Brackwell Freight Ltd / BB-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Brackwell Freight Ltd · 2025-09-01 14:15
On 1 Sep 2025 Marcus Bell showed Liam Doherty that daily use had fallen by more than a third with no tickets. Liam said he would keep Growth as it is and prove it, with more only if the depots take to it.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26On 1 Sep 2025 Marcus Bell showed Liam Doherty that daily use had fallen by more than a third with no tickets. Liam said he would keep Growth as it is and prove it, with more only if the depots take to it.
What happened: Marcus told Liam on 1 Sep 2025 that daily users were just under five, down by more than a third on the quarter before. There were no tickets, so it is silence rather than complaint.
Customer view: Liam traced it to depot turnover, replacements who never had training, and habit. He also owned that onboarding slid.
Commercial: Liam would keep Growth as it is and prove it, and would struggle to argue for more. He asked what scaling down would mean for the history, wanting the answer in writing for the board.
Watch: Liam is by far the biggest share of questions asked, and some licences belong to leavers. The ticketing change over the summer looks fine, as records indexed are still rising.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Falling usage, renewal doubt
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Marcus Bell sends Liam a short usage note and the list of dormant accounts so leavers' licences can be freed.
- Marcus Bell builds the weekly review page with Liam on the Tuesday afternoon of the following week.
- Marcus Bell confirms in writing whether depot comes through on tickets and what scaling down means for the data.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Daily users fell by more than a third on the quarter before, with no tickets to explain it.
- Liam asks most of the questions, so usage depends on one champion.
- Liam would keep Growth as it is and could not argue for more unless the depots adopt it.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A weekly retail account review page built from the brain could put the whole team into it each week.
- Short depot sessions on their own data, opened by Liam, worked with the Trafford Park team.
Transcript
Marcus Bell NoneHello Liam, can you hear me all right? I've got the recording going so it should say so on your side.
Liam Doherty NoneLoud and clear. Afternoon, Marcus. Sorry, I've got a sandwich in one hand, it's been a day. Bank holiday hangover, everyone's back at once and the inbox is a swamp.- Marcus Bell NoneHa, no, go on, eat. Mine's the same. August goes by and then September lands all in one go. How was the break, did you get away?
- Liam Doherty NoneCouple of days in the Lakes, rained the whole time, which was fine, I wasn't there for the views. Kids loved it. You?
- Marcus Bell NoneStayed local. Did some decorating, which I'd not recommend. Anyway. Right, thanks for making the time. I'll share my screen in a second and say what I want to cover, then you can tell me what I've missed.
- Liam Doherty NoneGo for it. I've got a list as well, but you first.
- Marcus Bell NoneOkay, so three things really. One, I've pulled the numbers on how the brain's being used since the spring. Two, I'd like to hear how it's landing with the depot account managers, because that's why you bought it. And three, we're getting towards the end of the term, so I want us both to know where we stand before the renewal conversation starts properly. Can you see the screen?
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, I've got the usage page. Looks like the one I used to look at every Monday.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's the one. So, you're on Growth, forty licensed users, and the contract runs to 30 Nov 2025, with renewal on 1 Dec 2025. You've been with us since 1 Dec 2023, so this is the end of the second year.
- Liam Doherty NoneTwo years already. Mad. It doesn't feel like it.
- Marcus Bell NoneIt doesn't. Right, so, I'll be straight with you, because I'd rather say it than have you find it. The number of people actually logging in on a normal day is down. Just under five people a day on average over the last month, and that's down by more than a third on the quarter before.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. Mm. Yeah, I thought it might be. I've not wanted to look, to be honest.
- Marcus Bell NoneNo, fair enough. And the odd thing is there's nothing on the support side. No tickets in the last month, nothing urgent, nothing at all. So it's not that something's broken and people are cross. It's quieter than that.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight, which is almost worse. If they were shouting I'd know what to fix.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's how I read it too. Silence, rather than a complaint. So I wanted to ask you rather than guess. What are you seeing from where you sit?
