Brackwell Freight Ltd / BG-Demo – Renewal
Callscheduled
Brackwell Freight Ltd · 13 Oct 2026 09:45
The quarterly review call with Brackwell Freight Ltd is dated 13 Oct 2026, after the as-of date of 9 Oct 2026. It is booked, not held, so no outcome is read from it.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026The quarterly review call with Brackwell Freight Ltd is dated 13 Oct 2026, after the as-of date of 9 Oct 2026. It is booked, not held, so no outcome is read from it.
Status: The call record carries a date of 2026-10-13 and a start of 09:45. That is later than the as-of date of 9 Oct 2026, so it is a plan.
Booked: The call is headed as a QBR and typed as a renewal. Marcus Bell is the host, with Sofia Marchetti, Head of Customer Success, on the BG-Demo side.
Customer side: Gareth Whitlam, Finance Director, and Aisha Rahman, Operations Analyst, are listed. Nothing said on this call is treated as having happened.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Booked QBR call
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
neutral
Voice
unknown
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Treat the call as booked until the as-of date passes, then read the held record.
Call prep
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Booked renewal call with Gareth Whitlam and Aisha Rahman ahead of the 1 Dec 2026 renewal. Gareth rejects any increase on the £50k proposal against £44k contracted, active users are down to 14 and Aisha is the only active admin.
Context: This call follows the booked 12 Oct 2026 call with Tom Ashdown and Joanne Platt. Tom owns price but is not on this call, so Marcus Bell and Sofia Marchetti carry the save with Gareth and Aisha.
Approach: Agree the save position on price and size with Tom beforehand. Bring right-sized written options, not a new figure stated on the call.
Lead with usage by team and depot. Then move to the depot dashboard and Aisha's Tuesday review work as the value case.
Watch for: Gareth will not agree any increase without a line-by-line reason, and he has already asked about Starter. Records indexed fell over the last month, so check data freshness before presenting usage as value.
Booked
Updated 9 Oct 26Date2026-10-13
Time09:45
Typerenewal
Statusscheduled
Callsmade from
Transcript
Marcus BellHello, can you both hear me alright? I've got Aisha on the list already. Gareth, are you there?
Aisha RahmanHi Marcus, yes, I can hear you. Just flagging, I think Gareth is still finishing something else, he said he'd be a couple of minutes.- Marcus BellNo problem at all. How's your week been? Busy?
- Aisha RahmanBusy, yeah. End of the month, so the depots are all chasing figures. It's the usual Wednesday scramble before the quarter closes.
- Marcus BellMm, I know that feeling. I'll just share my screen so it's ready when he arrives. I've pulled the numbers for the quarter and I'd like to walk you through them, then talk about the renewal.
Gareth WhitlamAfternoon. Sorry, the previous meeting overran. Is this the quarterly review?- Marcus BellIt is, yes. Afternoon, Gareth. Thanks for making the time. I know you've only been with us on this account since the spring, so I'm happy to go back over anything from the start.
- Gareth WhitlamI've read the pack you sent on Monday. I understand what the brain does in principle. What I still doubt is whether we're getting anything out of it. So let's start with usage, please.
- Marcus BellRight, yes, that's exactly where I wanted to start. So, this is the Growth plan, forty licensed users, and the chart here is how many of those were actually active on an average day over the last thirty days.
- Gareth WhitlamIt looks like under four.
- Marcus BellIt is under four, yes. Just under, on average. And that's down by about a third on the quarter before. I'd rather say that plainly than have you find it yourself.
- Gareth WhitlamForty seats, fewer than four people. Forty-four thousand a year. So what exactly are we paying for?
- Marcus BellThat's a fair question, and I'm not going to dodge it. Can I split it into two bits? One is what the brain is doing today for the people who do use it. The other is why more people aren't.
- Gareth WhitlamGo on. Show me the usage first.
- Marcus BellOkay. So this view is questions asked, month by month. It's lower than it was in the summer, not dramatically, but it's lower. And if I filter by who is asking, a good share of them come from Aisha.
- Aisha RahmanSorry, is that a problem? I mean, I do use it quite a lot for the Tuesday operations review. I wasn't sure whether that was how it was meant to be used.
- Marcus BellNo, not at all, it's exactly what it's for. It's just that when one person asks a big share of the questions, the value is quite fragile. If you were off for a fortnight, the numbers would nearly flatline.
- Gareth WhitlamSo the value of a forty-seat licence rests on one analyst. I'm not sure I'd describe that as a platform for the business.
- Marcus BellI'd say it's a fair description of where the usage has got to, Gareth. It's not where we wanted it to be when you bought it.
- Aisha RahmanIf I can add something. When we started, the depot account managers were being shown it in sessions, and then the sessions stopped. Some of them went back to their spreadsheets. I don't think they dislike it. I think they've just forgotten about it.
- Gareth WhitlamForgotten. That's a charitable word for forty seats unused.
- Aisha RahmanSorry, I didn't mean to make light of it. Just flagging that it's not a technical thing. I haven't seen anything break.
- Marcus BellThat matches what I see. Let me show the health side, because it's quiet in a good way. One ticket in the last thirty days, nothing high priority, and Aisha's was answered inside the response time for your plan. No overdue invoices on your side either, so thank you for that.
- Gareth WhitlamPaying on time isn't the same thing as getting value. My team pays everyone on time.
- Marcus BellAgreed. I wasn't presenting it as value, only that nothing's broken on the service side. The question is use.
