Calderbrook Housing Group / BB-Demo – Qbr
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 2025-01-24 09:15
Helen Marsden attended alone. The arrears difference was a load cut-off timing issue, usage is up with seven or eight daily users against 40 licences, and she wants a value case for the board ahead of renewal.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Helen Marsden attended alone. The arrears difference was a load cut-off timing issue, usage is up with seven or eight daily users against 40 licences, and she wants a value case for the board ahead of renewal.
What happened: Helen opened on an arrears figure that did not match the housing management system. Lineage showed the load was the previous evening's close, and the sum closed the gap on the call.
Customer view: Usage is up and spreading beyond her team, and her analysts save time joining repairs, complaints and tenancy data. Helen worried about the account depending too much on her.
Commercial: The complaints team wants direct access, which fits within the 40 Growth licences. Helen wants evidence of value for the board ahead of the renewal.
Watch: The dashboards builder is not yet used and call summaries are little used for general analysis. A training session is agreed in principle but no date is set.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Arrears reconciliation and value case
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Daniel Okafor to send the arrears timing note with the lineage screen, copied to Tom, by the end of the week.
- Daniel Okafor to offer team session dates for the following month.
- Daniel Okafor to prepare a value summary for Helen ahead of the summer.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Questions still lean on Helen's team, though the spread is widening.
- Helen needs evidence of value for the board before the renewal conversation.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- The complaints team wants direct use, within the 40 Growth licences.
- The dashboards builder on Growth is unused, and a training session would introduce it.
Transcript
Daniel Okafor NoneMorning, Helen. Can you hear me alright? I've got you on screen but I can't tell if the sound is behaving.
Helen Marsden NoneMorning, Daniel. Yes, loud and clear. It's just me this morning, by the way. I did mention it to a couple of the team but they've got the performance review across the road.- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's absolutely fine. Thank you for making the time, I know the start of the year is a squeeze for you. And Tom isn't joining either, so it's the two of us, which suits me. How was the journey in, or are you working from home today?
- Helen Marsden NoneIn the office. Leeds is grey and wet, as you'd expect for January. I've got the radiator on full and a cold coffee, so I'm in a good mood really.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHa, well, same here, London's no better. Right, so for the quarterly review I thought we'd cover usage first, then how the team is finding it, then anything you want to raise, and then a look ahead. Does that suit you, or is there something you'd rather start with?
- Helen Marsden NoneThere is, actually. Can I start with the discrepancy I'm chasing? It's the arrears figure in section four of the board pack. The number the brain gave me for the end of last month doesn't reconcile to the housing management system, and the board will ask.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course, let's start there. How far apart are they? Is it a rounding sort of difference or something you'd notice at a glance?
- Helen Marsden NoneNoticeable. Not enormous, but enough that I couldn't put it in front of the finance committee without a footnote, and I don't like footnotes that say we don't know. Can you show me the source?
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes, I can. Give me a moment, I'll share my screen. Can you see the brain now, the arrears page?
- Helen Marsden NoneI can. That's the page I used.
- Daniel Okafor NoneGood. So if I open the lineage on this figure, it shows which connector it came from and when that source was last loaded. You'll see the housing management system extract here, and the date stamp on the load. Does that match the day you ran your own report?
- Helen Marsden NoneHang on. Let me look. No. Mine was run on the first of the month, in the morning, and this says the load was from the evening before. So the brain was a day behind my report?
- Daniel Okafor NoneNot behind as such, it's just a different cut-off. Your report was taken after the month had rolled over and some of the rent postings had landed. The brain was showing the close of the previous day. If you'd asked it a few hours later it would have caught up with your number.
- Helen Marsden NoneMm. So it's a timing difference, not a missing set of tenancies.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's my reading, but I don't want you to take it on my word. Let me filter to the tenancies that changed between those two points and we can add them up together.
- Helen Marsden NoneRight. I'm doing the sum on my side as well. Give me a second. Yes. That's it. That closes it. It's the postings from that morning. I'm relieved, honestly, I had visions of a connector problem.
- Daniel Okafor NoneUnderstandable. Just to close the loop, I'll write that up in a short note for you so you've got the reasoning in writing for the board pack, with the lineage screen attached. Would that help?
- Helen Marsden NoneIt would, very much. If the committee asks, I want to be able to say where the number came from and why it differed. Thank you.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI'll come back to you by the end of the week with that. Now, shall I stop sharing and move to usage? I think you'll like this part.
- Helen Marsden NoneGo on. I've been wondering, to be honest. It feels busier, but I never trust a feeling.
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt is busier. Over the last quarter the average number of people using it each month has risen by about half again compared with the quarter before. On a typical day you've got seven or eight people actually in there asking questions.
- Helen Marsden NoneSeven or eight. Out of how many seats are we licensed for? It's forty, isn't it?
- Daniel Okafor NoneForty licensed users on Growth, yes. So there's plenty of room. I don't see that as a problem, I see it as headroom. It means that when you want to bring another team in, whether that's the complaints team or the neighbourhood managers, you don't need to change anything.
