Brackwell Freight Ltd / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Brackwell Freight Ltd · 4 Jul 2025 11:15
QBR on 4 Jul 2025: about eight of 40 Growth users active, up about nine percent on the quarter. Liam Doherty says the depots are not on it yet and he cannot put a figure on value for finance. Term ends 30 Nov 2025.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026QBR on 4 Jul 2025: about eight of 40 Growth users active, up about nine percent on the quarter. Liam Doherty says the depots are not on it yet and he cannot put a figure on value for finance. Term ends 30 Nov 2025.
What happened: Marcus Bell and Tom Ashdown held the Growth QBR with Liam Doherty and Aisha Rahman on 4 Jul 2025. Activity was a bit over eight daily users, but the depots are still not in the brain.
Customer view: Liam credits the brain with flagging a retail contract early, yet cannot put a number on it for finance. Aisha still checks figures against the old spreadsheet before the review goes out.
Commercial: Tom said a like-for-like renewal is simple and he would not want Brackwell paying for seats it will not use. Liam owns the renewal for now and Gareth signs it off.
Watch: Records indexed from one connector have been flat for a few weeks, possibly after helpdesk category changes. A bigger share of one retailer's warehousing was floated but is not a done deal.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Depot rollout and renewal sizing
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 to write a one-page value note and hold a half-hour admin and dashboards session with Aisha Rahman.
- Aisha Rahman to send a screenshot of the helpdesk category changes so Marcus can check the connector mapping.
- Liam Doherty to speak to Gareth before the summer is out, with a hold sent for the autumn QBR.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Liam says forty seats is right only if the depots come on, so the seat count could be questioned at renewal.
- Liam cannot quantify value in a way finance would accept, and Gareth signs off the renewal.
- Records indexed from one connector have been flat for a few weeks, possibly after helpdesk category changes.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A Trafford Park depot session and a dashboards builder walk-through could build the depot story.
- A bigger share of one retailer's warehousing could add delivery exceptions, though Liam says it is not a done deal.
Transcript
Tom AshdownMorning all. Can you hear me alright?
Liam DohertyLoud and clear, Tom. Morning. Marcus, you're on mute, mate.
Marcus BellSorry, sorry. Morning everyone. Is that better?
Aisha RahmanYes, I can hear you now. Morning.- Tom AshdownLovely. How's your week been, Liam? Friday already, I don't know where it's gone.
- Liam DohertyBusy. A couple of the retailers have pulled their peak planning forward, so the depots have been mad. Good busy, mind. The heat in the warehouse has been horrible though.
- Tom AshdownAh, no drama then, apart from the sweating. And you, Aisha? Settled in alright?
- Aisha RahmanYes, thank you. Fairly quiet on my side, just the usual Tuesday review prep. I've been having a go at the admin pages this week, so I might have a couple of questions later.
- Marcus BellGreat, that fits nicely, because I wanted to cover that anyway. Let me share my screen. Can you all see the usage report?
- Liam DohertyYep, I see it. Bit small, can you zoom in?
- Marcus BellIs that better? Right. So what I want to cover today is three things. How the brain's being used since the last review, the tickets from the last month, and then a bit on the renewal so Tom can talk about timing. Happy to jump around if anything else comes up.
- Tom AshdownSounds good to me. I'll mostly listen, to be honest. Marcus does the real work.
- Marcus BellCheers, Tom. So, I've pulled the numbers. You've got forty licensed users on Growth. Over the last thirty days the average number of people actually active is a bit over eight. That's up about nine percent on the quarter before.
- Liam DohertyEight. Right. Out of forty.
- Marcus BellYeah. I'll be straight with you, it's moving in the right direction but it's a long way off the number of seats you're paying for. Which isn't a bad thing on its own, it just means there's room.
- Liam DohertyNo, that's fair. That's exactly the thing I keep banging on about. It's mostly us in revenue ops and a handful of the account managers. The depots aren't really in there yet.
- Tom AshdownAnd that was the plan from the start, wasn't it? Back in December twenty twenty-three when we signed, the whole point was the depot account managers seeing the same picture as head office.
- Liam DohertyOne view, that's the point. Yeah. We got head office onto it, we got a few depot managers going, and then peak season hit and everything stalled. Can we get the depots on it? Properly, I mean. Not just a login that nobody opens.
- Marcus BellThat's what I'd like to dig into. Can I show you who's asking the questions? Because it's useful for working out where to aim.
