Grisedale Search & Selection / BG-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Grisedale Search & Selection · 22 Jan 2024 10:15
Lauren Pilkington described consultants hunting across CRM, email and a shared drive. Starter fits her team. She called the first-year figure more than she would sign off herself, so her director decides.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Lauren Pilkington described consultants hunting across CRM, email and a shared drive. Starter fits her team. She called the first-year figure more than she would sign off herself, so her director decides.
What happened: Priya Raman ran discovery on 22 Jan 2024. Lauren said consultants scroll through the CRM, inbox and colleagues before ringing a client, and that she is the human search engine for new joiners.
Customer view: Lauren named HubSpot, Microsoft 365 and SharePoint, all connectable, and put users at fewer than fifteen. Slack was floated as a fourth connector but she parked it.
Commercial: Priya quoted about £26k for the first year including implementation, on Starter. Lauren said it is more than she would sign off herself and is one for her director.
Watch: the director is not technical and will ask about security, cost and consultant adoption. The decision date being worked to is 18 March 2024.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Discovery, Starter fit
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Priya Raman sends a short summary and a proposal Lauren can pass to her director.
- Priya proposes dates for a demo on a handful of Grisedale's own clients.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The price is above Lauren's own sign-off, so a non-technical director must approve.
- Lauren is the only support for new joiners and may be stretched during rollout.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Starter fits one team of fewer than fifteen users on CRM, email and shared drive connectors.
- Slack could be the fourth connector if the team decides what it should contain.
Transcript
Lauren PilkingtonHi Priya, can you hear me alright? I've got the kettle on in the background so apologies if it starts whistling.
Priya RamanLoud and clear, Lauren. Good morning. Thanks for making time. Right, a quick recap of where we are so we're on the same page, and then I'd love to hear how things work at your end.- Lauren PilkingtonGo for it.
- Priya RamanSo we spoke briefly last week, you'd seen what the brain does in principle, and today is about understanding your world properly, so that when I put something in front of you it's actually about Grisedale. The date we're working to for a decision is 18 March 2024, but that's flexible and I'd rather get it right than get it quick.
- Lauren PilkingtonThat's fine. Can I start with a question, actually? One of my consultants asked me this morning, can the consultants see a client's complaints before they ring them? Because that's the thing that keeps coming up.
- Priya RamanThat is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to hear. Tell me more. What happens today when a consultant is about to call a client?
- Lauren PilkingtonHonestly, they scroll. They look in the CRM for the roles, then they search their inbox for the client's name to see if anything's gone wrong, and then maybe ask a colleague. Quick one, it's not that anyone's lazy, it's that the information is in three places.
- Priya RamanMm. And what's the CRM you're using?
- Lauren PilkingtonHubSpot. Email is Microsoft 365. And we've got a shared drive for contracts and terms of business, that's on SharePoint.
- Priya RamanGood, all three are things we connect to. How many people are we talking about? Who would actually use it day to day?
- Lauren PilkingtonConsultants, mainly, and me. We're a small team really. Finance, legal and HR recruitment across the North West, so mostly the same clients coming back again and again. Fewer than fifteen people would use it.
- Priya RamanThat fits our Starter tier nicely, which is one team, fifteen users and four connectors. I'm not trying to sell you anything yet, I just want to see if the shape matches.
- Lauren PilkingtonFour connectors. So that'd be the CRM, the email, the shared drive. What's the fourth?
- Priya RamanThat's partly up to you. Is there anywhere else a client's complaints or problems get logged? A helpdesk, a spreadsheet, a chat channel?
- Lauren PilkingtonComplaints mostly arrive by email, or someone mentions it on a call. There's a Slack channel where people shout about difficult clients, to be fair. Not very organised.
- Priya RamanHa, I know that channel, every firm has one. Slack is something we can connect, so that could be your fourth. Whether it's a good idea is a separate question, we can think about what's in there.
- Lauren PilkingtonYeah, there'd be some things in there I'd rather the consultants didn't see. Let's park that.
- Priya RamanParked. Let's go back to the consultant's question. When a consultant opens a client, what would the ideal look like? In your head, what do they see?
- Lauren PilkingtonThe open roles, who we've placed there before, anything that's gone wrong recently, and who at the client is the right person to ring. That'd save us hours, honestly. Sometimes it's the difference between a good call and an awkward one.
- Priya RamanAnd how are you handling that at the moment when someone new joins? Say a consultant starts next month.
- Lauren PilkingtonThat's me. I sit with them and show them where things are. Which is fine, but I'm also the person who runs everything else, so it's quite a lot.
- Priya RamanRight, so you're partly the human search engine.
- Lauren PilkingtonPretty much, yes. I never let a consultant struggle on their own, so I end up dropping everything.
- Priya RamanThat's useful for me to know. Now, can I ask about the decision? Who else would need to be comfortable before something like this goes ahead?
- Lauren PilkingtonMy director, definitely. I wouldn't buy anything without them. They'd want to know it's secure, what it costs, and that the consultants will actually use it. They're not technical.
- Priya RamanGood. Would they be willing to join a short call once we've done a demo on your own data? I find it's much better when they see their own clients rather than a generic example.
- Lauren PilkingtonI think so. I'd need to give them a heads up. What does it involve? Do you need access to our systems?
- Priya RamanNot for today. For the demo we'd work with a sample you're comfortable sharing, and it all runs inside a data warehouse in your own account, not ours. I'd prefer a technical colleague to walk you through that properly, because I don't want to guess at the detail.
- Lauren PilkingtonGood, because if you said something technical I'd just nod and then not understand it. I'll be honest about that.
- Priya RamanHa, no, I appreciate it. Much better to say. On the commercial side, can I give you a rough sense of what we're talking about, so there are no surprises?
- Lauren PilkingtonPlease. Ballpark is fine.
- Priya RamanFor a Starter set-up like this, the whole thing comes to about £25,500. That's the total for the first year including the one-off implementation, so it isn't the yearly price going forward. I'll put it in a proposal so you can see how it breaks down.
- Lauren PilkingtonRight. Okay. That's not outrageous, but it's more than I'd sign off myself. That's one for my director.
- Priya RamanCompletely understood. Happy to make this easy for them. What I'd suggest is that I send over a short summary of today, the systems you've mentioned, who'd use it, and the shape of the cost, and you can pass that along to your director if it's helpful.
- Lauren PilkingtonYes, that'd be great. Then we can do the demo and they can see it. Can you do a demo with our actual clients in it?
- Priya RamanThat's the plan. You pick a handful of clients you're happy to use and we build the demo around them. I'll come back to you this week with some dates.
- Lauren PilkingtonBrilliant. Thanks, Priya. That was useful, it's helped me work out what I actually want.
- Priya RamanLovely. So I send the summary, you have a word with your director, and I'll propose dates for the demo. Best of luck with the kettle. Speak soon.
- Lauren PilkingtonTa, Priya. Bye.
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