Brackwell Freight Ltd / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Brackwell Freight Ltd · 20 Jan 2025 14:45
Marcus Bell showed Liam Doherty that daily active users on Growth are just under five of 40 licensed, with over half of questions from Liam. Liam accepted the gap and said he needs a value case before the year-end renewal.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Marcus Bell showed Liam Doherty that daily active users on Growth are just under five of 40 licensed, with over half of questions from Liam. Liam accepted the gap and said he needs a value case before the year-end renewal.
What happened: On the 20 Jan 2025 check-in, Marcus showed usage down by about a third on the previous quarter. Depot account managers are barely using the brain, and more than half of questions come from Liam.
Customer view: Liam put it down to peak season, no follow-up after the depot sessions, and old habits. He said he is the one who gets value, and the rest of the business gets very little.
Commercial: Liam expects to be asked at renewal what the £44k buys. Marcus passed commercial questions to Tom and offered to build a value case from a real retail contract example.
Watch: Data is fresh and there were no tickets, so this is an adoption problem, not a technical one. Key-person dependence on Liam is the main risk to the Growth renewal.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Depot adoption and value case
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Marcus Bell sends usage by depot and a never-logged-in list by Wednesday.
- Liam Doherty names depots and account managers for the session by the end of the week.
- Liam writes up the retail contract example this week for Marcus to tidy.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Active use is just under five of 40 Growth seats and has not recovered after peak season.
- More than half of questions come from Liam, so the value depends on one person.
- Liam may struggle to justify the £44,000 to the business at renewal without a value case.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A short session built on a real depot account, starting at Trafford Park, could build habit.
- Liam's retail contract example could become the value story for the renewal conversation.
Transcript
Marcus BellHello, Liam. Can you hear me alright?
Liam DohertyYeah, loud and clear. Afternoon, Marcus. Sorry, I'm a minute or two late, I got caught in a loading bay conversation that didn't want to end.- Marcus BellNo problem at all, I only just got in myself. How's the week been so far?
- Liam DohertyIt's Monday, so you know. Cold, wet, a few trucks late out of Trafford Park because of the fog this morning. Everyone's in a mood. How's Manchester treating you? You're not far from us.
- Marcus BellSame here. I've had the heating on all day and I'm still in a jumper. Anyway, thanks for making the time. I'll share my screen in a second and I'll say what I want to cover so you're not guessing.
- Liam DohertyLove that. Go on.
- Marcus BellRight. Three things really. First, I've pulled the numbers on how the team's been using the brain since the autumn. Second, I want to hear from you what's actually happening on the ground, because the numbers only tell me so much. And third, what we do about it, if anything. Is that alright?
- Liam DohertyYeah, fine. Is this going to be a bad-news call? Your voice has gone a bit careful.
- Marcus BellHa, no, not bad news. It's a conversation I'd rather have now than in the summer. Can you see the usage page?
- Liam DohertyYep, I've got it. The line going the wrong way.
- Marcus BellYeah. So you're licensed for 40 users on Growth, and over the last month the average number of people actually active on a given day has been just under five. Compared with the previous quarter that's down by about a third.
- Liam DohertyHm. Right. Just under five. That's, well, that's me and a couple of others, basically.
- Marcus BellThat's what the breakdown says. You're the biggest single user by a distance, and then there's two or three people on the revenue operations side. The depot account managers are barely showing.
- Liam DohertyMm. Okay. So that's not great, because the whole point was the depots. One view, that's the point. The depot account managers see the account, the delivery-exception tickets and the calls in one place and they spot a retail contract going wrong before the customer rings the managing director.
- Marcus BellExactly, that's why I wanted to look at it with you. Can I ask, when you rolled it out to the depots, how did that go? I know you ran a couple of sessions last winter.
- Liam DohertyWe did, we did three sessions I think, one at Trafford Park and a couple on video for the other depots. People were keen. There were good questions. A few of them were asking things in the first fortnight, I remember that.
- Marcus BellRight, and then it tailed off?
- Liam DohertyHonestly, yeah. And it's peak, isn't it. November, December, everyone's firefighting. Retail's at its busiest, the depots are flat out, and the account managers are on the phone to store managers all day. Nobody's got time to learn a new tool when a pallet's gone missing.
- Marcus BellThat makes sense. I'd expect a dip in peak. What worries me a bit is that it hasn't come back up since. Usually I'd see it recover in January and I'm not seeing that yet. It's early January still, so I don't want to over-read it.
- Liam DohertySure. No, fair.
- Marcus BellCan I show you the other bit? This is the questions asked, so what people actually type into the brain. If I filter it by person, you can see most of it comes from three names.
- Liam DohertyAnd one of them's mine, and it's most of it, I bet.
- Marcus BellIt is, I'm afraid. More than half. And I'm not saying that's you doing anything wrong. You're the one who gets the most out of it. It's just that if that much depends on one person, it's fragile. If you were off for a fortnight, the usage would look like nothing.
- Liam DohertyYeah. Yeah, I hear that. That's a fair point and I don't love it.
- Marcus BellThe other thing is, records indexed are fine. The nightly refresh is running, the connectors are all loading, the data's fresh. So it's not a technical problem. The brain's there, it's up to date, people aren't opening it.
