Executive Business Reviews (EBRs) are supposed to strengthen customer relationships and showcase value.
Yet, far too often, they fall flat. Why?
Because they’re riddled with cookie-cutter slides, meaningless metrics, and generic insights that fail to resonate with the customer’s unique goals.
Instead of building customer trust, they end up breaking it.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
With a data-driven, scalable approach to content creation, you can transform EBRs into powerful moments that reinforce trust, highlight success, and drive renewed engagement.
The Core Problem with EBRs
Most EBRs fail for three main reasons:
- They’re disconnected from customer goals. Success metrics feel vendor-centric when they don’t align with what truly matters to the customer.
- They’re too generic. Instead of focusing on the customer’s unique goals, they rely on boilerplate slides and show no depth of information.
- They lack actionable insights. Data is presented without context or recommendations, leaving customers wondering, “What’s next?”
CSMs end up focusing on what I call "vanity storytelling" - showing metrics going up without connecting them to customer goals.
This creates two issues:
- Customers don't see themselves in the story
- The narrative feels disconnected from their challenges
The Solution: Scalable, Data-Driven Content Creation
The key to fixing failing EBRs is creating dynamic, data-driven content at scale.
This means leveraging templates that are adaptable, insightful, and deeply personalised and leveraging AI to tailor the insights. But that doesn't mean we take CSMs from the loop, in fact we put humans where they can do their best work: storytelling.
Here’s a step-by-step framework to make it happen:
1. Start with a Template, but Make It Dynamic
Templates should serve as a guide, not a crutch. Build templates that include placeholders for:
- Customer-specific goals: What does this customer care about?
- Industry benchmarks: How does their performance compare to peers?
- Insights and recommendations: What actions can they take based on their data?
Dynamic templates ensure consistency while allowing for meaningful personalisation at scale. For example, being able to adapt the metrics you see in a template based on a customer's use case and industry can help make the content more relevant.
My friends at Matik have an incredible free template library to help you get started.
2. Leverage Scalable Data Collection Tools
To personalise EBRs effectively, you need access to reliable data.
- Gather data from your product, CRM, and customer surveys.
- If you can leverage AI to also collect insights from unstructured data, that's a great way to reduce the CSM manual input.
- Implement tools that surface insights quickly, so CSMs spend less time digging and more time strategising.
Here's a great e-book on how to create data-driven content for customers.
3. Transform Data into Stories
Customers don’t care about raw metrics—they care about what those metrics mean for their business.
- Highlight key achievements tied to their goals.
- Address challenges they faced and how they can overcome them.
- Paint a clear future vision for continued success.
Bonus point if you can also bring a robust ROI statement (I wrote an article on how you can do this, and Matik has a toolkit to help you build it too.)
4. Add the Human Element
EBRs aren’t just about data—they’re about relationships.
- Include quotes from customer teams to reflect their experience.
- Share relevant stories from other customers to show what’s possible.
- Maintain a conversational tone to keep the presentation engaging.
Storytelling is a really important skill that fits into the broader attribute of Effective Communication. If you want to get better at it, it's one of the 8 top CSM skills I cover in my CSM Skill Guide.
5. Incorporate Predictive Insights
Move beyond historical performance and offer forward-looking recommendations:
- What trends should they watch?
- Where are they underperforming compared to peers?
- What specific actions can they take to unlock more value?
This step reinforces your position as a trusted advisor, not just a vendor.
AI can be really transformative here. If you want to learn more, you can listen to my 3 episode series with Elias Torres where we explore all the ways AI helps CSMs become more proactive.
But if you don't have AI, it's no excuse. Plug people here to make this meaningful.
Tools to Scale Your Efforts
Scaling this approach requires the right tools:
- Data Automation: Automate data collection every step of the way. In-app and also throughout the customer journey. HubSpot is a great tool to use for the latter, it keeps your entire data unified and makes it easy for your team to leverage it.
- Narrative Design Tools: Use platforms like Matik to embed customer-specific data directly into EBR templates.
- Benchmarks & Industry Data: Leverage a data visualisation tool to provide relevant benchmarks to contextualise customer performance.
- Generative AI: Use the paid versions of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to surface insights, create draft narratives, and identify trends (make sure the data is ring-fenced and that your legal team has cleared it).
Why It Works
When done right, EBRs are more than just a meeting—they are a platform for:
- Aligning on goals.
- Celebrating success.
- Collaborating on the future.
By focusing on personalised, data-driven narratives at scale, you’ll not only improve the quality of your EBRs—you’ll strengthen trust, deepen engagement, and drive long-term customer loyalty.
Ready to revamp your EBRs?
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