Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 7 Apr 2026 14:15
Deepa Chauhan wants a straight answer on whether branch managers use the account view. Usage is steady with large headroom. She is already asking for a value case built on disputes ahead of the 28 Feb 2027 renewal.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Deepa Chauhan wants a straight answer on whether branch managers use the account view. Usage is steady with large headroom. She is already asking for a value case built on disputes ahead of the 28 Feb 2027 renewal.
What happened: Daniel Okafor held a check-in on 7 Apr 2026 with Deepa Chauhan, Head of Commercial Systems. Active users on a typical day are in the mid-fifties against two hundred licensed on Enterprise, up a little on the previous quarter.
Customer view: Branches mainly use the account view for disputes and find it quicker than ringing credit control. Deepa says the quiet is busyness, not silence, and that the branches only use what they have been shown.
Commercial: Daniel raised the renewal on 28 Feb 2027 and said the Enterprise fee matches what has been invoiced. Deepa expects finance to ask what the money buys and wants dispute duration as the measure.
Watch: Branch phone recordings and the helpdesk are possible new connectors, but the ownership of the source is unconfirmed. Deepa mentioned talk of a regional director reshuffle, which she asked not to be recorded as fact.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Usage headroom and value case
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send the usage breakdown by team and branch with the active-user definition, and join the next account-data review.
- Daniel Okafor to report by the end of the following week on what the brain can show about how long disputes stay open.
- Deepa Chauhan to choose the resolved dispute for the directors' walk-through by the end of the week.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Only a handful of branches use the account view, so finance may question value without a clear measure.
- A regional director reshuffle, described only as talk, could leave new directors who have not seen the brain.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Many Enterprise licences are unused, so a walk-through for regional directors can widen branch adoption.
- Branch phone recordings and the helpdesk could be added as connectors once the system owner is confirmed.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Deepa, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Deepa ChauhanAfternoon, Daniel. Yes, loud and clear. Can you see me? I think my camera is being slow.- Daniel OkaforI can, yes, you've just popped up. Lovely. Thank you for making the time, I know Tuesdays are heavy for you with the account-data review prep. It's just the two of us, is that right, nobody else from your side joining?
- Deepa ChauhanJust me. I did think about pulling in someone from credit control but I wanted to hear the usage picture first, then I can decide who needs it. Is that all right?
- Daniel OkaforCompletely. That's a sensible order of things. How was your weekend, by the way? Did the weather hold up in Birmingham?
- Deepa ChauhanOh, mixed. Rain on Saturday, then it cleared up and we got the garden done on Sunday. Not very exciting. You?
- Daniel OkaforQuiet. Family lunch, a long walk, the usual. Right, shall we get into it? I've got a few things on usage and a couple of tickets, but I'd like to hear what you need first, because you usually have one thing.
- Deepa ChauhanI do, yes. The one thing I need from today is a straight answer on whether the branch managers are actually using the account view, or whether it's still the same few people in head office. Because the regional directors are going to ask me on Thursday and I don't want to guess.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a fair question and I'm glad you put it that way round. So, let me give you the shape of it, and then we can get specific. You're licensed for two hundred users on Enterprise, and over the last month the number of people active on a typical day has been somewhere in the mid-fifties.
- Deepa ChauhanMid-fifties out of two hundred. Right.
- Daniel OkaforYes. And I'd say that on its own it isn't alarming, because it's up a little on the previous quarter. It's a small rise, steady rather than dramatic. But it does tell us there's a lot of headroom, so the licences are there and not yet being used by the branches.
- Deepa ChauhanMm. Which is what I suspected. So, which account, which branch? Can you tell me where the activity is coming from? Not names necessarily, but which parts of the business.
- Daniel OkaforI can give you the broad split. Key-account management and credit control are the heaviest, and that's been true since the early months. The branch side is lighter and it's concentrated in a handful of branches rather than spread evenly. I don't want to read out a list from memory and get it wrong, so I'll send you the breakdown by team and by branch after the call.
- Deepa ChauhanThat would help. Show me where that number comes from, as well. When I take it to the directors they'll want to know it's the same count as in the admin console and not something we've massaged.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. It's the same active-user figure you see in the admin console, I'll note the definition on the page so nobody can argue about it. Just to close the loop on that one, you'll get the breakdown and the definition together.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. Thank you.
- Daniel OkaforNow, can I ask you something, because you'll know better than me. When the branches do open the account view, what are they looking for? Is it orders, disputes, the call history?
- Deepa ChauhanDisputes, mostly. Which is interesting, because that was the thing I thought would take longest to land. A branch manager gets a trade customer on the phone saying an invoice is wrong, and before this they'd ring credit control, who'd ring accounts, who'd ring the branch back. Now a few of them just look it up and see the order, the delivery note and the invoice together.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly the use we hoped for when we scoped Enterprise with you. How is the team finding it, the ones who've picked it up? Is there any grumbling?