- Liam Doherty NoneOkay. So, honestly. When we rolled it out in the first year it was me and the rev ops team, and we were in it all the time. One view, that's the point. Account, the delivery-exception tickets, the calls, all in one place. And we caught a couple of retail contracts going wobbly because of it, before the customer rang us. Love that.
- Marcus Bell NoneI remember the one with the grocery customer, you said it was the first time anyone had joined the dots.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's it. But then the idea was always, can we get the depots on it? The account managers at Trafford Park and the other five. And we got some of them going, we did the training sessions, a few of them were really keen. But it's been a slog.
- Marcus Bell NoneWhat's the slog, would you say? Is it that they don't see the point, or they don't have time, or they can't find their way round it?
- Liam Doherty NoneA bit of all three, if I'm honest. The depot managers are out on the floor. They're dealing with a late trailer or a short-staffed shift and a laptop's the last thing on their mind. And the ones who did get going, a couple of them moved on and the replacements never had the training. So you lose people and you lose what they knew.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. So it's partly turnover at depot level, and nobody picked up the onboarding for the new starters.
- Liam Doherty NonePretty much. And I should have, to be fair. That's on me. I've had a lot on, we've had the reporting changes and the planning for the peak, and this just slid.
- Marcus Bell NoneI don't think it's on you, Liam. You've got forty licences and a whole business to run. This is partly on us as well, we should have been sat with you on this a couple of months ago rather than at the end of the summer.
- Liam Doherty NoneWell, it's kind of you to say. Anyway. It's now, so.
- Marcus Bell NoneYeah. So let me show you something that might help. Give me a moment, I'll switch to the breakdown by person.
- Liam Doherty NoneSure. Take your time, I'm finishing this sandwich.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight, there we go. So this is who's asking questions in the brain, over the last few weeks. And you can see it's a short list. A handful of names, and I'm guessing you can tell me who they are.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's me, that's two of my team, and that'll be, hang on, yes, one of the account managers from the Midlands side. And that's about it.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's about it. And you're by far the biggest share of the questions asked. Which is lovely for us, obviously, but it does mean a lot is leaning on you. If you were off for three weeks, the usage would nearly flatline.
- Liam Doherty NoneHa. Yeah. When you put it like that. I'd not thought of it that way.
- Marcus Bell NoneIt's not a dig. Lots of customers look like this at some point. One champion carrying it. It's just worth us talking about how you spread it before the renewal, because whoever signs it off will look at this page, and they'll ask what it's worth.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight. Yeah. That's fair. Who signs it off, on your side? Is that still Tom?
- Marcus Bell NoneTom Ashdown, yes. He owns the commercial side, so anything on the contract or the price, that's him. I stick to adoption and making sure the thing's actually useful to you. I'll make sure he's looped in before we get to the notice period.
- Liam Doherty NoneOkay. Good. I'd rather not have a surprise from either direction.
- Marcus Bell NoneAgreed. Shall we go through what might actually move the number? I've got a few ideas but I'd rather hear yours first.
- Liam Doherty NoneOkay. So for me, the thing that works is when someone sees their own accounts. Not a generic demo. Their depot, their customers, the exceptions from last week. When I sat with the Trafford Park guys and pulled up their actual retail customers, they were hooked. When it was a general walkthrough, eyes glazed over.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's useful. So smaller sessions, depot by depot, on their own data. Not a big training day.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. Twenty minutes, tops. Ten, even. Catch them at the start of a shift or on the Monday meeting.
- Marcus Bell NoneI can do that. Happy to jump on a call with each depot, I'd just need you to open the door. If I send a cold invite, nobody turns up.
- Liam Doherty NoneCourse. I'll put you in front of them. Honestly if it comes from me, it'll get done. If it comes from head office, it gets ignored.
