What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26QBR on 7 Apr 2025. Usage and questions asked are rising, the one ticket was closed same day, and Liam Doherty wants depot managers on the dashboards. His finance director will ask what £44k a year buys.
What happened: Marcus Bell took Liam Doherty through usage, one closed ticket and connector health on 7 Apr 2025. About eight users are active against forty licensed, up roughly a fifth on the quarter.
Customer view: Liam says that with eight of them looking, it is a revenue ops tool, not one view. He wants depot managers on the dashboard he built, in two 30 minute sessions.
Commercial: Marcus said invoices match the order form at £44k a year, with nothing overdue. The term runs to 30 Nov 2025 and Tom Ashdown leads the renewal conversation.
Watch: Liam is the top asker, though two account managers are close behind. Marcus advised against adding anything for its own sake.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Who was there
BB-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Marcus to send the one-page usage summary and a short outline for depot managers that day.
- Marcus to propose times for the two depot sessions within a couple of weeks.
- Liam to send the depot managers' names, and Marcus to brief Tom Ashdown ahead of the renewal.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Only about eight of forty licensed users are active, so the brain still reads as a revenue ops tool.
- Liam's finance director will ask what the spend delivers and he needs a sharper answer before renewal.
- Liam is the top asker, so a share of the questions rests on one person.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Take the dashboard Liam built to depot managers in two 30 minute sessions.
- The anonymised early-warning retailer example gives a concrete value case for the renewal.
- Unused seats on Growth leave room for depot users with no added cost.
Transcript
- Liam Doherty NoneHello, hello. Can you hear me alright? I've got the headset on this time, so tell me if I sound like I'm at the bottom of a well.
- Marcus Bell NoneLoud and clear, Liam. Good afternoon. You sound better than last time, to be fair.
- Liam Doherty NoneHa, low bar. Afternoon, Marcus. How's your Monday? Mine's been back to back since eight, I've not even had lunch. Well, half a sandwich at my desk.
- Marcus Bell NoneSame, more or less. It's been raining here since I got in, so I've been dodging puddles and emails in equal measure. Is it the same in Trafford Park?
- Liam Doherty NoneWorse. The yard's a lake. The drivers are not thrilled. Anyway. Go on, what have you got for me?
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. Let me share my screen, hang on. Can you see the usage report? It should be the one with the green header.
- Liam Doherty NoneYep, got it. Green header, lots of little charts. Love that.
- Marcus Bell NoneGood. So what I want to cover today is three things. First, how the team's been using the brain this quarter, I've pulled the numbers. Second, the one ticket you raised, just so we close it off properly. And third, what you want to do next, because I know you've got ideas about the depots.
- Liam Doherty NoneI've always got ideas about the depots. Go on, usage first.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo, headline. Over the last thirty days you've averaged about eight active users. That's up roughly a fifth on the quarter before, so it's moving the right way.
- Liam Doherty NoneEight. Okay. That's my team plus a couple of the senior account managers, I'd guess.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's what the logins look like, yes. Your revenue operations people, two of the account managers who ask quite a lot, and someone from customer service who comes in most days.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat'll be Sinead's old... no, hang on. Doesn't matter. Yeah, that tracks. And the licence is for forty, isn't it?
- Marcus Bell NoneForty licensed users on Growth, yes. So you've got a lot of room. I'm not saying that to push anything, it's just how the picture looks. You're using a fifth of the seats you've got.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight. Which is fine, I'd rather have headroom than be begging for more seats. But it's also the thing that's been nagging me. One view, that's the point. If it's only eight of us looking at it, it's not one view, it's a revenue ops tool.
- Marcus Bell NoneMm. That's a fair way to put it.
- Liam Doherty NoneCan we get the depots on it? That's what I keep coming back to. The account managers at the depots are the ones who actually pick up the phone when a retailer's unhappy.
- Marcus Bell NoneYeah, and that's exactly where I wanted to get to. Let me show you something first, though. This chart is questions asked per week. You can see the line's been climbing since the start of the year, and it's not one person doing all of it, which is healthy.
- Liam Doherty NoneWho's asking the most? Is it me? Be honest.
- Marcus Bell NoneIt's you, a bit. You're the top asker. But not by a mile. Your two account managers are not far behind, and they've been asking about delivery exceptions by retailer, which I thought was interesting.
- Liam Doherty NoneOh, that's good. That's them using it the way I hoped. Because the whole reason we bought it was so we'd see an unhappy retail contract before the customer rings us, not after.
- Marcus Bell NoneYeah. Can I ask, has that actually happened yet? Like a real case where it flagged something early?
- Liam Doherty NoneOnce, properly. Not going to name the retailer, but one of our bigger contract warehousing customers. Delivery exception tickets were creeping up at one depot, and there'd been a slightly tetchy call that nobody had written up. Put the two together in the brain and it was obvious. We got the depot manager to ring them before they rang us.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's the kind of thing I'd love to be able to say to other customers, honestly. Would you be okay with me using that, anonymised, in a write-up?
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, go for it. Just keep the retailer out of it and I'll sign off.
- Marcus Bell NoneWill do. Thanks. Right, next bit. Connectors. You've got the CRM, the helpdesk, the call recorder and Microsoft 365 mail all loading. I've looked at records indexed week on week and it's rising steadily, so nothing's gone stale.
