Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 27 Jul 2026 10:30
Deepa Chauhan opened by asking why two hundred licensed users show far fewer in the brain. Usage is flat in the high fifties, finance can see the cost, and she wants a value case well before the 28 Feb 2027 renewal.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Deepa Chauhan opened by asking why two hundred licensed users show far fewer in the brain. Usage is flat in the high fifties, finance can see the cost, and she wants a value case well before the 28 Feb 2027 renewal.
What happened: Deepa joined alone on 27 Jul 2026. She said finance can do the arithmetic of licences against active users and she has no good answer yet.
Customer view: key-account managers and a handful in credit control use the brain. Branch managers mostly do not, and some drifted back after one answer looked behind.
Commercial: Enterprise, renewal on 28 Feb 2027. Deepa wants a case she believes herself for finance and will take money questions through finance, not around them.
Watch: Daniel Okafor promised to check whether the two high priority tickets touched branch data, and whether records have gone flat. The central team is a big share of active users, so the average may flatter the picture.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Licensed versus active users
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
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 cause of the two high priority tickets by the Wednesday after the call.
- Daniel Okafor to send usage by team and role, with questions asked and who is asking, by the Friday after the call.
- Deepa Chauhan to ask regional directors for two branch managers each at the next account data review.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Active users sit at about a quarter of the Enterprise licences and finance will compare that with the annual cost.
- Branch managers who saw a stale-looking answer may not try the brain again.
- Much of the active use sits in the central team, which hides a thinner picture outside it.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Credit control already fields the branch calls and could point branch managers to the account view.
- A short working session on each branch manager's own difficult accounts could build trust in the answers.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Deepa, can you hear me alright? Thank you for making the time this morning.
Deepa ChauhanMorning Daniel. Yes, loud and clear. Give me a second, I'm just moving into a meeting room, the open plan is a nightmare today.- Daniel OkaforNo rush at all. Just to check who has joined, is it only the two of us?
- Deepa ChauhanJust me. I did ask one of the regional directors, but you know what diaries are like. Right, if it's all right with you, I'll say the one thing I need from this call.
- Daniel OkaforPlease, go ahead.
- Deepa ChauhanI need to understand why we have two hundred licensed users and the number of people actually in the brain is nowhere near that. Show me where that number comes from, because I'm being asked and I don't have a good answer.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fair, and I'm glad you opened with it. Let me tell you what I'm seeing and you can tell me whether it matches what you see on your side. Over the last thirty days the average has sat in the high fifties. It's broadly flat against the quarter before, so it hasn't fallen, but it hasn't grown either.
- Deepa ChauhanFlat. Mm. So about a quarter of the licences, if I do it in my head.
- Daniel OkaforA little over a quarter, yes.
- Deepa ChauhanRight. And I'll be straight with you, Daniel, that's the sum finance will do. They can see one hundred and twenty seven thousand five hundred pounds a year going out and they can see the user number. They can do the arithmetic as well as I can.
- Daniel OkaforThey can, and I'd much rather we look at it together than leave it to the arithmetic. Can I ask who you do see in there regularly? From your side, not mine.
- Deepa ChauhanHonestly, the key-account managers, mostly. Credit control, a handful, the ones who come to the monthly account data review because I put the screen in front of them. The branch managers, not really. Which was the whole point. Which account, which branch, they should be looking at the account view before they ring a customer, and a lot of them are still going on what a colleague told them.
- Daniel OkaforMm. And that's the group you hoped would carry most of those licences.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. We've got about a hundred and twenty branches, and I'd say we have a thin slice of them. I can name the ones who use it. I can name them on two hands, and that's not where I thought we'd be at this point.
- Daniel OkaforI appreciate you saying it so plainly. Can I come back to something, though? When you say thin slice, is it that they've never really started, or that some of them tried it and drifted away?
- Deepa ChauhanBit of both, if I'm honest. A couple of them told me at the last review that they'd looked at an account, the picture was behind what they already knew, and they went back to the old way. I can't tell you which accounts. That's what annoys me. I asked and nobody could say.
- Daniel OkaforRight, and that matters, so let me be careful with it. The nightly refresh is meant to be complete by seven in the morning on business days, and on Enterprise you're covered for freshness as well as availability. So if a branch manager looked at something stale at nine o'clock, I want to know about it. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm saying I'd like to find out properly.
