Merriott Lyle Distribution / BB-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 2025-06-09 15:30
Deepa Chauhan reported fast adoption, a quicker account-data review and a quiet support month. The call agreed a staged branch rollout and left one open source-data issue, a duplicate trade customer record.
What was said
What this says
Current to 14 Oct 26Deepa Chauhan reported fast adoption, a quicker account-data review and a quiet support month. The call agreed a staged branch rollout and left one open source-data issue, a duplicate trade customer record.
What happened: Daniel Okafor reviewed usage with Deepa Chauhan, who attended alone because credit control were in month-end prep. About forty people were active in a typical thirty days, well over three times the previous quarter.
Customer view: Deepa said the monthly account-data review used to be forty minutes of arguing over whose spreadsheet was right and now goes much quicker. She said the first few months had been much easier than she expected.
Commercial: Forty active people against two hundred licensed leaves headroom. Deepa expects the directors to want every branch on it, and agreed three waves: north, heavy credit control branches, then counter-only sites.
Watch: A builder out west still shows two records for one trade customer in the source systems. Daniel promised an answer by the end of next week.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Adoption growth and rollout
Importance
praise
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 answer on the duplicate trade customer record by the end of next week.
- Daniel Okafor to send a one-page three-wave rollout plan and a set of example questions from Merriott Lyle's own team.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Duplicate trade customer records in the source systems give different answers for the same account each month.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A staged rollout to further branches in three waves, with headroom against two hundred licensed users.
Transcript
Daniel Okafor NoneHello Deepa, can you hear me alright? I'm just checking the audio on my side.
Deepa Chauhan NoneLoud and clear. Sorry, I'm a minute behind, I've just walked back from a meeting with the regional directors and I'm still catching my breath.- Daniel Okafor NoneNo problem at all, thank you for making the time. It's just the two of us today, is that right? I wasn't sure whether anyone from credit control was joining.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneJust me today. I did try to get them along, but it's month-end prep for them. Next time. Let's get credit control in the room properly, because I think they'd enjoy what we're about to talk about.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI'd like that very much. And how's the week been? You said the directors' meeting, was that a good one or a long one?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBoth, honestly. Long, but good. Anyway, the one thing I need from today, if I can start there, is to understand whether we're using this the right way. People are asking more and more questions and I want to be sure we're not building bad habits.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a lovely thing to be worrying about. Let me share the usage view and we can go through it together. Give me a second, I'll put it up. Can you see it?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes, I can see it. Oh, that line goes up quite sharply, doesn't it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt does. Looking at the average over the last month, you've got about forty people active in the brain in a typical thirty days. Compared with the previous quarter, that's well over three times as many. So the growth is real, it isn't a blip.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneRight. And that's out of the two hundred we're licensed for, so we've got a long way to go, which I rather like. Show me where that number comes from, though. Is that people who logged in or people who actually asked something?
- Daniel Okafor NoneGood question, and I'd rather be precise. It's people who did something in the brain in that window, so a search, a question in chat, opening a page. Just logging in and leaving it doesn't count.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneOkay, good. That's what I hoped. Because the branch managers, some of them, they'd log in to look busy.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHa, well, they'd have to be asking it things to show up here. Which brings me to the part I find most interesting. Can I show you who's asking?
- Deepa Chauhan NonePlease do.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSo this is the spread by team. You've got the key-account managers at the top, which you'd expect. Credit control is second, and the branch managers are a good third. What I like is that it isn't one or two people carrying it. If it were just you, that would worry me a bit.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneOh, it used to be just me. Right at the start I was the one asking everything and then forwarding the answers. Now I find out people have been asking it things I'd never have thought of.
- Daniel Okafor NoneCan you give me an example? I'd love to hear what they're actually doing with it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. So, which account, which branch, that's the question we used to fight over. A branch manager gets a call from a trade customer saying their delivery was short, and before, he'd ring the key-account manager, who'd ring credit control, and by the time someone had the full picture it was the next day. Now he asks the brain for the account and he sees the orders, the dispute, the last call and the invoices on one page.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's exactly what we hoped it would do for you when we planned this with you. How is the team finding it? Not the managers, I mean the people who sit in the middle of it, the account-data side.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThey're relieved, if I'm honest. The monthly account-data review used to be forty minutes of people arguing over whose spreadsheet was right. Last month we got through it much quicker, because everyone was looking at the same account view.
- Daniel Okafor NoneMm. That's a good outcome, and not an easy one to measure, so thank you for telling me. I'd like to note it down, if you don't mind, because it's the sort of thing that's easy to lose when we only look at charts.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneDo note it. Though I should say it isn't all perfect. There's a builder out west that comes up every single month. Same account, different answers, depending on who you ask.
- Daniel Okafor NoneGo on. Is that the brain showing different answers, or the underlying systems disagreeing with each other?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThe systems, I think. It's two records for the same trade customer, one set up by a branch years ago and one by head office. The brain faithfully shows both. Which, fair enough, it should. But I want one.
- Daniel Okafor NoneRight. So it's showing you the truth about a messy source, which is useful in itself, but not what you want day to day. Just to close the loop, would it help if I looked at how the two records are being matched, and came back to you with what we can suggest?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes, please. And I'll be clear, I don't want to promise the regions something that isn't there yet. If the answer is that we need to merge them at source, then I'll go and do that, I just need to know.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's sensible. I'll come back to you by the end of next week with a straight answer, and I'll copy in our engineer who set up your connectors so you have the detail.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBrilliant. Thanks.
