Merriott Lyle Distribution / BB-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 2025-12-29 14:30
Check-in on 29 Dec 2025 with Deepa Chauhan alone. Average active users are around forty-five of 200, down by roughly a quarter. She needs a value case before the renewal on 28 Feb 2026 and says branches never fully joined.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Check-in on 29 Dec 2025 with Deepa Chauhan alone. Average active users are around forty-five of 200, down by roughly a quarter. She needs a value case before the renewal on 28 Feb 2026 and says branches never fully joined.
What happened: Deepa asked why fewer people use the brain than a few months ago. Daniel Okafor reported around forty-five average active users against 200 licensed, down by roughly a quarter on the previous quarter.
Customer view: Deepa said the branches only got an email and a recorded video, and some have gone back to spreadsheets. She called it a habit problem, not a feature problem.
Commercial: She cannot take forty-five people on a licence for 200 to the people who sign off. She has no quarrel with the invoices, and will bring in finance colleagues after seeing the usage picture.
Watch: Support was silent for thirty days, which Daniel treated as a question, not a comfort. Whether stale or mismatched data is behind the doubts is unconfirmed until her examples are traced.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Falling usage, value case
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- Daniel Okafor to send usage by branch group and team, and the questions-asked picture, by the end of the following week.
- Deepa Chauhan to send two or three accounts where the brain looked wrong so Daniel can trace what it held at the time.
- Lewis Kerr to join the renewal conversation once Deepa has seen the usage picture, before the term ends on 27 Feb 2026.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Average active users are around forty-five against 200 licensed and down by roughly a quarter, making the renewal value case harder.
- Silent support alongside falling use may be people having stopped looking, not things working.
- Branch teams never fully onboarded and some have returned to spreadsheets, so the habit may not recover without intervention.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A short branch manager session built around one real dispute question could bring users back.
- Putting the brain's account view on screen at the monthly account-data review with credit control present can rebuild the habit.
- A month-by-month questions-asked picture can give Deepa a value case to take to her finance colleagues.
Transcript
Daniel Okafor NoneHello Deepa, good afternoon. Thank you for making the time, I know this is a strange week to get anyone into a call. Is it just the two of us today, or is somebody else joining?
Deepa Chauhan NoneAfternoon, Daniel. Just me, yes. I did think about pulling someone from credit control in, but half of them are off until the new year, so it would have been an empty chair. Can you hear me alright? I'm in the quiet room on the second floor and there's a heater going somewhere.- Daniel Okafor NonePerfectly clear. Very slightly echoey, but I can hear every word. How was Christmas, did you manage to switch off?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneMostly. We had the whole family at ours, which is lovely and also exhausting, and then I came in on Friday because the branches were still trading and someone has to be around. You?
- Daniel Okafor NoneQuiet, thank you. A lot of walking and far too much cheese. Right, I won't keep you longer than we need to. You usually open with the one thing you need from the call, so go on, what is it this time?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneFair. The one thing is this. I want to understand why fewer people are using the brain than a few months ago, and I want to be able to say something sensible about it when the regional directors ask me. Because they will ask, and at the moment my answer is a shrug.
- Daniel Okafor NoneMm. Yes. I was hoping you'd raise it, because I was going to anyway, and I'd rather it came from you than from me reading you a number. I've had a look at the usage this morning. Would it help if I just said what I'm seeing, and then you tell me whether it matches what you feel on the ground?
- Deepa Chauhan NonePlease. Show me where that number comes from, though. I don't want a percentage with nothing behind it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course. So we're licensed for two hundred users on the Enterprise plan. Over the last thirty days, the average number of people actually active has been around forty-five. And that is down by roughly a quarter compared with the previous quarter. So not a collapse, but a clear drift, and it's been in the same direction for a while.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneForty-five out of two hundred. Right. That's not a figure I enjoy hearing, even with the holiday in it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneNo, and I don't want to hide behind the holiday. December is always lighter, you'd expect that. But the dip started before December, and that's the part I'd like us to be honest about together.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneOkay. Let me think out loud, because I've got a few theories and I'm not sure which is the right one. One is that the branch managers were never that many to begin with, and the people who really took to it were the key-account managers and the credit control team, and a couple of them have moved around. Another is that some of the branches have gone back to their own spreadsheets, which I have seen with my own eyes, I'm afraid. And the third is that nobody has told them why they should bother.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a good list of three. Can I take them in turn? On the first, when I split the activity by team, the key-account side is actually the steadier part. The slip is wider than that. It's more the branch side, and people who logged in a handful of times in the autumn and then stopped.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWhich account, which branch, though? That's what I'd want to know. If I go to the regional directors with just 'the branches', they'll say that's all of us and nobody is responsible.