- Liam Doherty NoneGood. I was half expecting you to tell me one of them had quietly stopped. It happened at a previous place, we found out three months later.
- Marcus Bell NoneNot here. Nightly refresh is landing well before seven every business day, I checked that specifically.
- Liam Doherty NoneBrilliant. Okay, so the ticket.
- Marcus Bell NoneYes. One ticket in the last thirty days, the one about a dashboard filter not remembering the depot selection. It was resolved the same day, and I've marked it closed. Were you happy with how that went?
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, it was fine. Fast. I chased it once, but only because I chase everything. Habit.
- Marcus Bell NoneNo, that's fine, chase away. Honestly one ticket from a team that's asking this many questions, that's a good sign. People are getting what they need.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight. Right. Okay, so. Dashboards. I've built a couple more since we last spoke. Can you see them in there?
- Marcus Bell NoneHang on, let me click across. Yes. Delivery exceptions by retailer, and one that looks like open contracts against exception rate. That one's nice, who built that?
- Liam Doherty NoneMe, on a Friday afternoon when I should've been doing something else. It's rough. The idea is the depot managers open it on a Monday and see which retailers need a call that week.
- Marcus Bell NoneIt's not rough, it's good. And that's the thing I'd say about the depots. That dashboard is already the thing you'd show them. You don't need to teach them to ask the chat anything, they could just open that.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's... yeah. That's a much easier sell. Because I was worried I'd have to turn every depot manager into someone who types questions into a box, and half of them barely open their email.
- Marcus Bell NoneExactly. Start with the dashboard, and then the ones who get curious move on to asking. Happy to jump on a call with the depot managers and walk them through it. Shall we book 30 minutes?
- Liam Doherty NoneThirty minutes is about what they'll tolerate, to be fair. Could we do it in two groups? There's the three nearer ones and then the ones further out, who'd probably do it from the car.
- Marcus Bell NoneTwo sessions is fine. I'd rather that than one big call where nobody speaks. Do you want me to send you a short outline you can forward, so they know what to expect?
- Liam Doherty NonePlease. Short. If it's longer than a paragraph they won't read it.
- Marcus Bell NoneA paragraph and a link. Got it.
- Liam Doherty NoneCan I ask you something slightly different?
- Marcus Bell NoneOf course.
- Liam Doherty NoneMy finance director's going to ask me what we're getting for the money. Not in a nasty way, she just likes to know. We're paying forty-four thousand a year, and I want to be able to say something sharper than 'people like it'.
- Marcus Bell NoneYeah, fair. So what I'd say is, you can point at three things. One, usage is rising: eight active users and up about a fifth quarter on quarter. Two, the early warning example you just gave me, that's a concrete case. Three, the dashboards you've built, which show your own team is investing in it.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's useful. Can you put that in the report? As a one-pager I could just forward.
- Marcus Bell NoneI'll do that. I'll pull it into a short summary after this call and send it over today or first thing tomorrow.
- Liam Doherty NoneBrilliant. And the invoice side's all clean, isn't it? I've not heard anything from accounts payable.
- Marcus Bell NoneNothing overdue on your side, and what's been invoiced matches the order form at forty-four thousand a year. So no surprises there.
- Liam Doherty NoneGood. Because I hate surprises. Okay, what about the term? I know we signed back in December of 2023, and it's got to come up at some point.
- Marcus Bell NoneYes. You started on 1 Dec 2023, and the current term runs to 30 Nov 2025, so renewal falls on 1 Dec 2025. It's a way off, but I'd rather we talked about it early and without a rush.
- Liam Doherty NoneSure. Who do I talk to about that, you or Tom?
- Marcus Bell NoneBoth, really. I'll keep looking after the adoption side and the review of how it's gone. Tom Ashdown handles the commercial conversation, so anything about terms or the renewal itself would go through him. I'll make sure he's in the loop well ahead.
- Liam Doherty NonePerfect. I'd like the depots on it before that conversation, so I've got a better story. That's the plan.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a good plan. The more people use it before the renewal conversation, the easier it is to say what it's worth.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. Right. One more thing, and then I'll let you go. Is there anything you think we're not doing that we should be? I don't want to be one of those customers who pays and then never touches half of it.
- Marcus Bell NoneHonestly, the main thing is what we've already said. More of the depot people in, and more of your own dashboards in front of them. The connectors are fine, the data's fresh, and you've got room on the seats. I wouldn't go adding things for the sake of it.
- Liam Doherty NoneI appreciate you saying that. Most account people would be trying to sell me something by now.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's not really my job. Mine's making sure you get the value out of what you've bought.
- Liam Doherty NoneLove that. Okay. So, you're sending me the one-pager and the paragraph for the depot managers, and you're finding me a slot for the two sessions.
- Marcus Bell NoneYes. I'll send the summary and the outline today, and I'll suggest a few times for the two depot sessions in the next couple of weeks. You tell me which suit. And I'll let Tom know where we've got to.
- Liam Doherty NoneAnd I'll get you the list of depot managers' names so you've got the right people on the invite. I'll do that tomorrow.
- Marcus Bell NoneGreat. I think that's us, then. Thanks for the time, Liam, and thanks for letting me use the example.
- Liam Doherty NoneNo problem. Good to catch up. Speak soon.
- Marcus Bell NoneThanks, Liam. Cheers. Bye for now.
- Liam Doherty NoneCheers, Marcus. Bye.