- Helen Marsden NoneRight. That's something I'd like to talk about, actually, but let me finish on usage first. Who's asking the questions? Is it mostly me and my analysts?
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt was, a few months back. Your team still asks the most, but it's more spread out now. There are people from repairs and from the tenancy side asking things you wouldn't have predicted. I wouldn't want to put names on a screen without asking you, but it's a healthier spread than it was.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's good to hear. I was concerned about it being too dependent on me. If I'm off for a fortnight, I don't want the whole thing to go quiet.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI think that's a fair worry for any team, and the numbers say you're moving in the right direction. How is the team finding it, day to day? Not the figures, the feel.
- Helen Marsden NoneHonestly? Better than I expected. The thing they like most is that they can put a repairs ticket and a complaint and a tenancy history side by side without a week of joining things in spreadsheets. One of my analysts said she'd got an afternoon back.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's lovely. That's exactly what it's meant to do. And the tenant calls, are people using those, or is that still the quiet corner?
- Helen Marsden NoneA bit of both. The call summaries get used when someone's preparing for a complaint review. Not so much for general analysis yet. I think people don't know what to ask it. It's a habit thing.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's very common, and it's something we can help with. I could run a short session with your team, an hour or so, just walking through the sort of questions that work across calls and tickets together. Practical, on your own data.
- Helen Marsden NoneI'd welcome that. Not this week, we're up against the board deadline, but in a few weeks. Can you pencil something?
- Daniel Okafor NoneI'll send a couple of options for next month. I won't promise a date until I've checked my diary, but I'll come back to you early next week.
- Helen Marsden NonePerfect. Can I ask about support, while we're on it? I've realised I haven't raised a ticket with you for ages. Is that normal, or have I missed something?
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt's not that you've missed anything. There's been nothing raised in the last month at all, and nothing urgent, so as far as I can see everything's loading and answering as it should. No connector troubles, no freshness complaints. When it's quiet and usage is climbing, that's the picture I like.
- Helen Marsden NoneGood. I wasn't sure whether quiet was good or whether it meant nobody was using it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHa, I do worry about that the other way round with some customers. In your case the usage is up, so quiet is the good kind.
- Helen Marsden NoneFair. Now, the other thing. Dashboards. I've got a couple of people who'd like to build their own rather than ask me for every view. Is that something we can do on our tier?
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes, the dashboards builder is part of Growth, so it's already yours. It's just that nobody's been shown it properly. That could be part of the same session. We'd do the questions first, then how to turn a good answer into something the board or a manager can look at every month.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat would solve a lot. If the repairs lead can see her own backlog without emailing me, I'd be delighted. Will they be able to see the source underneath, as you did just now?
- Daniel Okafor NoneThey will. The lineage travels with the figure. You may want to decide who's allowed to build and who just views, so you keep tidy numbers going to the board, but that's a conversation for your team and it's easy to set up.
- Helen Marsden NoneYes. I'd want control over what goes into the board pack. Only figures that reconcile. I'll think about who builds and who views.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSensible. Now, you mentioned bringing in another team earlier, and I cut across you. What did you have in mind?
- Helen Marsden NoneIt's early, so don't write it down as a plan. The complaints team have seen what we've done with repairs and arrears and they've been asking whether they can use it directly. Not just receive reports from me.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat would fit well. With forty licensed users and seven or eight active, you could add them without a change to the contract. The only thing to watch is the connectors, but the complaints data is already feeding in, so I don't expect a new source.
- Helen Marsden NoneGood. So there's no extra cost to that?
- Daniel Okafor NoneNot for users within the forty. You're on Growth at forty-four thousand a year, and that covers it. If you ever got near the limit we'd have that conversation openly, well before it happened, but you're a long way off.
- Helen Marsden NoneGood. I'll tell the complaints lead to hold on for a few weeks until we've done the training, then we'll bring her in properly.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat sounds like a sensible order of things. Can I ask about something a bit further out? You've been with us since September of 2024, so the first term runs on to the autumn. I don't want to make it feel like a sales conversation, but I'd like us to talk about how the year has gone ahead of the renewal, so there are no surprises on either side.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's fine. I'd rather we did it early. The board will want to know what we get for the money, and I'd like to say it with evidence. Questions asked, hours saved, that sort of thing.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThen let's build that together. I can pull the questions asked by month, the growth in people using it, and the dashboards your team have built, and we'll put it in a form you can take to the board in your own words. Would you want your own examples in it as well, like the arrears reconciliation we've just done?
- Helen Marsden NoneYes. That one especially. It shows the thing working, and it shows we check it. The board would like that.
- Daniel Okafor NoneLovely. So just to close the loop on today. I'll send the note on the arrears timing with the lineage screen. I'll offer some dates next month for the team session on questions and dashboards. And I'll prepare a short value summary for you ahead of the summer. Is there anything I've missed?
- Helen Marsden NoneI don't think so. The only other thing is, could you copy Tom on the note? He asked me last time what we'd found, and I'd rather he saw it from you than from my paraphrase.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course, I'll copy Tom. Thank you again, Helen, and good luck with the board deadline. Speak soon.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you, Daniel. Kind regards. Speak soon.
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