Just had a check-in call with a $50k a year vendor we use for SaaStr
They sent a new sales rep to call who didn't know the account
They just walked through a deck with data they didn't collect or know
That we'd already read
What a waste of everyone's time
The Death of the…
— Jason ✨????SaaStr 2025 is May 13-15✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) October 2, 2024
So we’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how Customer Success has changed over the past 24 months. In many cases, it’s now part of the revenue team, and bringing in more revenue is Goal #1. So be it.
But as part of that, I haven’t seen any point in showing up to QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) anymore. They are simply upsell exercises, which would be fine if at least an incredible subject matter that could also help us with our issues show up.
But if it’s just a junior sales exec doing the “QBR” — you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
The QBR was always, at best, a forcing function to make sure customers were at least heard and checked in with formally every quarter. If you don’t do something here, accounts may never be followed up with. So you do have to enforce some sort of check-in process, at least with mid-sized and larger accounts.
But if it’s all just an upsell opportunity, you are missing a huge opportunity. To add value.
The goal of the QBR should be to add value. Do that every quarter, for a year, or two, or three. And then … the upsell do get a lot easier. And they just come, naturally.
(image from here)