- Liam DohertyGo on.
- Marcus BellSo this is questions asked, by person, last quarter. You can see the top three people are asking most of them. Liam, you're the biggest, then two of the account managers from, I think that's Trafford Park and one of the other depots, and then it tails off.
- Liam DohertyHa. Yeah, that's me. I can't say I'm surprised. I've got a bit of a problem, I ask it everything.
- Marcus BellWhich is great for you, but the thing I'd flag is that one person asking a big share is a bit of a key-person thing. If you were off for a fortnight, the numbers would drop through the floor. I'm not saying that to be gloomy. It's just what I'd want spread out.
- Aisha RahmanSorry, can I just ask, is that the questions in chat only, or does it include search as well? Because I use search quite a lot for the delivery exceptions and I wasn't sure it was counted.
- Marcus BellGood question. This one is questions in chat. Search is on a separate line, let me scroll. There. So you're showing up quite well on search, actually, Aisha. You're second.
- Aisha RahmanOh. I didn't realise. That's reassuring, thank you.
- Liam DohertyTold you she was good. Honestly, she's the one keeping the Tuesday review on the rails.
- Aisha RahmanI wouldn't go that far. I just check the figures against the old spreadsheet before it goes out, in case. Habit.
- Tom AshdownWhich is quite telling, that, if you don't mind me saying. Still checking against the spreadsheet. That's the thing we want to stop you needing to do.
- Aisha RahmanYes. It's less that I don't trust it and more that, well, if the figure's wrong in front of the operations directors, it's me who has to explain. So I'd rather be sure.
- Marcus BellThat's completely reasonable. And it leads nicely into the tickets, actually. Shall I jump to those?
- Liam DohertyGo for it.
- Marcus BellSo three tickets in the last thirty days. None of them high priority. One was a how-to, someone wanting to know how to filter delivery exceptions by retailer. One was a connector question, a sync that ran a bit late one morning. And one was about freshness, whether the overnight refresh had landed before the Tuesday review.
- Aisha RahmanThat last one was mine. I attached a screenshot. The figures looked the same as the Friday before and I wasn't sure if that was right or if it hadn't updated.
- Marcus BellYeah, and it had refreshed, it was just that nothing much had changed in that report over the weekend. Support came back inside your response time, and I think the answer was fairly clear in the end. But I'd much rather you raised it than sat there wondering. That's what the tickets are for.
- Aisha RahmanRight. Okay. I did wonder if it was me. Is it me, or is there a way of seeing when the last refresh actually finished? Without opening a ticket?
- Marcus BellThere is, yeah. It's on the admin page, under the connectors. Let me share that instead. Hang on. There. Each connector shows its last load and how many records came in. So if you see that number flat for a good while, that's when to flag it.
- Aisha RahmanOh, that's really helpful. I hadn't scrolled down that far. I'd only looked at the top part.
- Liam DohertyMarcus, can you do her a half-hour on that? The whole admin side. Because honestly I'd feel better if it wasn't just in my head.
- Marcus BellHappy to. Shall we book half an hour? I can walk Aisha through the connectors, the users and the permissions, and leave her some notes to keep.
- Aisha RahmanI'd really appreciate that. Thank you. I'd like to understand it properly rather than just clicking about.
- Marcus BellPerfect. I'll send you a couple of times after this call.
- Tom AshdownWhile you're on that, Liam, can I ask something slightly awkward? Because it's the bit I think matters most for the renewal. What's the thing you'd point to if your management asked, what has this actually done for us?
- Liam DohertyNot awkward at all. Fair question. Okay. So the best example. Early this year we had one of the big retail contracts, I won't name them, where the delivery exceptions were piling up and nobody on the commercial side had seen it. In the old world, that would have been a phone call from their procurement team. Instead the brain flagged it, we saw the tickets and the last couple of calls together, and the account manager rang them first.
- Tom AshdownWhich is the whole reason you bought it.
- Liam DohertyExactly. Seeing an at-risk contract before the customer calls. That's it. That one conversation probably paid for a good chunk of the year. But I can't put a number on it in a way my finance people would accept. That's my problem.
- Marcus BellThat's actually something I can help with. I can pull together a short note, the questions asked on retail accounts, the exceptions caught early, and the time your people say they've saved on the weekly report. It won't be a magic number, but it'll be something you can put in front of finance.