- Deepa ChauhanLess than I expected. A couple of people say the search wants to be more forgiving when a trade customer is known by two names, the trading name and the registered one. But that's a data tidy-up on our side as much as anything.
- Daniel OkaforRight, that's one of those where the brain is showing you the mess that was already there. If you can give me a couple of examples I can tell you whether it's something we can help with on the matching, or whether it needs cleaning in the CRM first.
- Deepa ChauhanI'll send you three. I always find three is enough to see a pattern.
- Daniel OkaforThree is perfect.
- Daniel OkaforLet me move on to tickets, so you've got the whole picture. There were two in the last month. Neither was high priority, and there's nothing sitting open that I'm worried about. Both were what I'd call everyday questions rather than anything wrong with the service.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, I saw one of them go through, one of my analysts asked about a filter. And that's all? Two?
- Daniel OkaforThat's all. Which for a company with this many branches I take as a healthy sign, though I always say it's worth checking it's not silence. That's partly why I wanted this call, to hear it from you rather than infer it.
- Deepa ChauhanNo, it's not silence. People are busy, that's the honest answer. The branches don't have time to explore, they use what they've been shown. So if it's not in the thing they've been shown, they don't find it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's really helpful, and it goes straight to your question about the branch managers. If the usage is shaped by what they've been shown, then the lever isn't more licences, it's more showing. Does that sound right?
- Deepa ChauhanIt does. And I'm wary of promising the regions anything that isn't there already, so I'd want to show them what we have, properly, rather than a wish list.
- Daniel OkaforAgreed. Could I suggest something small? A short walk-through for the regional directors, perhaps twenty minutes or so, built around one real dispute from one real branch. Not a tour of every page. We'd pick the account together beforehand so it's yours and not a demo.
- Deepa ChauhanI like that. Which account, which branch, though? It has to be one nobody is embarrassed by.
- Daniel OkaforYes, quite. You choose it, and you can anonymise the customer name if you'd rather. I'd only ask that it's a case that was resolved, so we can show the before and after.
- Deepa ChauhanFine. I'll think about it and come back to you by the end of the week.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. And then, going back to what you said at the start, I'd be glad to have credit control in the room for that too, if you want them.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's the other thing I was going to raise. Let's get credit control in the room. Right now they use it a lot, but they use it on their own, and sales use it on their own, and the point of the thing is that they're looking at the same trade account at the same time.
- Daniel OkaforMm. So in practice, what would that look like for you? A standing session, or something you'd do once to get the habit going?
- Deepa ChauhanHonestly, I'd fold it into the monthly account-data review, which I already chair. Credit control and the regional directors are in that meeting anyway. What I'd want is for the account view to be on the screen while we go through the disputed accounts, instead of the spreadsheet.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a much better idea than a separate training session, because it makes the brain the thing in the meeting rather than something people are told about. I'd happily join the first one if it's useful, just to be on hand.
- Deepa ChauhanI'd welcome that. Not to present, just to be there when someone asks a question I can't answer.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood, I'll sit quietly until I'm needed. Which date is the next review?
- Deepa ChauhanI need to check the calendar. It's within a couple of weeks. I'll message you the date.
- Daniel OkaforPerfect, no rush at all.
- Daniel OkaforWhile we're on credit control, can I check one thing that matters to them, which is the overnight refresh. Has anyone said the figures were out of date when they sat down in the morning?
- Deepa ChauhanNot recently. There was a grumble last year, before my time on the review, but I haven't heard it since. People start work early in the branches, so if it wasn't there by the time they were in I'd hear very quickly.
- Daniel OkaforGood. That's consistent with what I see, and nobody's raised it with us. If it ever does go stale for a morning, tell me directly as well as through the ticket, and I'll make sure the right engineer looks at it the same day.
- Deepa ChauhanWill do.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I ask about something a bit different? Some of the regional directors have asked whether we can bring more of the systems in. I don't want to promise anything, I just want to know what the position is, so I can say something accurate.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Which systems are you thinking of, roughly? I'm not asking you to commit, I just want to understand the kind of thing.
- Deepa ChauhanMostly the helpdesk side and the call recording for the branch phones. At the moment the calls we see are the key-account calls. The branches are separate.
- Daniel OkaforI see. Right, so Enterprise gives you plenty of room on connectors, and I wouldn't expect that to be the constraint. What I'd want to understand is the source itself: how the branch calls are recorded, who owns that system, and whether your security colleagues are comfortable with it. That's where the time tends to go, rather than in the connection.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's useful. So it's not a licence question, it's a who-owns-it question.