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes, that's the right question. I can give you the view by branch group and by team, so you can see where the quiet places are. I'll come back to you with that. I'd just want to be careful that it's something you can use in the room, rather than anything that reads as pointing at individual managers.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood, yes. I never let a data question turn into a blame question, it just kills the conversation. Group level is exactly right. If it's a handful of branches I can ring them myself.
- Daniel Okafor NoneLovely. Now, there's one other thing I wanted to put next to the usage, and I'm not sure how to read it. Support has been very quiet. Nothing raised in the last thirty days at all. No tickets, high priority or otherwise.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWhich I'd normally take as good news.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI'd normally say so too. But with fewer people in the product, I would rather it were quiet because things work than because people have stopped looking. So I'm treating it as a question rather than a comfort. How is the team finding it, from what you hear?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneHonestly? Mixed. The people who use it properly love it. One of the key-account managers told me she doesn't know how she did a customer review without seeing the disputes and the calls next to the invoices. But the people who don't use it properly think it's one more screen. And I think, if I'm fair to them, the nightly data is not always what they expect when they open a trade account first thing.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSay a bit more about that. When you say not what they expect, do you mean it's out of date, or that it doesn't match what they see in their own system?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThe second, I think. Someone sees an order in the sales system, it isn't there yet in the brain, and they decide the brain is wrong. It might just be timing. It might be a connector. I honestly don't know, and that is rather the point, I couldn't tell them.
- Daniel Okafor NoneRight. That's useful, and I'm glad you said it. From our side the refresh has been completing each night, and the number of records indexed has been moving, so I don't see a source that's stopped loading. But I'd want to check that properly against the specific accounts they were looking at before I tell you everything is fine.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCan you do that? If I get you two or three examples, an account and roughly when they looked, could you trace what the brain held at that moment?
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes, I'd be glad to. Send me the examples and I'll look at them with our engineers, and I'll come back to you with what we find. That way when someone says the brain was wrong, you have an answer that says why.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThank you. That would help a great deal. Okay. Can I ask you about the other thing, which I'm a bit uneasy raising?
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThe renewal. It's the end of February. And I know what the contract says and I know what we pay, but if I'm going to ask for the same again, I need to be able to say what it's worth. Forty-five people on a licence for two hundred is not a story I can take to the people who sign things off.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI understand. And I'd rather we deal with that directly than let it sit there. Just to be clear on where things stand, the order form is for one hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred pounds a year, that's what has been invoiced, and there's nothing outstanding on your side. The term runs to 27 Feb 2026 and the renewal falls on 28 Feb 2026.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. And I've no quarrel with how it's been billed, to be clear. It's the value I'm wrestling with, not the invoices.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's how I'd read it too, and it's a fair thing to wrestle with. A licence number on its own is a poor measure of value. The better one is the questions people are asking the brain, and who is asking them. Would it be useful if I built that picture for you, month by month, so you can set it beside the cost?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneShow me where that number comes from, yes. And can it show whether the questions are being asked by a lot of people or by two or three? Because if it's two or three, I'd want to know that too, even if it's uncomfortable.
- Daniel Okafor NoneAbsolutely, and I'd want you to know. It's a fair worry. When a small number of people ask most of the questions, it makes the whole thing fragile, if one of them moves on. I'll include that. I'd rather you saw it from me than found it later.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. Thank you. I appreciate that.
- Daniel Okafor NoneNow, can I offer a couple of thoughts on what might bring people back? You tell me whether they're realistic for you.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGo on.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThe first is something small and practical. Rather than a general training session for everyone, which I think people tune out of, a short session for the branch managers built around one real question they actually face. For instance, a trade account rings up about a dispute, and what does the manager need to see in thirty seconds?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneMm. That's the thing, isn't it. They need it for the call they're on, not as a tour.
- Daniel Okafor NoneExactly. The second is the monthly account-data review you chair. You've told me before how much weight that carries with credit control and the regional directors. If the brain's account view is the thing on the screen in that meeting, it becomes the place people look, because the meeting is where decisions are made.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneLet's get credit control in the room, yes. I'd been meaning to for the January review anyway. Honestly, it has slipped a bit since the autumn, the review, and I think that's part of the drift. When the meeting goes quiet, so does the habit.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI think that's a really honest observation, and it fits the usage curve rather well. Would you want me or one of our people to join the January review, just to help set it up the first time?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI would, but I'd want to hold it for the first one and see how it goes. I don't want it looking like BB-Demo is running my meeting.
