Harcastle Environmental / BG-Demo – Training
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 2 Jun 2025 11:00
Laura Penhaligon trained Nicola Brearley and Imran Hussain on search, chat, pages and dashboards using a real missed-collection complaint. Use is thin and Nicola needs a value story for the budget holders.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Laura Penhaligon trained Nicola Brearley and Imran Hussain on search, chat, pages and dashboards using a real missed-collection complaint. Use is thin and Nicola needs a value story for the budget holders.
What happened: Laura ran the 2 Jun 2025 session using a missed-collection complaint Nicola had just received. They saved a Repeat missed collections page and built a complaints top ten tile.
Customer view: Nicola said the dashboards would save her an hour every Monday. Imran checks sources and wants answers that do not overstate what the data shows.
Commercial: Nicola said hardly anybody is in daily, against forty Growth users. She expects the budget holders to ask what the annual fee buys, and Laura named questions asked as the measure to watch.
Watch: Imran raised the key-person risk himself if one person does most of the asking. A pilot of three account managers was agreed to spread use.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Growth onboarding and adoption
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- Nicola Brearley to name three account managers and three questions each by the end of the week.
- Laura Penhaligon to send the one-page guide and the Repeat missed collections page link the same day.
- Laura Penhaligon to run a short follow-up the following week on what the pilot people made of it.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Only a few people use the brain day to day, against forty Growth users.
- Budget holders will ask what the annual fee delivers and usage is still quiet.
- One heavy asker would make use dependent on a single person.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Extend from a three-person pilot to all account managers and then customer services.
- The call recordings source can be added within the Growth connector limit.
Transcript
Laura PenhaligonHello, can you both hear me all right?
Nicola BrearleyLoud and clear. Imran, I think you're on mute.
Imran HussainSorry, yes. Morning both. Is that better?- Laura PenhaligonPerfect. Morning, Imran, morning, Nicola. Thanks for making time. I know Mondays are never quiet for you.
- Nicola BrearleyMondays are the worst. I'll tell you now, the worst complaint of the week is already in. A customer on the Doncaster side had three missed collections in a fortnight and they've only just told us. Which depot, which round, that's what I want to know, and the account manager had no idea.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's honestly a good place to start, because that's the sort of thing the brain should be showing your account managers before the customer rings.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's the hope. Let's see it from the customer's side, that's what I keep saying. They ring up, they're cross, and the account manager is opening four different systems while they wait.
- Imran HussainBefore we start, can I just say what I changed since last time? I tidied the customer ids in the routing extract, so one site is now one record. It was doubling up on a few of the multi-site customers.
- Laura PenhaligonOh, that's really helpful, thank you. That will make the search results much cleaner. Did the helpdesk connector change at all?
- Imran HussainNo, I left that alone. It's loading cleanly, so I didn't want to touch it. I'll test anything new before we switch it on.
- Laura PenhaligonGood, that's exactly the right instinct. Right, so the plan for today. We've got a bit over an hour. I'll share my screen and walk through pages, search and chat, then the dashboards builder, which you have on Growth. Then I'd like you to drive for a bit, Nicola, using a real customer. Does that suit?
- Nicola BrearleyThat suits. Use the Doncaster one if you like, it's fresh in my head.
- Laura PenhaligonLet me share. Can you see a page with the Harcastle logo and a search bar at the top?
- Imran HussainYes, I can see it. Slightly small, but I can read it.
- Nicola BrearleySame here. Fine.
- Laura PenhaligonOkay. So there are three ways in, and I'll go through each. First is search, which is that bar. Second is chat, the panel on the right. Third is pages, which are the saved views you and your team build up over time. Most people start with chat because it feels like asking a colleague.
- Nicola BrearleyRight. So I can just type a question.
- Laura PenhaligonJust type it, in plain words. Let me do one. I'll ask, which business customers have had more than one missed collection in the last month. And I'll leave that to run.
- Imran HussainIt's pulling from the helpdesk tickets and the routing data together, is that right?
- Laura PenhaligonExactly. It's reading both and showing you which sources it used underneath the answer. See the little source tags there? Click one and you jump to the underlying record.
- Nicola BrearleyOh, that's good. So if the account manager doesn't trust it, they can check.