- Deepa ChauhanI'd like that too. Because if someone has one bad experience with a number, they don't give it a second go. Branch managers are busy, they've got a counter, they've got drivers, they've got a merchant yard to run.
- Daniel OkaforThey have, and they'll keep to whatever they trust. Just to close the loop on something related, while we're here. There have been four tickets from your team in the last month, and two of them were marked high priority. I know you were copied on at least one.
- Deepa ChauhanI saw the notifications. I'll be honest, I didn't read every update. Were they both sorted?
- Daniel OkaforBoth have been picked up and worked, but I'd rather check the closing notes with our support team than tell you from memory. I'll come back to you by Wednesday with what each one was, what the cause turned out to be, and whether either touched the data your branches see.
- Deepa ChauhanPlease. That last part especially. Because if the answer is yes, then that's my explanation for the branches. And if the answer is no, then I've got a different problem.
- Daniel OkaforExactly that. Either answer is useful to you.
- Deepa ChauhanMm.
- Daniel OkaforCan I ask you something a bit different? When you set this up, you sponsored it internally. Who did you tell the branches this was for? What did you actually say to them?
- Deepa ChauhanHm. I said it would give them one version of each trade account. Orders, disputes, calls, invoices, all together, so they'd stop ringing credit control to ask what's going on with a customer who's behind. That was the pitch.
- Daniel OkaforAnd do they still ring credit control?
- Deepa ChauhanConstantly. Which tells you something.
- Daniel OkaforIt does. It tells me the need is exactly as real as you said it was. The calls to credit control are the demand. What we haven't managed is getting them from the phone to the account view.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's a kind way of putting it. Let's get credit control in the room, actually. They're the ones who get the calls. If they said to a branch manager, have you looked at the account page, that would do more than any email from me.
- Daniel OkaforI like that a lot. They're already in your monthly review, so it doesn't need a new meeting.
- Deepa ChauhanNo. The next one is coming up, and I could ask the regional directors to bring two of their busiest branch managers each. Not all of them. Two each, and the ones who are most likely to say what they really think.
- Daniel OkaforThat would be very useful. And I'd be glad to join, if you'd like me there, and sit and listen rather than present. I think the worst thing I could do is show up with a deck.
- Deepa ChauhanPlease don't bring a deck. Bring the usage, though. By team, by region if you can. I want to see which parts of the business are in there and which aren't, and I want it before the review so I'm not finding out in front of the directors.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. I'll send you the breakdown by team and by role as far as the usage data allows, and I'll tell you plainly where it can't answer the question, so you're not left guessing. I'll have it with you by Friday.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. And questions asked, as well. Not just logins. I don't want to be told forty people logged in if they looked at the front page and left.
- Daniel OkaforAgreed, questions asked is the better measure of value, and it's also where we can see whether a handful of people are doing most of the asking. I'll include who is asking, by team, not by name, unless you'd like names.
- Deepa ChauhanBy team is fine to start. Names, if it's the key-account managers, I probably know already.
- Daniel OkaforRight. Can I also ask about something I don't think we've covered in a while. The connectors. Has anything changed on your side in the systems feeding the brain? A new system, a migration, a change in how branches record disputes, anything like that?
- Deepa ChauhanNothing major that I'm aware of. There's always something small. The branch teams change how they log things, a new category gets added, someone creates a field because they needed one. I'm not told about half of it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's very normal, and it's usually where the quiet problems start. A small change at source, and the brain is answering from a slightly older picture without anyone noticing. So when I send you the usage, I'll also look at whether the records coming in are still growing the way you'd expect. If they've gone flat anywhere, that's worth a conversation with whoever owns that system.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. That I can act on. If you can tell me which source and which team, I'll chase it. Which account, which branch, that's all I ever ask.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. I'll try to give you it in exactly those terms.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I be a bit candid about the money side as well?
- Daniel OkaforPlease do.
- Deepa ChauhanThe renewal is the twenty eighth of February next year, I've got it written down. It feels a long way off, but I know how fast a budget round comes. I don't want to walk into it with finance asking what we get for one hundred and twenty seven thousand five hundred pounds and me saying, well, the key-account team like it.
