It’s safe to say that most business professionals should know about customer business reviews. Whether you know a little about what it is or the benefits of doing it, customer business reviews will form the foundation of your business relationships, and help position you as a trusted business advisor and valued partner to your customers.
What is a customer business review?
A customer business review is a meeting between you and your customer to review the business you have conducted together. This includes everything from celebrating accomplishments to discussing areas of improvement and new opportunities to showcasing your efforts in helping to support your customer.
Customer business reviews also provide an opportunity to report how your business is performing against specific goals and objectives outlined by you and your customer. Known as key performance indicators (KPIs), these goals should be measurable, time-bound and relevant to ultimately help your customer achieve success.
Structuring your customer business review:
- Invite your customer’s executives to the meeting as this is your opportunity to show off your success to the decision-makers who can open new doors for you and your business.
- Keep the meeting focused on your performance against established KPIs and at a strategic, not tactical, level in order to get buy-in from executives in the meeting.
- Direct the focus of the business review to planning for the future, while discussing specific areas where you can help provide solutions. This is your time to be a valued partner, not just a vendor.
- Prepare an agenda and get it approved prior to the meeting. It’s important to always agree upon next steps and establish KPIs before your next business review.
Conducting Your Customer Business Review
Since you are driving the customer business review process, schedule the frequency that best supports you and your customer’s goals, whether on an annual, bi-annual or on a quarterly basis.
If your customer is in hyper-growth mode, engaged in M&A or has high personnel turnover, you should consider meeting with them on a quarterly basis. Whatever the frequency, it is imperative to hold to the agreed upon schedule.
Customer Business Review Benefits
- The ability to build strong business relationships with your customers
- The opportunity to meet and present to your customers’ executive leadership
- The process of establishing formal business practices to implement and execute with current and potential customers
- The ability to analyses your business relationships, while identifying successes, areas of improvement and future opportunities
Remember, a customer business review is one of the most important things a business professional can do to help maintain and grow their business.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the power of the customer business review process. If you want to dynamically grow your business in 2019, I encourage you to make these reviews an integral part of your company’s DNA.