- Daniel Okafor NoneEntirely understood. I'd sit in the background and only speak if you want something shown. You run it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneFine. Then yes, that works. What else? You said a couple.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThe third one is more of a question. Are there teams who were meant to be using it who have never really been brought in? You bought Enterprise so that branch, key-account and credit control would all see the same account together. Is there one of those three that never fully joined?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBranch. Branch never fully joined. Key-account and credit control did, because they were in the first wave and they had people sitting with them. Branches got an email and a recorded video. Which, now I say it out loud, was never going to be enough for about a hundred and twenty sites.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI wouldn't say never. But I think you've put your finger on it. I'd say the branches haven't had the same attention that the first teams had, and that's something for both of us to put right, not something to lay at anyone's door.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNo. Agreed. And I'll say, I haven't promised the regions anything new. I'm not going to tell them there is some feature coming that will fix this, because it isn't a feature problem. It's a habit problem.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI think that's wise, and I agree with you. Everything they need is there already. It's about getting it in front of them at the right moment.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneOkay. So what do I take away? Because I'd like to be able to write this down before my head empties for the new year.
- Daniel Okafor NoneLet me say it back, and you correct me. One, I'll send you usage by branch group and by team, so you can see where it's quiet, and I'll keep it at group level. Two, I'll build the questions-asked picture month by month, including how concentrated it is among a few people. Three, you send me two or three examples of accounts where someone thought the brain was wrong, and I'll trace what it held at the time.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. And on my side, I'll get the January review back in the diary with credit control in the room, and I'll start a list of the branch managers who might be good for a short session.
- Daniel Okafor NonePerfect. And on the renewal, I'd like Lewis Kerr to be part of that conversation. He looks after the commercial side of the account, and I think you should hear from him directly that we want to get the value case right before anyone talks about the number.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI'd like that. I should say I don't go around people on money, so I'll need to bring my finance colleagues into that one. But I'd rather they saw the usage picture first, from you, and then spoke to Lewis.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's sensible. So the order would be: you have the usage and the value picture from me, you take it into your own conversations, and then Lewis speaks to you and your colleagues once you're ready. Does that feel right?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneIt does. I just want to avoid being surprised, in either direction. Is there anything on your side you're worried about that you haven't said?
- Daniel Okafor NoneOnly the one thing, and I've said it already. That a lower number of people using it makes the value harder to see, and that I'd like us to work on it together before the end of February rather than at the end of February. Other than that, nothing is hiding. The platform is healthy, the invoices are settled, and you've been a very open partner.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThank you. That's reassuring, and it's also what I wanted to hear, that it's something we can fix rather than something already decided.
- Daniel Okafor NoneNothing is decided. Just to close the loop, I'll send the first two pieces, usage by group and the questions picture, by the end of next week. And I'll wait for your examples before looking at the freshness question, so I'm looking at the right moments.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNext week is fine. I'll send the examples tomorrow if I can, or the day after. I'll have to ask a couple of the key-account managers which ones they remember.
- Daniel Okafor NoneWhenever suits. If they only remember roughly, that's fine too. A branch and a rough time of day is enough for us to find it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. Right. I think that's everything from me. Oh, actually, one small thing. The person who set up the connectors originally, is that still the arrangement? If something changes in our systems, who do I tell?
- Daniel Okafor NoneTell me, and I'll make sure the right engineer sees it. If anything in your sales system or your accounting system is being changed or moved, even just in principle, give me a heads-up, because that is the thing most likely to quietly stop a connector. It's much easier to adjust beforehand.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneUnderstood. I'll put that in the change checklist so it actually happens, rather than relying on my memory.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat would be wonderful. And, Deepa, I'd say this isn't a bad position to be in. Plenty of customers find themselves here a few months after rollout. It's a good moment to notice it and do something while there's still time.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI'll take that. It still feels a bit like homework, but I'd rather do it now than explain it in February.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHa, yes. Fair. Last thing from me, and then I'll let you go back to your quiet building. Is there anyone you'd like me to speak to in January, directly, beyond you? A regional director, say, who might want to hear what the brain can do in plain terms?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneLet me think about who. Possibly one of the regional directors who's been most sceptical. I'd rather have the sceptic in the room than the supporter. Let me see how the review goes first, and then I'll come back to you on that.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course. No pressure. I'll wait to hear from you.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBrilliant. Thanks, Daniel. Happy new year, in case I don't speak to you before.
- Daniel Okafor NoneAnd to you, Deepa. Enjoy the rest of the week, and I hope the heater behaves. Speak soon.
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