Harcastle Environmental / BB-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 2025-07-07 16:15
Check-in on 7 Jul 2025. Nicola Brearley praised the single customer view, asked for vehicle and crew data from the routing system, and was told renewal falls in April. A handful of people use it against forty seats.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Check-in on 7 Jul 2025. Nicola Brearley praised the single customer view, asked for vehicle and crew data from the routing system, and was told renewal falls in April. A handful of people use it against forty seats.
What happened: Marcus Bell walked Nicola through usage, the one ticket this month and next steps. She opened with a missed-collection story where the account manager saw the issue in the brain before the customer rang.
Customer view: Nicola is positive and describes the single screen as what she bought it for. Her one gap is vehicle and crew data, which still sits in the routing system.
Commercial: Marcus flagged the renewal on the eleventh of April at £40k a year. Nicola said she does not commit budget on her own, so the decision sits above her.
Watch: Five or six daily users against forty seats is headroom on Growth, with no extra cost to widen. A new connector depends on what the routing system lets BB-Demo read, and Marcus promised only a straight answer.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Adoption headroom, routing connector
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Marcus Bell to send slots for a Thursday afternoon call to plan account manager training.
- Nicola Brearley to email an introduction to her IT colleague so an engineer can assess the routing system.
- Marcus Bell to start a usage summary ahead of the renewal.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Only a handful of people use the brain daily against forty licensed seats.
- Nicola cannot commit budget alone, so the renewal decision sits with people not on the call.
- Vehicle and crew data is still outside the brain, so staff still ring the depot.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Widen use to more account managers and area managers on seats already in the Growth plan.
- Connect the routing system if the engineers confirm it can be read.
Transcript
Marcus Bell NoneHello Nicola, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Nicola Brearley NoneLoud and clear. Sorry, I'm a couple of minutes behind, I was on the phone to a depot.- Marcus Bell NoneNo problem at all. I'll share my screen in a second, just let me find the right window. There we go. Can you see that?
- Nicola Brearley NoneI can. Before you start, can I tell you about my week? It's been a bit of a monster. We had a run of missed collections on one round in West Yorkshire, a chain of cafes, and the customer rang their account manager before we'd even seen it on our side.
- Marcus Bell NoneOh, that's not what you want. Did the account manager have the full picture when they picked up?
- Nicola Brearley NoneThat's the thing, this time yes. She'd looked at the customer page in the brain that morning, saw the two missed collections, saw the ticket was already open, and she rang them back before they'd finished complaining. Honestly, a year ago she'd have heard about it cold. So, which depot, which round, what's the fix and who owns it, all on one screen. That's what I bought it for.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's really good to hear. That's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to ask you about today, actually. I've pulled the numbers, and I'd like to walk you through what I'm seeing, then hear what's working and what isn't. Is that all right?
- Nicola Brearley NoneGo for it.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo, three things I want to cover. First, usage. Second, the one ticket you've raised with us this month. Third, where you might want to take it next. And I'll keep it to about half an hour.
- Nicola Brearley NoneLovely. Lists of three, I like it.
- Marcus Bell NoneHa, I thought you might. Right, usage. This is the active users line over the last few months. You were quite quiet when you first went live in April, which is normal, it's a handful of people finding their feet. And then it climbs, quite steeply, from the spring into June.
- Nicola Brearley NoneMm. That'll be when we moved the account managers over.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's what I guessed. So on a typical day you've now got about five or six people in there. That doesn't sound like a lot against forty licensed users, but compared with where you were it's a big jump, several times what it was last quarter.
- Nicola Brearley NoneRight, so we've got a lot of headroom, is what you're saying.
- Marcus Bell NoneYeah, that's the polite way of putting it. You're paying for forty seats on the Growth plan and you're using a fraction of them day to day. Which is fine, nobody's complaining, but it does mean there's a lot of room to bring more teams in.
- Nicola Brearley NoneNo, I know. And I'll be honest with you, that's partly deliberate. I didn't want to flood everyone and have it fall over. I wanted a small group who'd really use it and tell me what's rubbish.
- Marcus Bell NoneWhich is sensible. Slow and steady usually sticks better than a big launch.
- Nicola Brearley NoneExactly. So what did they say was rubbish? Do you know? Because I've had a couple of grumbles, but nothing I'd call serious.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's my second point, really. You've had one ticket in the last thirty days, nothing urgent, nothing high priority. It was a how-to question, I think. Let me bring it up. Yes, someone wanted to know how to filter a customer's invoices by month alongside their collection history.
- Nicola Brearley NoneOh, that was one of the finance girls. Sorry, one of the finance team. She was trying to match a disputed invoice against the missed collections that month.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight, that makes sense. And did it get sorted for her?
- Nicola Brearley NoneIt did, someone from your side came back to her the same day. She was very happy. She said it was the first time she'd seen the invoice and the complaint in the same place without three spreadsheets.
- Marcus Bell NoneGreat. I'll pass that on to the team, they like hearing that. And I'd say one ticket a month from a group that's growing like yours is a healthy sign, to be honest. People are asking, they're getting answers, nothing's sitting.
- Nicola Brearley NoneNothing sits overnight with me, you know that.