- Laura PenhaligonAlways, and I'd encourage that early on. People trust it faster when they've checked it a couple of times.
- Imran HussainI will say, I do check it. I want to know it isn't overstating what the data shows.
- Laura PenhaligonWhich is fair. And when it doesn't know, it should say so rather than guess. If you ever see a confident answer with no sources, tell me, because that's not how it should behave.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. Show me the Doncaster customer then.
- Laura PenhaligonRight. You'll need to give me the customer name, but I can use the search bar to find them. I'll type the first few letters and pick the right site. Here we go. This is the customer page. Down the left you've got a timeline, and each entry is a collection, a ticket, a call or an invoice.
- Nicola BrearleyNow that is the thing. That's all in one place. Imran, look at that, the missed collections are sitting right next to the invoices.
- Imran HussainMm. And the invoices are coming through the finance connector, so I'd want to double check the dates line up with what finance see.
- Laura PenhaligonSensible. They're read straight from the accounting system, so if the dates look off it's usually how the invoice date is stored, not the brain. Pop it in a note and we'll look together.
- Nicola BrearleyCan I ask something? The three missed collections. Can it tell me what we told the customer each time? Because that's what annoys them, being told different things.
- Laura PenhaligonLet's try. I'll go to the chat and ask, what did we tell this customer about each missed collection. It looks across the ticket replies and any call notes.
- Laura PenhaligonSo, here. It's found two ticket replies and one call. The first reply says the vehicle was off the road, the second just says it was a driver issue, and on the call someone said it would be collected the next day.
- Nicola BrearleyThere you go. Three different reasons. That's what I mean. What's the fix and who owns it? Because nobody owns the story.
- Imran HussainThat's more of a process point than a data point, though.
- Nicola BrearleyIt is, I know, but I can only see it because of this. So.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's a fair way to put it. The brain shows you the inconsistency, but it won't fix the routine for you. What it can do is let you set up a page that lists those cases every morning, so someone owns it.
- Nicola BrearleyYes. Go on then, show me that.
- Laura PenhaligonOkay, so this is where we get into pages and the dashboards builder. Let me start with a page. I'll take the chat answer from before and press Save as page. It asks for a name. I'll call it Repeat missed collections.
- Imran HussainCan I see who can edit that? I don't want everyone able to change the wording of the question.
- Laura PenhaligonGood question. Over here you've got sharing. You can make it view only for the account managers and keep edit rights for you two. Admins can change that at any time.
- Imran HussainRight. I'll do that for all of them then. View only to start with.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's what I'd do. Now, refresh. The page rebuilds overnight, and it's complete by 07:00 on business days. So your account managers should see it at the start of the day.
- Nicola BrearleySeven. Good, that's before the first calls come in. What if something's wrong at seven?
- Laura PenhaligonThen you'll see the last refreshed time at the top of the page. If it's not today's, don't trust it for anything urgent, and raise a ticket. Imran, that one would come to you first I expect?
- Imran HussainIt would. I'd check the connector status first, then the helpdesk and routing loads. Usually it's a source that's changed a field name.
- Laura PenhaligonYes, that's by far the commonest cause. Okay, dashboards. Let me open the builder.
- Laura PenhaligonSo a dashboard is a set of tiles. Each tile is a question, or a number, or a chart. I'll add a tile and choose, count of missed collections by depot. I'll group it by week. And there's the chart.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich depot, which round. Can it go down to round?
- Laura PenhaligonIf the round is in the routing data as a field, yes. Imran, is it?
- Imran HussainIt is, but it's called route code in the extract, not round. I can add a friendlier label so the brain understands them as the same thing.
- Laura PenhaligonPlease do. It makes the chat better too, because people will say round and it'll know what they mean.
- Nicola BrearleyLovely. Honestly that would save me an hour every Monday.
- Laura PenhaligonLet me show you how to change a chart type, then I'll hand over. Click the little chart icon on the tile. Bars, lines, a table. For comparing depots I'd always use a table first, because people argue less about a table.
- Imran HussainHa. True.
- Nicola BrearleyRight, can I have a go? I'd like to do the one for complaints by customer, top ten.
- Laura PenhaligonPlease. I'll stop sharing and you share yours, or I can keep driving and you tell me where to click.