- Liam DohertyLove that. Yes please. Even a page. They're not going to read more than a page.
- Marcus BellA page it is. I'd need a couple of things from you though. Who the account managers are that use it most, and whether any of them have a story like the retail one.
- Liam DohertyI can do that. I'll ask the two at Trafford Park and one of the others. They'll tell you if you buy them a coffee.
- Tom AshdownI'll buy the coffee.
- Liam DohertyHa, you're on.
- Marcus BellRight, so the depots. Can I make a suggestion? Rather than switching everyone on at once, which is what tends to fall flat, pick one depot and do a proper session there. Show them their own accounts, their own exceptions, and let them ask it something they actually care about.
- Liam DohertyTrafford Park. It's the biggest and I'm there most weeks anyway. The account manager there is already in the top three, so she'd probably help sell it.
- Marcus BellThat's ideal. Then once it's working there, we've got a story to take to the other depots, and it's coming from their own colleague rather than from us.
- Aisha RahmanWould the dashboards help with that? I've seen the dashboards builder in the menu but I haven't used it. I wondered whether the depot managers would prefer something they can just look at rather than having to ask a question.
- Marcus BellIt's a really good thought, actually. Some people just don't want to type a question. They want a screen with the five things they check every morning. Growth includes the dashboards builder, so you've already got it. I can show you how to build a simple one in the same session as the admin walk-through.
- Liam DohertyOh, that'd be brilliant. One for open exceptions by retailer. They'd love that.
- Aisha RahmanI could try one beforehand, if that's useful. Then you could tell me what I've done wrong.
- Marcus BellPlease do. That's the best way to learn it. Don't worry about getting it wrong.
- Tom AshdownRight, I'll come in, if that's alright, because I know Marcus has covered a lot. Can I just talk through where we are on the contract, so nobody's surprised?
- Liam DohertyPlease.
- Tom AshdownSo you came on in December twenty twenty-three. The current term runs to 30 Nov 2025, and the renewal date is 1 Dec 2025. You're on Growth, and the order form and the invoices both say forty-four thousand pounds a year, so that all lines up. No overdue invoices on our side either, which is nice.
- Liam DohertyGood, I'd hate for finance to have lost one.
- Tom AshdownNo, you've been spot on. Always paid on time. So what I'd normally do is Marcus gives the formal notice well ahead, around three months before, and then we get a conversation in the diary about what you want from the next term. But I'd rather start early rather than leave it until then.
- Liam DohertyMakes sense. What are you thinking, in terms of what changes?
- Tom AshdownHonestly, nothing needs to. If you want to carry on as you are, same tier, same users, that's a very simple renewal. The only reason to change anything is if you decide the depot rollout means you need more connectors, or you'd rather drop some seats. I'd not want you paying for forty seats if eight is what you'll ever use, and I'd also not want to be the one pushing you to buy more.
- Liam DohertyAppreciate that. Look, the way I see it, we're not using what we've got yet. If we get the depots on it, forty is about right. If we don't, then fair enough, it's a conversation.
- Tom AshdownThat's exactly how I'd put it. So there's your reason to get the depot session done this summer. If you've got a few more people using it by the autumn, the renewal conversation is a happy one.
- Aisha RahmanSorry, may I ask, is the renewal something I need to be involved in? I'm not sure how that side works. I don't want to say the wrong thing to anyone.
- Liam DohertyIt's mine to sort at the moment, Aisha. Gareth signs it off in the end but I'll bring it to him. You just keep the brain humming and tell me what you're seeing.
- Tom AshdownYeah, nothing for you to worry about. Though it'd help to have you in the room when we do the value conversation, because you see the day-to-day.
- Aisha RahmanOf course. I'm happy to.
- Marcus BellCan I come back to one thing on usage? The connectors. At the moment everything's loading, no broken sources. But I noticed the records indexed from the one connector has been flat for a few weeks. Liam, did you change anything in the helpdesk setup recently?
- Liam DohertyHmm. Not that I know of. Aisha, did the service team move anything? They did a bit of tidying with the categories a while back.
- Aisha RahmanI think they renamed a few categories, but I couldn't tell you when. I'd rather not guess at what it's done, to be honest. I can ask them though.
- Marcus BellThat would be great. It might be nothing, it might just be quiet weeks. But if it's the categories, the connector might be filtering something out and you'd want to know. Send me a screenshot of what they changed and I'll have a look at the mapping.