- Marcus Bell NoneHa, so I've heard. Okay. Second thing. Is anyone else, apart from you, who might own it day to day? Someone who isn't you? Because I'd like it if there were a second admin-type person at Brackwell who knows where things are.
- Liam Doherty NoneHmm. There's one of my analysts, she's sharp, she knows the data better than I do half the time. I could ask whether she'd take it on. It'd need to be in her objectives or it won't happen.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat'd be the best thing you could do for it, I think. I can do a proper hands-on with her, how the connectors work, how to check a source's loading, what to look at when the numbers look odd. So it isn't a black box.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, let's do that. I'll have a word this week.
- Marcus Bell NoneBrilliant. Third. Can I check one thing about the data itself? Because I want to be sure it's not that people tried it and found something stale. From what I can see the nightly refresh has been landing fine, and records are still coming in. But you'd know better than me whether the answers feel right.
- Liam Doherty NoneNo, I don't think that's it. The answers are fine. I've not had anyone say it's wrong. It's more that they just don't think of it. It's not in their routine. They've got their own spreadsheets and the tickets system and they go there out of habit.
- Marcus Bell NoneHabit. Right. That's the hardest one, honestly. It's not a product problem, it's a Monday morning problem.
- Liam Doherty NoneHa, exactly that. A Monday morning problem.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo what would put it into the Monday meeting? Because if it's in the weekly rhythm, it sticks. If it's an optional extra, it doesn't.
- Liam Doherty NoneHmm. So we run a weekly account review for the big retail contracts. It's a slide deck at the moment, someone builds it by hand on a Friday. If that came out of the brain, or if we ran the review live from it, then everyone in that room would be using it. Whether they liked it or not.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a really good shout. The weekly review is the thing. I can look at whether we can set that up as a page, so you've got the retail contracts, open exceptions and recent calls, all in one place, and it's the same page every week. I don't want to promise a particular layout till I've looked at what you've got, but that's the sort of thing the pages are for.
- Liam Doherty NoneLove that. Can you do it with me, so I'm not guessing? I'd want to build it with someone who's done it before.
- Marcus Bell NoneCourse. Shall we book 30 minutes next week to do it together? You bring the deck you build on Fridays and I'll bring the brain, and we'll see how much of it we can replace.
- Liam Doherty NoneYes. Please. And if it works I can show the depot guys the same page, they'd get the whole story at once.
- Marcus Bell NoneExactly. Okay, so that's actions starting to pile up, let me not forget them. Weekly review page, together, next week. Short sessions with each depot, with you opening the door. And a second person on your side who knows the system.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. And I want to tell my boss, before he sees that page. He'll want to know it's under control.
- Marcus Bell NoneOf course. If it helps I can write you a short note with the numbers and what we've agreed, you can forward it or not, your call. I'd rather it was plain and honest than dressed up.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat'd be perfect. Not too long, he's a three-line email man.
- Marcus Bell NoneThree lines. Understood. Right, the renewal. I'm not going to talk about price, that's Tom's, and I don't want to step on that. But can I ask you what you'd want the renewal to look like? Same set up, more, less?
- Liam Doherty NoneHonestly, I think it depends on the next couple of months. Last year I'd have said grow it, get all six depots on, probably more connectors. Right now I'd have to say keep it as it is and prove it. If the depots take to it, great. If not, I'd have a hard time arguing for more.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a fair answer, and thank you for it. It's what I'd expect anyone sensible to say. So the next couple of months matter, and we both know what we're trying to do with them.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. And the finance side will ask. At forty-four thousand a year they'll want to know it's earning it. I do believe it is, I've seen it earn it. I just need more people to have seen it.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a good way to put it. So that's the value case, in a sense. A couple of retail contracts spotted early, and we can quantify what those were worth if you've got a feel for it. Not today, but it'd be good to have in the note.