- Nicola BrearleyYou drive, I'll tell you. It's quicker.
- Laura PenhaligonOkay, I'm in the builder. Where first?
- Nicola BrearleyAdd a tile. Complaints, so the tickets with the complaint category, grouped by customer, sorted high to low, and only the top ten.
- Laura PenhaligonDoing that. Pick the category, group by customer, sort, limit. And there's your top ten.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's right. That's exactly the ones I'd expect. Good. Hang on, that one's not on my list. The fourth one down.
- Imran HussainWhich customer id is that? Can you click on it?
- Laura PenhaligonClicking. It opens the customer page. Hmm, so there are two entries for the same customer name, with a slightly different site address.
- Imran HussainThat's one I haven't cleaned up yet. Two sites, one customer, and the ids differ. I'll sort it this afternoon. I'm not going to merge anything I can't restore though, so I'll take a copy first.
- Laura PenhaligonSensible. And that's a nice example of why it's worth putting the dashboards in front of people, because they spot the oddities fast.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay, so, users. Because I've been thinking. At the moment it's me, Imran and one or two of the account managers poking about. Hardly anybody is in there day to day. We have forty licences, don't we?
- Laura PenhaligonYou do, forty users on Growth. So there's plenty of room. How many do you think should be using it regularly?
- Nicola BrearleyAll the account managers eventually. Then the customer services team. But I'm not going to throw forty people at it on day one and have them hate it.
- Laura PenhaligonNo, I wouldn't either. What tends to work is a small pilot of three or four people, a specific job for them, and a short feedback loop.
- Nicola BrearleyLists of three, I like it. Three account managers, three questions each, one week.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's perfect. I can give you a one page guide with example questions that are close to what your teams actually ask. Would that help?
- Nicola BrearleyYes please. Keep it short. They won't read more than a page.
- Imran HussainCan I ask about adding sources? I want to bring in the call recordings from the phone system at some point, but I'm a bit wary of breaking what's there.
- Laura PenhaligonNot at all. It's a good question. A new source is added alongside, it doesn't replace anything. You can switch it on for admins only first, check the records look right, and then open it to everyone.
- Imran HussainThat's what I'd want. How many connectors have we got left, roughly?
- Laura PenhaligonI'd rather look than guess. The admin settings page shows the count against your limit. Let me open it.
- Laura PenhaligonThere. You're using some but not all of them, so there's room for the call source. If you wanted several more beyond that, we'd talk about an add-on, but you're not near that.
- Imran HussainGood. That's what I wanted to know.
- Nicola BrearleyWhile we're on it, the people who sign off the budget will ask me what we get for the thirty-nine six a year. I'd like something I can show them. Is there a usage view?
- Laura PenhaligonThere is. It's under usage in the admin area. It shows questions asked, who's asking, and which pages get opened. It's quiet at the moment because you're early on, which is normal, but it'll be the thing to watch.
- Nicola BrearleyRight. So the more the account managers use it, the better the story.
- Laura PenhaligonYes, and the most useful number there is questions asked, more than page views. If three people are asking a lot of questions that tells you it's become part of how they work.
- Imran HussainAnd if only one person is asking them, that's a risk, isn't it. If they leave or go on holiday.
- Laura PenhaligonExactly that. Which is another reason for the pilot, to spread it across a few people.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. So the next steps. Let me say them back, tell me if I've got it wrong. Imran adds the friendlier labels for round and cleans up the duplicate site, and takes a copy first.
- Imran HussainYes, and I'll set the sharing to view only for the account managers, and test the call source in admin only mode before it goes anywhere else.
- Nicola BrearleyGood. I pick three account managers and three questions each, and I'll have names to you by the end of the week.
- Laura PenhaligonAnd I'll send the one page guide and the Repeat missed collections page link today, then we can do a short follow up next week to see what the pilot people made of it.
- Nicola BrearleyPerfect. And that complaint about the Doncaster customer, I'm ringing them this afternoon with one consistent answer.
- Laura PenhaligonGood. Anything else before we stop? We've got a few minutes.
- Imran HussainNothing from me. Thanks, that was clear.
- Nicola BrearleyNothing here either. Thanks, Laura. Really useful.
- Laura PenhaligonLovely. Speak soon, both. Cheers.
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