Vellacott Payments / BG-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Vellacott Payments · 26 Feb 2025 16:15
Discovery with Vellacott Payments. Tomasz Wiśniewski wants one view of each marketplace client. COO Philippa Gore frames missed complaint patterns as a regulatory risk and will not sign before the security review.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Discovery with Vellacott Payments. Tomasz Wiśniewski wants one view of each marketplace client. COO Philippa Gore frames missed complaint patterns as a regulatory risk and will not sign before the security review.
What happened: Priya Raman ran discovery with Tomasz Wiśniewski and Philippa Gore, the Chief Operating Officer. Tomasz said client information sits across the CRM, helpdesk, onboarding tools, email and calls.
Customer view: Philippa called a missed complaint pattern a regulatory risk for an FCA authorised firm. She wants the Snowflake position written down and will not sign before the security review and an executive colleague's view.
Commercial: Priya gave a working figure of £129k for the Enterprise tier, implementation included. She said it is the total deal value, not an annual price.
Watch: No proposal exists yet, and the decision target is 26 Jun 2025. Tomasz is gathering team time-spent data for the business case.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Joined-up client view, FCA
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Priya Raman resends the security review outline and agrees a start date for the review.
- Tomasz Wiśniewski gathers each team's time spent reconciling client information and the systems they use.
- Priya Raman returns with a proposal and a demo on Vellacott's own data.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Philippa will not sign before the security review is complete and an executive colleague has seen it.
- The business case depends on time-spent data that Tomasz has not yet gathered.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Enterprise tier with implementation, discussed at a working figure of £129,000 total deal value.
- A joined-up view of complaints and onboarding answers a regulatory worry Philippa raised herself.
Transcript
Priya RamanHello, hello. Tomasz, can you hear me okay?
Tomasz WiśniewskiYes, I hear you well. Good afternoon, Priya.- Priya RamanGood afternoon. Philippa, are you with us as well?
Philippa GoreI am. Sorry, I'm a minute behind, the last meeting overran. Please carry on. What's the headline?- Priya RamanHappy to make this easy. Quick recap of where we are, then I'll hand over. We've had one intro conversation so far, Tomasz has been very generous with his time, and today is really about understanding how your teams work and what's painful. Nothing is decided. Our working target is to have a decision by Thursday 26 June 2025, which gives us plenty of room to do this properly, including the security side.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiGood. Let me start with the three actions from last time, so we don't lose them. One, Priya sends an outline of how your security review works. Two, I list the teams who would use this. Three, Philippa joins a call. So, Philippa is here, that's three. Priya, the outline?
- Priya RamanSent yesterday, but I'll resend it after this. It's the steps and who's involved on both sides. Nothing surprising in it.
- Philippa GoreI did read it. What I want to know is the regulatory angle. We're FCA authorised. Anything that touches client data, I need to be able to explain it to the regulator without hesitating.
- Priya RamanCompletely fair. The short version is that the brain is built and run inside your own Snowflake account. So the data doesn't leave your environment and sit with us. I'll let the security review go into the detail, but that's the shape of it.
- Philippa GoreInside our account. Good. That matters. I'll still want it written down.
- Priya RamanOf course. It'll be in the review pack.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiLet me be concrete about the problem, because I think that helps. We do payouts and collections for marketplaces and for payroll bureaux. Each client is a different shape. And when I want to see one marketplace client whole, I cannot. I have partnerships in one place, onboarding in another, complaints in a third.
- Priya RamanMm. So, say a marketplace client has a complaint. Where would you go first?
- Tomasz WiśniewskiFirst, the complaints team. They have their records. But they don't know if the same client had trouble at onboarding, or if there was an issue during the partnership set up. So a complaint arrives and we treat it as a new thing. It isn't new. It is the same story told again.
- Priya RamanRight. And how do you find that out today? Somebody remembers?
- Tomasz WiśniewskiYes. Somebody remembers, or somebody asks in a chat. That's the honest answer. It is not a good process.
- Philippa GoreAnd it's a regulatory risk, not just an irritation. Complaints are something the FCA looks at closely. If we have a pattern and we missed it, that's on me.
- Priya RamanThat makes sense. Can I ask how you'd know you had a pattern? Is anyone looking for it, or is it more reactive?