- Gareth WhitlamThen let's talk about use. Which teams were meant to use it? The original purpose, as I understand it, was revenue operations and the depot account managers seeing accounts, delivery-exception tickets and calls together.
- Marcus BellThat's right. Accounts from the CRM, delivery exceptions from the helpdesk, and the recorded calls, so that someone looking at a retail contract can see the whole picture and spot trouble early, before the customer rings to complain.
- Gareth WhitlamAnd has it spotted any? Give me one example where it saved us a retail contract.
- Marcus BellHonestly, I don't have a clean example I can put in front of you today, and I'd rather not make one up. What I can say is that Aisha uses it each week for the exceptions view before the Tuesday review.
- Aisha RahmanThat's true. Before, I'd spend most of Monday evening pulling it together by hand. Now it's a few questions. I can't tell you which contract it saved, though. I just know the review is on time and I'm not going cross-eyed on a Monday.
- Gareth WhitlamSo the benefit is that one analyst saves an evening a week.
- Aisha RahmanWell, at the moment, yes. Probably. Sorry, I'm not sure how else to put it.
- Marcus BellIt's honest, Aisha, don't apologise. Gareth, that's my read too. It's a real benefit, it's just much smaller than the licence was bought to deliver, and that gap is on both of us. We didn't keep the roll-out going after the first few months.
- Gareth WhitlamI'm glad you said that. I'll be straight with you. I was hired to cut software spend. This one is going to be looked at line by line.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. And I'd prefer you looked at it line by line with the right numbers in front of you than with a nice story. So can I suggest what I'd do?
- Gareth WhitlamPlease.
- Marcus BellThree things. First, I send you a usage breakdown by team and by person, so you can see exactly who is active and who has never logged in. Second, I set up a short working session with the depot account managers, thirty minutes, with Aisha, on their own accounts and their own exceptions. Not a demo. Third, we write down, together, what a good month looks like, so that at the next review we have something to measure against.
- Gareth WhitlamShow me the usage, yes. The sessions, fine. What do you mean by a good month?
- Marcus BellA target for the number of people active each week, and the kinds of question they should be asking. Something you could look at without needing me in the room.
- Aisha RahmanCould I ask for one thing? I'd like some help with the admin side. I can add people and I can see the connectors, but I'm not confident I'd know what to do if something stopped loading. I don't want to guess.
- Marcus BellOf course. I'll book half an hour with you on that, separate from the depot session, and I'll get Hannah's team to give you the short list of what to check and when to raise a ticket.
- Aisha RahmanThank you. That would help a lot. I've been a bit on my own with it.
- Gareth WhitlamLet's turn to the contract, since that's what this is really about. The term ends on 30 Nov 2026 and renewal is 1 Dec 2026. Is that correct?
- Marcus BellThat's right. Contract end is 30 Nov 2026, and the renewal would start on 1 Dec 2026. It's the same Growth plan, forty users, at the current forty-four thousand a year, invoiced and contracted.
- Gareth WhitlamAnd what will it be at renewal? I'd assume you're about to tell me it goes up.
- Marcus BellI'm going to be careful, because the commercial terms are Tom's, not mine, and I don't want to quote you something off the top of my head. What I can tell you is that the price list changed this year, and customers on the older list were written to about it earlier in the year. Tom will come to you with the actual renewal terms.
- Gareth WhitlamThen let me put on record where I am. I'm not minded to agree to a rise for a service that fewer than four people use. If the figure goes up, I'll need a reason I can justify line by line.
- Marcus BellUnderstood, and I'll make sure Tom hears that in those words. I don't want him walking in cold.
- Gareth WhitlamGood. And I may not renew at the same size. Forty seats is far more than we use.
- Marcus BellThat's a legitimate option to look at, and again it's one for Tom to work through with you. What I can do from my side is make sure the usage picture is complete, so that whichever way it goes, you decide on facts.
- Gareth WhitlamRight. When do you need a decision by?
- Marcus BellThere's a notice period before the renewal date, so I'd like us to have the working sessions done and the value picture agreed well ahead of that. I'll put the exact date in the follow-up so there's no ambiguity.
- Gareth WhitlamPut it in writing, yes. And I want the usage breakdown before I speak to Tom, not after.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. I'll have the breakdown with you by the end of the week, and I'll ask Tom to hold off until you've seen it.
- Aisha RahmanIs it all right if I send the depot managers a note so they know the session is coming? I'd rather it came from me than from a stranger.
- Marcus BellPlease do, that's much better. I'll send you a couple of suggested dates and you pick the ones that suit the depots.
- Gareth WhitlamOne more thing. When I get the breakdown, I want it to say plainly which connectors are in use and which aren't. If we're paying for eight and using three, I want to know.
- Marcus BellYes, fair. I'll include the connectors, what each one feeds, and how recently each one loaded. Shall we book thirty minutes in a fortnight or so to go through it with you, once you've had a chance to read it?
- Gareth WhitlamFine. Send an invite. I'll decide whether I attend when I've seen the numbers.
- Marcus BellThat's fair. Right, so, to recap. I send the usage breakdown by team, person and connector by the end of the week. I set up the depot session and a separate admin session with Aisha. Tom gets your position on the renewal before he contacts you. And I confirm the notice date in writing. Anything I've missed?
- Gareth WhitlamNo. That's what I'd expect to see. We'll see what the numbers say.
- Aisha RahmanNothing from me. Thanks, Marcus, I appreciate the admin session.
- Marcus BellCheers, both. Thanks for being straight with me. Speak soon.
Callsmade from