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# QBR templates and what to skip

> What goes in a great quarterly business review, what to cut, and a 6-slide template that runs in 30 minutes (not 90).

Published: 2026-05-22 · Author: BlueHill Team · Tags: qbr, customer-success, template

The QBR is the most overworked artifact in customer success. 30-slide decks with 25 minutes of vendor talk and 5 minutes for the customer. Here's how to run one that's actually useful — and a 6-slide template that fits in 30 minutes.

## What a QBR is for

1. Re-anchor the success plan
2. Quantify value delivered last quarter
3. Surface risks and roadblocks
4. Identify expansion opportunities
5. Pre-set the renewal conversation

If your QBR isn't doing those 5 things, it's a status update.

## The 6-slide template

### Slide 1: Why we're here
One sentence: "We bought BlueHill to [stated goal]. Today we'll review progress against that."

### Slide 2: Value scorecard
The success criteria from your success plan, with actuals next to targets.

| Goal | Target | Q1 actual | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onboarding time | under 5 days | 3.8 days | ✓ |
| Tickets / month | under 80 | 64 | ✓ |
| CSAT | over 4.5 | 4.4 | ⚠ |
| Time-tracking accuracy | over 90% | 81% | ✗ |

If a metric is missing, you're failing your scorecard — own it directly.

### Slide 3: Last quarter — wins and gaps
3 bullets each. Specific. "Onboarded the data team to BlueHill" beats "improved adoption."

### Slide 4: Next quarter focus
3 commitments. With dates. "By end of June, all of customer success is using the new template."

### Slide 5: Risks + asks
What could prevent next quarter from working? What do you need from the vendor? What does the vendor need from you?

### Slide 6: Roadmap preview
2–3 product items relevant to *this customer*. Not the whole roadmap. If something they asked for is coming, highlight it.

## What to skip

- Logo slide at the start (waste of 30 seconds)
- Whole-product feature tour
- "Did you know we have..." (creates self-doubt: why don't they know?)
- Marketing roadmap teaser unrelated to their use case
- Customer service slide ("our team is here for you")

## When to escalate to an EBR

QBRs are CSM-led, customer-team-attended. The Executive Business Review is once a year, exec-to-exec. Save the strategic conversation for EBR. Don't try to do both in 30 minutes.

## How BlueHill helps

QBR templates pull the value scorecard automatically from the customer's data — tickets resolved, time invested, milestones hit. CSM prep time drops from 90 minutes to 15.

## Related reading

- [QBR glossary](/glossary/qbr)
- [Success plan template](/glossary/success-plan)
- [EBR glossary](/glossary/ebr)