- Daniel OkaforNo, and I wouldn't want that for you either. The renewal date is 28 Feb 2027, and that's a way off, but you're right that it comes round quickly. What I'd like is for us to have a real story about value well before anyone has to ask for it. Not a sales conversation, a proper account of what changed for the key-account managers and credit control, in their words and in the numbers.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's what I need. A case I can put in front of finance that I believe myself.
- Daniel OkaforAnd the other thing I'll say, so it's not a surprise later: Lewis Kerr looks after the commercial side of your account on our end, and I'd normally bring him into the renewal conversation when it's time. I'd like to tell him where we are now, so he's not hearing it cold. Is that alright with you?
- Deepa ChauhanYes, that's fine. I'd prefer he heard it from you with the context rather than as a line on a report. And I'll say this to you plainly too: I'd rather deal with any question about money through the proper route, with our finance people, not around them.
- Daniel OkaforCompletely. I'll keep it factual and keep you in front of it.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. Now, practical question. If I do get the branch managers together, what do I tell them? Because I'm not going to promise them something that doesn't exist. I've done that before and it comes back to bite you.
- Daniel OkaforI wouldn't ask you to. I'd tell them what's there today. The account view, the chat, search across the calls and the tickets and the invoices. And I'd ask them what they would ask it if they could, because that will tell us where the gaps are. If something they want isn't there, we say so, and we come back to it honestly.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's the right tone. They'll respect that more than a promise.
- Daniel OkaforI'd also suggest a short working session, maybe an hour, just for the branch managers who come. Not a training day, a practical go on their own accounts. Pick the three customers who ring them most and ask the brain about those. If it's useful, they'll feel it in five minutes. If it isn't, we want to hear that straight away.
- Deepa ChauhanI like that. Their own worst customers. Yes. They'd get something out of that.
- Daniel OkaforHow is the team finding it at the centre, by the way? Your own people in commercial systems. I've been so focused on the branches I haven't asked.
- Deepa ChauhanThey're fine. They use it a lot, to be fair. It's us who are in there every day, so I think we assume everyone's the same. We're not the problem. We're probably part of why the number looks the way it does, because we're a big chunk of it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a useful thing to know, and I'll look at that in the breakdown. If a good share of the active users sit in your central team, then the picture outside it is thinner than the average suggests.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich is what I suspect. Which is why I'm a bit worried, to be honest. I'd rather know that now.
- Daniel OkaforI think that's the right instinct. There's a lot of time, and nothing here that can't be worked on. But it does need doing, and I won't pretend it's fine because the invoices are paid and nobody's shouting.
- Deepa ChauhanNo, thank you for not doing that. Right. Let me just write this down so I'm clear. You'll come back on the two high priority tickets by Wednesday.
- Daniel OkaforYes. What each one was, the cause, and whether it touched anything the branches would have seen.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd the usage breakdown by team and role, with questions asked and who's asking, by Friday.
- Daniel OkaforYes, and a note on whether records coming in from any source have gone flat. If the data can't tell us something I'll say so.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd me, I take the regional directors the idea of two branch managers each at the next account data review, and credit control in the room. I'll let you know who's coming as soon as I know.
- Daniel OkaforAnd I'll join, listen, and bring no deck. Then we can look at that short working session afterwards, once we know who's willing.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's it, I think. Oh, one more. Could you tell Lewis, but also say to him that I'm not threatening anything. I'm just trying to get this working properly. I don't want it to sound like something it isn't.
- Daniel OkaforI'll make that very clear. You're a sponsor who wants the thing to work, and that's exactly how I'll describe it.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. I do appreciate you not getting defensive. Some suppliers would have said the users will come.
- Daniel OkaforI don't think they will, not on their own. I think they come when somebody they trust shows them it saves a phone call. That's the work.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. Right. That's what I'll tell the directors, more or less.
- Daniel OkaforWell, take whatever's useful. And thank you again for being so open about it, Deepa. It makes it a lot easier to help.
- Deepa ChauhanAlways. Better this than finding out in February. Speak Wednesday, then.
- Daniel OkaforSpeak Wednesday. Best wishes, and say hello to the team from me.
- Deepa ChauhanWill do. Thanks, Daniel. Bye.
- Daniel OkaforBye for now.
Callsmade from