- Liam DohertyOkay. And no tickets either, I guess? I haven't raised anything.
- Marcus BellNothing in the last month, no. Not one, high priority or otherwise. Which on its own is lovely, it means nothing's broken. But in a team with forty seats, a completely empty queue can also mean people have just stopped trying. I'd rather get a how-to question every now and then.
- Liam DohertyHa. Right. Silence isn't always golden.
- Marcus BellNot always. So that's the picture. I'd like to hear what you think is going on, if you've got a view.
- Liam DohertyI think, honestly, it's three things. One, it's peak, like I said. Two, the depot managers got shown it once and nobody went back to them. I got distracted with the pricing review and a load of other stuff and I didn't follow up. That's on me. And three, I think they still do the old thing, which is ring the depot or look in the transport system and then a spreadsheet, because they know where everything is in that. It's habit.
- Marcus BellThat's really useful, thanks. And it's not unusual. The habit one's the hardest. People don't switch because something's better, they switch because it's easier on the day they need it.
- Liam DohertyYeah. So what do we do? Can we get the depots on it, properly this time?
- Marcus BellThat's what I was going to suggest. Rather than another general session, I'd try something much smaller and more specific. Pick one or two depots, ideally the ones where the retail contracts matter most, and do a short session built around a real account they care about. Their own customer, their own exceptions, their own calls. Show them the question they'd have asked on the phone and how the brain answers it.
- Liam DohertyLove that. So not here's the product, more here's your Monday morning.
- Marcus BellExactly. Half an hour, maybe less. I'd come to you, or do it on video, whichever suits them. And I'd want you in the room, because they'll listen to you more than to me.
- Liam DohertyHm. I don't know about that, but I'll be there. Who do you reckon? Trafford Park's the obvious one. It's the biggest and it's got the retail contracts that keep me awake.
- Marcus BellThat would be my guess too. Is there a particular account manager there who's open to it? Somebody a bit curious. One keen person tends to pull the others in more than a room full of people who've been told to attend.
- Liam DohertyThere's one lad at Trafford who asked loads of questions in the first session. I'd need to check he's still on that account. And I'd want to ask one of the other depot managers as well. Let me think about who. I'll come back to you by the end of the week.
- Marcus BellThat's great. And then what I'll do is build the example around whichever account they choose, so it's real. I'll need a day or so notice to pull it together.
- Liam DohertyYeah. Can I ask something a bit awkward?
- Marcus BellOf course. Go for it.
- Liam DohertyWhen the renewal comes round at the end of the year, somebody's going to ask me what we get for £44,000. And if I'm honest, the answer at the moment is that I get a lot, and the rest of the business gets not very much. I need that to change before then, or I've got a hard conversation.
- Marcus BellYeah. I appreciate you saying that. I can't speak to anything on the commercial side, that's Tom's area, but what I can do is help you build the value case from the usage. If the depots are asking questions and spotting contracts early, that's something we can show, with real examples.
- Liam DohertyThat's what I need. An example of a retail contract where we saw something early and did something about it. Even one.
- Marcus BellRight. Have you got one from the last few months? Something where the brain made a difference, even a small one?
- Liam DohertyThere's one. A retailer's contract where delivery exceptions had been creeping up. I saw it in the dashboard before their buyer got in touch, and we called them first. I never wrote it up properly. I could.
- Marcus BellThat's exactly the sort of thing. If you jot it down, even a few lines, what you saw, when, and what you did, I'll help turn it into something tidy. It gives you a story that's yours rather than a usage chart.
- Liam DohertyOkay. Yeah. I'll do that this week. It's embarrassing I didn't do it already.
- Marcus BellDon't be. Everyone's the same. Right, a couple of other things before we finish. Do you want me to send over the usage by depot? I've got it by person and I can group it.
- Liam DohertyPlease. That'd help me work out who to ask. And can you flag anyone who's got an account but has never logged in at all?
- Marcus BellI can, yes. I'll put that in the same note. I'll also check the admin side, make sure the right people can add and remove users, in case anyone's moved on since the rollout.
- Liam DohertyGood shout. We've had a couple of people move around. I'm not sure the list is right.
- Marcus BellThen that's worth sorting. It might be that some of those forty seats are people who aren't even in the role now.
- Liam DohertyProbably. I'll have a look when you send it.
- Marcus BellPerfect. So to recap. I'll send you the usage by depot and the never-logged-in list by Wednesday. You'll tell me by the end of the week which depots and which account managers you'd like for the short session, and you'll jot down the retail contract story. Then I'll build the session around it and we'll book a date. Does that sound right?
- Liam DohertyThat's it. And if the depots still don't bite after that, we have another think.
- Marcus BellAgreed. We'd have another think. I'd rather try the small thing first than do a big relaunch that goes the same way.
- Liam DohertyYeah. Thanks for raising it, Marcus. Honestly I'd have been a bit blind to it otherwise. I only look at my own bit.
- Marcus BellThat's what I'm here for. Happy to jump on a call any time before then if something comes up. Speak soon, Liam.
- Liam DohertyCheers, Marcus. Speak soon. Bye.
- Marcus BellBye, take care.
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