- Daniel OkaforIn my experience, nearly always. If you find out who owns the branch phone system, that's the first step, and I can then tell you honestly what a connector would involve and how long it would take. I don't want to guess a date I don't own.
- Deepa ChauhanFair. I'll find out who it is. I think it sits with a colleague in IT, but I'd rather confirm than say.
- Daniel OkaforYes, confirm first. And when you've got the name, give me a call and I'll talk to them with you, so it doesn't feel like something landing on their desk from nowhere.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. That would make it much easier.
- Daniel OkaforNow, shall I mention the contract, just so it isn't a surprise later? Nothing urgent at all. You're on Enterprise at one hundred and twenty-seven thousand five hundred a year, and that matches what we've invoiced, so there's no mismatch on our side. It runs to the end of February next year, with the renewal on 28 Feb 2027.
- Deepa ChauhanRight. So that's, what, ten months away?
- Daniel OkaforRoughly, yes. It feels far off, but I'd rather we started building the picture of value now, so that when the time comes it's something you've watched grow rather than something I produce in a hurry at the end.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich is, I assume, the same thing I'll need for finance. They'll want to know what we get for the money. Show me where that number comes from, again, only this time it's the value.
- Daniel OkaforExactly. And I'd say that's a fair thing for them to ask. What would persuade your finance people, do you think? Is it hours saved, fewer disputes, quicker resolution?
- Deepa ChauhanDisputes, I think. How long a disputed invoice stays open, and how many go round the houses between the branch and credit control before they're settled. If you can show me that moving in the right direction, that's the story.
- Daniel OkaforThat's very clear, thank you. I can't promise the brain will produce that exact measure on day one, because it depends on how the dispute status is recorded in your systems. But I'll look at what we can honestly show and tell you what we can and can't.
- Deepa ChauhanI'd rather have an honest partial answer than an impressive wrong one.
- Daniel OkaforAlways. I'll come back to you on that by the end of next week.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. And anything on the money side, I'll take through the usual route on our side, so I wouldn't want you to chase for a decision from me. I'm just helping build the case.
- Daniel OkaforCompletely understood, and that's how we'd want it. I'll make sure Lewis is kept in the picture on the commercial side, so nothing arrives out of the blue for anyone.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you.
- Daniel OkaforBefore we finish, one more thing on the people side, because it's the thing that worries me most on any account. Is there anyone using it heavily who's about to move on, or any change of role coming up that I should know about?
- Deepa ChauhanNot that I know of. Nobody has handed in notice, if that's what you mean. There's talk of a reshuffle among the regional directors, but it's talk, so I wouldn't write anything down.
- Daniel OkaforI won't. If it does happen, though, I'd be grateful for a nudge, because a new director usually needs it introduced properly, and you'd be the best person to do that.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, and I think that's the other reason the walk-through is a good idea. Whoever's in the seat, they'll have seen it.
- Daniel OkaforExactly that. Well, I think that's most of what I had. Is there anything else on your list?
- Deepa ChauhanOne small thing. The filter question that my analyst asked, the ticket you mentioned. Is that something that would be worth a short note for the other analysts? Because if one person asked, others are probably stuck on it too.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good instinct, and yes, I think so. I'll write up a short how-to on that filter and a couple of others that come up often, and send it to you to pass round. Would a page be enough, or would you rather a short recording?
- Deepa ChauhanA page. People read a page in the gaps between phone calls, they don't watch a video.
- Daniel OkaforA page it is.
- Daniel OkaforSo, just to close the loop, let me read back what I have. I'll send you the usage breakdown by team and branch, with the definition of an active user. I'll write up the how-to page on the filter. I'll come back to you by the end of next week on what we can show about how long disputes stay open. And I'll join your next account-data review to sit in the background.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd from me, three examples of the trading-name problem, the date of the next review, the account for the directors' walk-through by the end of the week, and the name of whoever owns the branch phone system.
- Daniel OkaforThat's it exactly. Four things each, almost, which is tidy. Anything I've missed?
- Deepa ChauhanNo, I think that's it. Oh, actually, would you mind sending me a line I can use for the directors on Thursday, about usage? Just a couple of sentences, so I don't misquote you.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. I'll put it in the same email, and I'll keep it plain: the number of licences, that activity is steady and a little up, and that the headroom is there for the branches. Is that the right emphasis?
- Deepa ChauhanThat's the right emphasis. Thank you, Daniel.
- Daniel OkaforMy pleasure. Thank you for your time, Deepa, it's always useful hearing it from you. I'll get the email to you later today.
- Deepa ChauhanSpeak soon, then. Thanks, bye for now.
- Daniel OkaforBest wishes. Bye.
Callsmade from