning your MSP’s technology standards to the client’s business goals is key. “If I go over reports about tickets and SLAs and response time and how many emails we blocked, I could have just sent them that report,” says Hamende. “But analyzing the data and providing them real information—how it impacts their business risk, how it can affect their growth, how it can cost them or earn them more—that’s what makes the meeting impactful.”

What a bad QBR looks like

Poor-quality QBRs center only on technology issues and extraneous data. “What we’ve learned is that if there are service issues when you come into the QBR, that will be the conversation. You won’t ever get beyond that to the trust-building or problem-solving,” says Melby. “We recommend separating those conversations—having a service-focused, customer success conversation and a strategic engagement at different times.”

According to AlChalabi, “Overwhelming the customers with tons of reports, without showing an executive report or using wording the customer can understand” is a surefire way to kill the conversation. “If the customer understood technology, they would not need us, honestly. Show the customer the data and information they are interested in listening to—what is important for their business, not the data that you want to show. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of both of your time.”

Advice for MSPs looking to improve their QBR process

Documentation is critical to building a process, says Hamende—just don’t try to build it all at once. “Version one is better than version zero. Just start doing it; it doesn’t have to be perfect. Don’t try to apply [the process] to every single company if you’re just getting started out. Pick a few of them that you have good relationships with. And instead of using 150 questions, start with 25. Start small, but don’t overcomplicate it.”

AI can also help make data more customer-friendly, says AlChalabi. “If you have an amazing report that’s thousands of pages, throw it in AI and ask it to make it customer-facing. Customers don’t want to see text anymore like before.”

If you have the manpower, delegating QBRs to another team member can help free up your time for more executive-level work and improve customer relationships at the same time. “For smaller MSPs, the owner is always the main point of contact for the customers. They are the one building the relationship. Larger MSPs delegate QBRs to a dedicated subject matter person, which helps them not only depend on the owner. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off. Build the relationship, grow the business and [QBRs] will give you more opportunities for sure,” AlChalabi says.

Related: QBRs are not optional—unless you want to be liable