- Liam Doherty NoneI can dig out the two I'm thinking of. One of them was big. I'd have to check with the account director how much it was worth, and whether he's happy for it to be quoted.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat'd be great, and no rush on it. Even a rough description is useful. Okay. Anything on your list that I've not covered? You said you had one.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, a couple. One, user accounts. Some of the forty licences are people who've left or moved, I've not tidied it. Can you tell me which are dead so I can free them up? Or at least stop paying attention to them.
- Marcus Bell NoneI can send you the list of accounts with no activity for a good while. You'd have to confirm which are leavers, I can't see HR on your side. Then you can reassign the seats to the depot managers who do need them.
- Liam Doherty NonePerfect. Two. The delivery-exception tickets. Is there any way to see them by depot rather than by customer? Because that's how the managers think.
- Marcus Bell NoneShould be, if the depot's a field on the tickets coming through. I'll check what's actually arriving from your helpdesk before I say yes. I don't want to tell you it works and then it doesn't.
- Liam Doherty NoneFair. Don't oversell, ha. That's what I like about you.
- Marcus Bell NoneI'll take that. I'll look at it before we sit down on the weekly page, so I've got an answer for you.
- Liam Doherty NoneThree. Maybe this is more a worry than a question. If we did go smaller on the renewal, what would we lose? Like, what happens to the history, the indexed stuff?
- Marcus Bell NoneGood thing to ask. I'd rather not guess the specifics on the call, and the contract side is Tom's, so let me find out properly and come back to you in writing. What I can say is the brain runs in your own Snowflake account, so the data's yours, it's not sitting somewhere you can't get to.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight, yes, that's what I remembered. Okay, that's reassuring. I'd just want it in writing for the board.
- Marcus Bell NoneUnderstood. Writing it down. Okay, anything else? Anything about the connectors, anything you'd like to add or drop?
- Liam Doherty NoneNo, I think that's all fine. We did change something on the ticketing side over the summer, but I think it went through okay. Does it look all right from your end?
- Marcus Bell NoneHang on, let me look. Mm. So the records indexed are still going up, which is what I'd want to see. If a source had stopped loading it'd go flat. It hasn't. I'll keep an eye on it though, and tell you if that changes.
- Liam Doherty NoneBrilliant. Thank you. That was my other worry, honestly, that we'd broken something and not noticed.
- Marcus Bell NoneNo, you're good. Right. Let me read back what I've got, and you shout if I've got it wrong. One, I send you the note with the usage numbers and what we've agreed, three lines for your boss, and a longer version for you.
- Liam Doherty NoneYes.
- Marcus Bell NoneTwo, I send the list of dormant accounts so you can tidy the licences. Three, I check whether depot comes through on the tickets, and what happens to the data if you scale down, and get back to you in writing.
- Liam Doherty NoneYes. And I speak to my analyst about being the second person.
- Marcus Bell NoneYes. And you introduce me to the depots, and we do short sessions with their own accounts. And next week the pair of us build the weekly review page.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's it. And the two retail contracts, I'll find what they were worth.
- Marcus Bell NonePerfect. Shall I put a hold in the diary now, for the review page? Do you want early in the week or later?
- Liam Doherty NoneEarly. Tuesday, after lunch, if you can. Then I've got Friday to make it real.
- Marcus Bell NoneTuesday afternoon, done. I'll send it over after this call. And I'll tell Tom how today went, so he's not coming to it cold.
- Liam Doherty NonePlease do. And tell him it's not all doom, we're going to turn it around.
- Marcus Bell NoneI will. I think there's a good case here, it's just a case that needs the depots in it. And that's doable.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. Right. Thanks, Marcus. Honestly, I'm glad you flagged it rather than letting it drift. Would've been an ugly conversation in November.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's what I'm here for. Better now than then. Right, I'll stop sharing and let you get back to the swamp. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.
- Liam Doherty NoneYou too. Speak next week. Cheers, Marcus.
- Marcus Bell NoneCheers, Liam. Bye for now.
Callsmade from