Delancey Haig / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Delancey Haig · 26 Jan 2026 13:00
Saskia Mendes called adoption patchy: fewer than ten of 40 licensed users active, new starters never onboarded, and thin complaint answers. Term runs to 2 Jul 2026, paid on time. She called it not fine but fixable.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Saskia Mendes called adoption patchy: fewer than ten of 40 licensed users active, new starters never onboarded, and thin complaint answers. Term runs to 2 Jul 2026, paid on time. She called it not fine but fixable.
What happened: Saskia opened with a director who could not disprove a double-billing claim at a client review, though the brain could have shown the facts. Daniel Okafor confirmed active people are down about a fifth, with no tickets in the last month.
Customer view: Three causes: start-of-year habits, new starters never shown the brain, and directors distrusting complaint answers. A missing email thread may be a connector gap.
Commercial: Daniel said the term runs to 2 Jul 2026, renewal on 3 Jul 2026, at £44k a year on Growth, all paid on time. Saskia asked about handing seats back; Daniel said the plan is not priced per seat.
Watch: Saskia wants the managing director kept out of the first quarterly review until the numbers improve.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Patchy adoption, renewal ahead
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 one-page new-starter note that week and propose a time for the director session.
- Daniel to report on the missing email thread and connected mailboxes by the end of the following week.
- Saskia to introduce the new client-account starter, name the director and share an upcoming review date.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Fewer than ten of 40 licensed users are active and the monthly active count is down about a fifth.
- Directors distrust the brain on complaints after a missed email thread, which may be a source or connector gap.
- Quiet account with no tickets and a renewal due 3 Jul 2026 without a value story yet.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A 30-minute director session, saved starter questions and a new-starter note could widen use.
- A sit-in on a real review preparation could give a concrete value example for the renewal.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Saskia, can you hear me all right? I think I've just come through on your side.
Saskia MendesYes, loud and clear. Hi Daniel. Sorry, I'm eating a very sad desk sandwich, give me one second.- Daniel OkaforTake your time, honestly. Thank you for making the time today. It's just the two of us, I think, so I'll assume nobody else is joining unless someone appears.
- Saskia MendesJust us. Right, so, story from the week. One of our directors turned up to a client review on Tuesday, big contractor account, and the client's finance lead said we'd double billed a placement. Which we hadn't. But the director had nothing in front of her to prove it, so she spent twenty minutes apologising for something that wasn't wrong.
- Daniel OkaforOh, that's the worst sort of meeting. Where nothing's wrong but you can't show it.
- Saskia MendesExactly. And then I thought, this is precisely what we bought the brain for. She could have asked it in about ten seconds. She just didn't think to.
- Daniel OkaforMm. That's actually a good place to start, because it's close to what I wanted to talk about. Just to close the loop on the purpose of today: it's the regular check-in on how things are going on the Growth plan, and I've been looking at usage over the last few weeks. Before I say what I'm seeing, how is the team finding it?
- Saskia MendesHonest answer? Patchy. And I'd rather say that than pretend otherwise.
- Daniel OkaforI appreciate that. Patchy in what way?
- Saskia MendesSome of the directors use it every day. They've got it open next to their email, they ask it things before a call, and they love it. Then there's a group who tried it in the first few months, got a decent answer, got a not-so-decent answer, and drifted back to asking someone in my team to pull a report.
- Daniel OkaforRight. And that matches what I can see. The number of people active in a typical month is lower than it was last quarter. Not dramatically, but it's down by about a fifth, and for a plan with forty licensed users it's a small number of people doing most of the asking.
- Saskia MendesYeah. Forty seats and, what, fewer than ten of them actually in there week to week?
- Daniel OkaforFewer than ten on average, yes. I didn't want to open with that, but you've been straight with me, so I'll be straight back.
- Saskia MendesNo, good. Please. I'd rather we talked about it now than at renewal. What did the client actually say, as I always ask my team, and here the client is me, so, what's going on? Is it the tool or is it us?
- Daniel OkaforI don't think it's the tool, if I'm honest. Nothing has come through to support, no tickets at all in the last month, and nothing flagged as urgent. The connectors have been loading. So from where I sit the brain is available and the data is arriving.
- Saskia MendesWhich is almost worse, isn't it? Nobody's complaining, so nobody's shouting.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a fair way to put it. Quiet isn't always good news. When people are using something heavily you tend to hear from them. When they quietly stop, you don't.