- Daniel Okafor NoneNow, shall I show you the support side? You've had one ticket this month, which is a very quiet month, and nothing urgent at all. I'd like to go through it so you can see how it was handled.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI remember that one. It was one of my analysts asking how to share a saved view with the whole regional team. It was a how-to, wasn't it?
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt was, yes. A how-to, answered the same morning. Nothing wrong with the system, just a question of where the setting lives. I've put a short note in your shared notes so others can find it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. Honestly that's the way I'd like tickets to go. Small, quick, boring.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSmall, quick and boring is the best kind. Nobody's ever sent me a thank-you note for an exciting ticket.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneHa, no. Right, can I ask about something else while we have you? Freshness. People ask me every Monday whether the weekend's orders are in by the time they sit down.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course. So the nightly refresh should be finished before seven in the morning on business days. On a Monday it's catching the weekend's activity from your systems as well, so that should all be in by the time your branches open. Have you seen it behind at all?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNo, not that I know of. It's more that I'd like to be able to tell people with confidence. If a manager says it's stale, I'd like to say here's the time it last updated.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's reasonable, and it's visible. Let me show you where. If you click into the connector status here, you can see each source and when it last loaded, and how many records it brought in. If the record count stays flat for a while, that's the thing to watch.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneOh, that's helpful. So if a branch says something's missing, I look here first, before I start a blame hunt.
- Daniel Okafor NoneExactly that. Look here first. And if something does look flat, tell me and I'll chase it the same day.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneLovely. I'll put that in the note to the branch managers. It's the sort of thing they'll like, a place to look.
- Daniel Okafor NoneShall I show you the dashboards? Your team have built several now, and I wanted you to see them because I don't think you've had a proper look.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGo on then. I know some of the analysts have been making things, I just haven't seen them.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSo this one's from credit control. It's the open disputes by trade account, grouped by branch, with the age of each one. And this next one is from your key-account side, which shows the accounts with the most calls in the last month.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneHm. That first one, I'd not seen. That's a good view. Do they know that the disputes number is coming from the same place as the invoice number? Because I've been saying that in the review for weeks.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThey're both in the brain, so they're drawn from the same underlying records. If you click through on any figure you can see which records sit underneath it, so it's easy to answer the show me where that number comes from question.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's my favourite sentence, so thank you. I'll be using that one.
- Daniel Okafor NonePlease do. What I'd say is that building dashboards is a real investment on your team's part. It shows they've gone beyond just asking questions, they're making things the whole business can use.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI'm very proud of them, actually. One of them, a junior, built the second one in an afternoon, on her own. I only found out when a regional director quoted it to me.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's wonderful. Do pass on our thanks. Is she someone I might speak to at some point? I'd love to hear what she'd change.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI'm sure. I'll ask her. She'd be mortified, but I'll ask.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThank you. Now, there's something I wanted to raise, partly as a thought for later. You're at about forty active people against two hundred licensed seats. You've lots of headroom, so there's no pressure from our side on that front at all.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNo, understood. Though at the rate we're going, the directors are going to want it rolled out to every branch eventually. Which is what I'd planned, really. I just didn't think it would be this quick.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThen it might be worth us planning the rollout in stages, so you're not onboarding everyone at once. What does the order look like in your head? Which branches next?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWell, the northern ones have been asking loudest. I'd start there, because their regional director is on side. Then the Midlands branches that have the heaviest credit control load. And last, the smaller counter-only sites, which probably need the least.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat makes sense to me. Three waves, north, then the heavy credit control branches, then the counter-only sites. Would it help if I put together a short plan for each wave, with a suggested training session for the branch managers?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneIt would. But let's keep it light. I don't want a sixty-slide thing. Something I can put on one page and show the directors.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOne page. I can do that. I'll draft it and send it across, and you can tell me what's wrong with it.
- Deepa Chauhan NonePerfect. And in the training, could we use their own accounts? Real examples go down better than demo data, in my experience.
- Daniel Okafor NoneAbsolutely, that's how I'd want to do it too. Each branch sees its own trade accounts, so it's immediately relevant. I'll make sure the session is built around that.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. Now, one more thing, and then I'll let you go. The question of what we ask of it. I've noticed some people ask very vague things, like tell me about this customer, and get long answers they don't read.
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes, that's very common, and it's a good sign in a way, because it means people are comfortable. But I agree, sharper questions get better answers. Would a short guide help? Five or six examples of good questions from your own people, written in their words?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat would be ideal. Not mine, theirs. If they see their colleagues' questions they'll copy them.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThen I'll pull some of the best questions from the usage history and anonymise them, and you can choose which to include. I'd suggest we do that alongside the one-page plan.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. Good. Sorry, I know I'm giving you homework.
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt's not homework, it's the job, and I'm glad of it. So just to close the loop on today: I'll come back to you by the end of next week on the duplicate trade customer record. I'll send a one-page rollout plan in three waves. And I'll send a short set of example questions drawn from your own team.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneAnd I'll ask the junior analyst about talking to you, and I'll get credit control to the next one. That's mine.
- Daniel Okafor NoneLovely. Is there anything else on your mind? Anything that's been niggling that we haven't touched?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNo, I don't think so. It's in a good place, Daniel. Honestly, I was braced for a harder first few months and it's been much easier than I expected.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's very kind of you, and I'll pass it on to the team who did the connectors. They'll be pleased. Thank you again for your time, Deepa.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThanks, Daniel. Speak soon.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSpeak soon. Best wishes.
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