- Philippa GoreReactive, largely. We review monthly. But a monthly review only sees what has already been logged in the complaints system. It doesn't see the onboarding history or the partnership notes. Tell me early, that's what I ask of my teams. At the moment they can't, because they can't see it.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiThat's the point. Complaints and onboarding issues should be spotted early. Not after the client has already left.
- Priya RamanOkay. That's really clear. So what systems are we talking about? Where does the information live at the moment?
- Tomasz WiśniewskiWe have the CRM for partnerships and contacts. We have the helpdesk for complaints. Onboarding checks sit in a mix, some in a tool, some in documents. And then emails, and the calls with the client.
- Priya RamanAnd the calls, are those recorded?
- Tomasz WiśniewskiSome are. Not all. That's another gap.
- Priya RamanGot it. So, thinking about how we'd approach this, the idea would be to connect those sources, the CRM, the helpdesk, the documents, the email and the call recorder, into one layer so a person can ask a question about a client and get a joined-up answer. Not a dashboard for the sake of it. A question and an answer.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiGive me an example. A real one.
- Priya RamanOkay. Something like: for this marketplace client, what complaints have we had in the last quarter, and did any of them relate to a problem at onboarding? That's the type of question. It reads across the helpdesk and the onboarding records at once.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiYes. That is what I need. And who owns that answer? What's the owner? If the answer is wrong, who fixes it?
- Priya RamanGood question. On your side you'd have an owner for the brain, I'd imagine that's you, Tomasz. On ours there's a customer success manager after go-live, and during the implementation a team who build it with you.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiOkay. Me. I accept that. I would want it written. Owner, name, date.
- Philippa GoreWho owns this on your side during the first weeks? Not the long run. The first weeks, when things go wrong.
- Priya RamanThat would be the implementation team, with a named person. I'll get you their details as part of the proposal. I don't want to name someone today and be wrong.
- Philippa GoreGood. Better to be honest than quick.
- Priya RamanAgreed. So, Philippa, can I ask you something about how decisions like this get made on your side? Who would need to be comfortable?
- Philippa GoreI would lead it. But I would not sign without it going past a colleague on the executive team, and I'd want the security review completed first. I don't sign things in the dark.
- Priya RamanThat's very helpful. So the security review needs to land early enough to leave time for that conversation. If we can get this over the line by the end of June, we should start that review soon after the proposal. I'd like to keep momentum, but not at the expense of the review.
- Philippa GoreGood. That's the right order.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiPriya, what about size? Philippa will ask me, so I ask you. What's the scale of this? Roughly.
- Priya RamanFair. I'll be careful, because I don't want to quote before I understand your needs. As a working figure, for the Enterprise tier, the implementation included, we're looking at around £129,000. That's the total deal value, all in, not an annual price. I'll break it down properly in the proposal, subscription on one side and the one-off implementation on the other.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiOkay. I'm not discussing commercial terms. That is Philippa's. I only want to know the order of magnitude.
- Philippa GoreNoted. It isn't a surprise. What I want to see is what it replaces and what it prevents. Give me that and we can talk.
- Priya RamanAbsolutely. That's the heart of the business case. And Tomasz, you can help me with that if you're able to give me a sense of how much time your team spends reconciling these things by hand.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiI'll find out. I don't want to guess. I'll ask the leads of each team and give you something concrete.
- Priya RamanBrilliant. So let me pull together the actions. Is that all right?
- Tomasz WiśniewskiYes. Owners please.
- Priya RamanOkay. One, I resend the security review outline today. Two, Tomasz gathers a view from each team on the time spent on reconciling client information, and which systems they use. Three, I come back with a proposal and a demo on your own data, once I've got that. Four, we agree a date for the security review to begin. Philippa, anything you'd add?
- Philippa GoreOnly that if anything changes on your side, or if there's a difficulty, you tell me early. I don't like surprises.
- Priya RamanUnderstood. You'll hear it from me first.
- Tomasz WiśniewskiGood. We close this today. Four actions, four owners. Thank you, Priya.
- Priya RamanThank you both. Speak soon.
- Philippa GoreThank you. Goodbye.
Callsmade from