- Saskia MendesRight. So I think there are a few things. One, the start of the year. Everyone comes back and it's budgets and targets and the old habits take over. Two, we've had a couple of new starters since the autumn and I haven't got them onto it properly. They were never shown it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's very common, actually. People join, they get a laptop and a long list of systems, and the thing that isn't on the list never gets learned.
- Saskia MendesAnd three, and this is the one I don't love saying, a couple of the directors just don't trust it with the awkward questions. Complaints, mainly. They ask it about a client's complaints history and they get something that feels thin, so they stop.
- Daniel OkaforMm. Can I dig into that one? When you say thin, do you mean it missed something they knew was there, or it gave them a short answer?
- Saskia MendesMissed something, I think. One director said there had been an email thread with a client about a late invoice and it didn't show up. I didn't chase it down. I should have.
- Daniel OkaforOkay. That's useful, and I'd like to look at it properly. It could be that the thread sat in a mailbox that isn't connected, or it could be how the question was worded, or it could be a gap I need to take back. I don't want to guess in front of you. I'll come back to you by the end of next week with what I find.
- Saskia MendesPerfect. If you need the director's name, I'll give it to you after, I don't want to put her on the spot on a recording.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Just send it over in an email and I'll keep it between us.
- Saskia MendesRight. Can we make it simpler, though? That's my real worry. Not the data. It's that the directors need this, and if it takes thought, they won't.
- Daniel OkaforI think that's the heart of it, yes. So let me float a couple of ideas and you tell me which ones are daft.
- Saskia MendesGo on.
- Daniel OkaforFirst, a short session for the directors. Not a training day, nothing grand. Thirty minutes, built round the questions they actually have before a client review. What's open, what's been placed, what's been invoiced, what's been complained about. We use your real clients, so it's not a generic demo.
- Saskia MendesI like that. Thirty minutes is about the limit of their patience.
- Daniel OkaforHa, understood. Second, I can set up a handful of saved questions, a sort of starter set, so someone walking into a review can ask the same four things every time and get the same shape of answer. Takes the thinking out of it.
- Saskia MendesYes. Yes, that's the thing. Like a checklist but it answers itself.
- Daniel OkaforExactly. And third, for the new starters, I can give you a one-page note you can drop into their first week. Where to find it, what to ask it first, who to shout at if it's odd.
- Saskia MendesWho do they shout at? You?
- Daniel OkaforMe, to begin with. And then the support desk if it's a proper fault.
- Saskia MendesOkay. Done. Send me that note and I'll put it in the starter pack. Honestly that one's on me, it's an easy fix.
- Daniel OkaforIt's not on you, it's a gap in how we hand things over as well. I'll write it this week.
- Saskia MendesGood. Now, the other thing, and you can tell me if I'm being paranoid. Is the usage drop going to be a problem for us? Contract-wise. We're coming up to renewal at some point this summer, aren't we?
- Daniel OkaforYou are. The current term runs to 2 Jul 2026 and the renewal date is 3 Jul 2026. So it's a good while off, but not so far off that I'd ignore it. You're at forty-four thousand a year on Growth, and the order form and the invoices agree with each other, which is always nice to say.
- Saskia MendesAnd we've paid everything on time.
- Daniel OkaforAlways. Nothing outstanding at all. So there's no problem on that side. What I'd rather do is spend the next few months making sure that when we sit down for the renewal conversation, you can point at real value, and not at a quiet dashboard.
- Saskia MendesRight. Because if our managing director asks me what we get for forty-four thousand and I say, well, ten people use it...
- Daniel OkaforMm, that's a hard conversation. Which is why I'd like us to get the numbers moving, and also to get a few concrete stories written down. Like your double billing one. If that director had asked the brain on Tuesday, what would it have shown her?
- Saskia MendesThe invoice, the placement dates, the timesheet approval. All of it. She'd have walked in with the facts.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly the sort of example that makes a renewal easy. Not a slide of percentages, a Tuesday that went differently.
- Saskia MendesOkay, I'm going to be annoying about this and say, can we try it for real? Next client review that comes up, I'll get one director to use it beforehand and I'll sit with her. Then we have our own example, not a hypothetical.
- Daniel OkaforI'd love that. Would it help if I joined, just to watch and take notes? I wouldn't say anything, I'd only be there to see where it feels clumsy.
- Saskia MendesThat would actually be really useful. You'd see it as they do. Usually you only see the logs.
- Daniel OkaforExactly, logs only tell me what happened, not how it felt. Right, let me note that down. Director session, saved questions, starter note, and a sit-in on a real review prep.