- Aisha RahmanI'll do that today. I'll attach a screenshot.
- Liam DohertyGood spot, Marcus. I'd have missed that. Honestly I'd have found out when someone said the exceptions looked light.
- Marcus BellThat's what I'm here for. I'm not saying there's a problem, just that I'd rather look than wait.
- Tom AshdownCan I ask about something a bit different? Liam, you mentioned the retail peak. Is there anything coming up on your side that might change how you use it? New contracts, new depots, anything like that?
- Liam DohertyNot new depots. We've got the six, we're not adding. But we might be taking on a bigger share of one retailer's warehousing, which would mean a lot more delivery exceptions flowing through. So it'd be more important, not less, to see them early.
- Tom AshdownThat's a good one to know. Nothing to do yet, I'd just keep it in the back of your mind, and tell me if it firms up. If it does, we might want to look at whether the setup still fits.
- Liam DohertyWill do. Early days, though. Don't put it in your notes as a done deal.
- Tom AshdownNo, no. Just a flag. No drama.
- Marcus BellOne more thing before we run out of time, and it's a bit housekeeping. There's a quarterly review on Growth, which is this one, so the next would be in the autumn, which lands right before the renewal notice. I'd suggest we use that one to plan the renewal properly, with the value page in hand.
- Liam DohertySounds sensible. Can we get that in the diary now, so it doesn't slip?
- Tom AshdownLet's get something in the diary. Marcus, can you send a hold for the autumn? I'll make sure I'm on it.
- Marcus BellWill do. I'll send it this afternoon.
- Liam DohertyCan I ask a daft one? If the depots do come on, the account managers there are not really data people. They're going to ask it things in a really loose way. Does it cope with that?
- Marcus BellIt copes better than you'd think. They can ask it in plain language, the way they'd ask a colleague. What matters more is that the data underneath is in good shape, because it can only answer from what it's been given. That's why the connectors thing matters.
- Liam DohertyRight. So garbage in, garbage out, basically.
- Marcus BellHa, a bit, yeah. But yours is good. The calls and the tickets and the CRM are all lining up, which isn't always the case.
- Liam DohertyThat's down to Aisha, to be fair. She's the one who tidied the account names.
- Aisha RahmanIt was only the duplicates. There were a few retailers listed twice. It took an afternoon.
- Tom AshdownThat's exactly what makes the difference. People don't realise.
- Aisha RahmanMarcus, one practical thing, if I may. When the depot managers get their logins, do I set up their access or does it come from you? I wasn't sure who does what.
- Marcus BellYou do it, in the admin page. It's quite simple, you add the user and pick what they can see. I'll show you in the session. And you've got forty seats, so there's plenty of room. Nothing to buy.
- Aisha RahmanGood. I'll write it down as we go, then I'll have a proper note.
- Liam DohertyLove that. A proper note. That's how it should be.
- Tom AshdownRight, I think we're in a good place. Can I just play it back, so I've got it right? Marcus does a half-hour with Aisha on admin and dashboards. Aisha sends a screenshot on the helpdesk categories today. Liam talks to the Trafford Park account managers about the value stories, and picks the depot for a session. Marcus does the one-page value note. And I'll sort the renewal paperwork early, so there are no surprises.
- Liam DohertyThat's it. Add one thing. I'll speak to Gareth before the summer's out so he's not hearing about the renewal cold.
- Tom AshdownPerfect. And if he wants to jump on a call himself, I'm very happy to.
- Liam DohertyI'll let you know.
- Marcus BellBefore we finish, anything else anyone wants to raise? Anything about how the brain's working that's been bugging you?
- Aisha RahmanJust flagging, the search sometimes brings back older tickets above newer ones. Is that expected? It's not a big thing, I just wondered.
- Marcus BellHmm. That's useful. It can happen when an old ticket is a closer match to the words you've used. If you add a retailer name or a week, it usually helps. But I'll take it away and check I'm not missing a setting. Don't want to promise anything.
- Aisha RahmanThank you. That's all from me.
- Liam DohertyNothing from me. Good call, honestly. Better than I expected for a Friday.
- Tom AshdownHa. Cheers, Liam. Go and sit somewhere cool.
- Liam DohertyI'll try. Cheers, all.
- Marcus BellThanks everyone. Speak soon.
- Aisha RahmanThanks, bye.
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