- Saskia MendesAdd the thin complaints thing.
- Daniel OkaforYes, I have it. The missing thread. I'll look at which mailboxes are connected and whether that conversation should have been picked up.
- Saskia MendesCan I ask something slightly different? On the licensing. We've got forty seats and I know we're nowhere near. Should I be handing some back? I don't want us paying for things we don't use.
- Daniel OkaforIt's a reasonable question and I'm glad you asked it rather than assuming. The plan includes forty users, it isn't priced per seat, so handing some back wouldn't change what you pay under the current terms. What matters more is whether the right people are in there. I'd rather fill the forty than shrink it.
- Saskia MendesSo the aim is to get more of them actually using it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's the aim, yes. Though I don't want to promise a number, because that's your people's decision, not a target I can set for you.
- Saskia MendesNo, fair. I'd rather have six directors who genuinely rely on it than forty logins.
- Daniel OkaforWell, ideally both, but I take the point.
- Saskia MendesHa. Ideally both.
- Daniel OkaforOne more thing I wanted to raise. On Growth there's a quarterly review built in, a proper look at usage and value with a few of your people in the room. We've done those, but I think the last one was thinly attended. Would you want the next one to be a bit different?
- Saskia MendesDifferent how?
- Daniel OkaforShorter, and with a director or two in it, not only operations. So the people who walk into client reviews hear what's possible from the same call. And maybe your managing director dials in for the last part, if that's something they'd want.
- Saskia MendesHmm. I'd keep our managing director out of the first one. Let me get the directors sorted first. I don't want him seeing the quiet numbers before I've had a go at fixing them.
- Daniel OkaforThat's your call entirely. I'll plan it with operations and a couple of directors, and we can decide about anyone more senior once we've got something to show.
- Saskia MendesThank you. That's sensible.
- Daniel OkaforCan I check one other thing? You mentioned a couple of new starters. Are they directors, or more on the operations side?
- Saskia MendesOne's operations, one's on the client-account side. Neither is a director but the client-account one will be sitting in reviews soon enough.
- Daniel OkaforThen she's a good person to pilot the starter note with. If it works for someone brand new, it'll work for anyone.
- Saskia MendesSmart. Yes. I'll introduce you by email, then you can send it straight to her.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. Just to close the loop on what's changed since we last spoke, is there anything on your side I should know about? A system moving, a new tool, anything with the CRM or the accounting side?
- Saskia MendesNot that I know of. There's some talk of tidying up how we log client complaints, because at the moment it's a bit scattered. Some in the helpdesk, some in people's inboxes. But nothing's been decided.
- Daniel OkaforAh. Well, that might be part of your thin answers, to be fair. If complaints live partly in inboxes the brain can only see what's connected. If that tidy-up goes ahead, tell me early and I'll make sure we follow it.
- Saskia MendesWill do. Honestly that might be the single most useful thing to come out of today, because I'd never joined the two dots.
- Daniel OkaforWell, we'll see what I find when I look. Don't give me too much credit yet.
- Saskia MendesHa, noted. I'll hold the credit.
- Daniel OkaforRight. Is there anything you wanted from me that we haven't covered? Anything you were going to ask?
- Saskia MendesI think the main thing was the one I just asked, whether I should be worried. And you've been fair about it. It's not fine, but it's fixable, that's how I'd put it.
- Daniel OkaforI'd put it the same way. Not fine, but fixable, and you've got a contract, a budget that's been paid on time and a team that clearly values it when they use it. That's a good place to be working from.
- Saskia MendesOkay. So, who sends what, because I'll forget otherwise.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. From me: the one-page note for new starters this week, what I find on the missing email thread by the end of next week, and a proposed time for the thirty-minute director session. From you: the introduction to the new client-account starter, the name of the director with the thin complaints answer, and a date when one of them has a client review coming up so I can sit in.
- Saskia MendesGot it. I'll send all of that over today, while it's fresh. Otherwise it'll slide.
- Daniel OkaforWonderful. And I'll write up a short summary of this call so you've got it in writing, in case you want to show anyone.
- Saskia MendesPlease. Keep it plain, no jargon.
- Daniel OkaforPlain it is. Thank you again, Saskia, and thank you for being so open about it. It makes my job a lot easier.
- Saskia MendesLikewise. Right, I've got a stand-up in a minute and I haven't finished this sandwich. Speak soon, Daniel.
- Daniel OkaforSpeak soon. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.
- Saskia MendesYou too. Bye.
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