- Marcus Bell NoneI do know that. Okay, let me show you something else. This is the questions people have asked the brain. Not the dashboards, the actual questions typed in.
- Nicola Brearley NoneOh, go on, I love this bit.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo you can see a pattern. There's a lot of customer-by-customer stuff, as you'd expect. Which of my customers have had more than one missed collection this month. What did we say to this customer last time they rang. Is their invoice paid. Those are the bread and butter.
- Nicola Brearley NoneYeah, that's the three things. Collections, complaints, invoices. That's the whole reason.
- Marcus Bell NoneAnd then there's a few that are a bit more interesting. Somebody asked it which rounds have the most repeat misses. Somebody else asked which customers had a complaint and then stopped ordering extra collections.
- Nicola Brearley NoneThat'll be Keith. Sorry, that'll be one of the regional managers, I won't say who. He's been getting very creative.
- Marcus Bell NoneWell, I'd tell him to keep going. That's the kind of question I'd say is the best single measure of whether you're getting value out of it. Not how many people log in, but what they ask.
- Nicola Brearley NoneOkay. So is it mostly a few people asking, or is it spread?
- Marcus Bell NoneGood question. It's reasonably spread, actually. There's a couple of people who ask more than the rest, you'd be one of them, but it's not all you, which is what I'd worry about if it was.
- Nicola Brearley NoneHa, so I'm a key person risk. Brilliant.
- Marcus Bell NoneNo, no, not at all, you're fine. I just always look at it. If it's all one person and they move on, the thing goes quiet.
- Nicola Brearley NoneNo, fair. I'd rather it wasn't just me. I've been trying to get the area managers to use it in their Monday meetings so it's not my thing, it's their thing.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's the best thing you could do. If it's in the Monday meeting, it's part of how the business runs.
- Nicola Brearley NoneMm. Though I'll be honest, there's one thing that's bugging me. Can I raise it?
- Marcus Bell NonePlease do.
- Nicola Brearley NoneWhen I look at a customer I can see the missed collection tickets and the invoices and the calls. But the bit that tells me which vehicle, which crew, that's still in the routing system and it's not in there. So I still have to ring the depot. Is that something that could be connected, or is that a different conversation?
- Marcus Bell NoneIt's a fair thing to ask. I don't want to promise anything on the spot, because it depends what the routing system lets us read and how it's set up. What I'd suggest is I get one of the engineers to have a look at it with whoever looks after it for you, and then we can tell you straight whether it's easy, hard or not worth it.
- Nicola Brearley NoneThat's fair. I don't want a promise, I want a straight answer. Who looks after it on our side is a colleague in IT, I'll introduce you.
- Marcus Bell NonePerfect. Send me a line and I'll set up thirty minutes with them and one of our people. And while we're on connectors, you've got room on the plan, so it wouldn't be a problem in terms of what you're allowed to add.
- Nicola Brearley NoneGood. Okay, noted. Let's see it from the customer's side, though. If I'm a cafe owner, I don't care about the routing system. I care that somebody comes on Tuesday.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. And that's why the brain's useful, because the account manager can say, we missed you on Tuesday, here's why, here's what happens on Thursday.
- Nicola Brearley NoneExactly. That's what the cafe chain call was about this week. She could actually say that.
- Marcus Bell NoneWhich is brilliant. Okay. Let me move on to the third thing, which is where to take it next. And honestly this might just be a thought for you to chew on. You've got about forty seats, a handful of people using it day to day, and you said you want the area managers in the Monday meetings.
- Nicola Brearley NoneYes.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo one option is just to widen it. Get the rest of the account managers on, then the area managers. You've got the seats already. There's no extra cost for that, it's all in the plan.
- Nicola Brearley NoneThat's good to know. Because I'd got it in my head that going wider would be another conversation with finance.
- Marcus Bell NoneNot for the seats, no. If you wanted to go beyond forty users, or add more connectors than the plan allows, that'd be different, but you're nowhere near that.
- Nicola Brearley NoneRight. And if we did that, would you help me with the training? Because the first lot I trained myself and I'm not sure I did it very well.
- Marcus Bell NoneHappy to jump on a call with them. I could do a session for the account managers, an hour or so, show them the customer page and the sort of questions that work. Shall we book thirty minutes next week to plan it?
- Nicola Brearley NoneYes please. Wednesday or Thursday, afternoon's better. I'm out on the rounds in the morning, I try to ride along at least once a month.
- Marcus Bell NoneLovely, I'll send you a couple of slots. Thursday afternoon, I'll aim for.
- Nicola Brearley NonePerfect.
- Marcus Bell NoneCan I ask something a bit different? How are the people who use it feeling about it? Not the numbers, just the mood.
- Nicola Brearley NoneMostly good. The ones who use it every day wouldn't want to go back. There's a couple who are still a bit suspicious, they think it's a way of checking up on them. I keep telling them it's the opposite, it's so they don't get blindsided by a complaint.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a really common one. It helps if the manager says it, not us.
- Nicola Brearley NoneYeah. I'll say it again on Monday.
- Marcus Bell NoneAnd one more thing, just so it's on your radar. Your contract's up for renewal in April next year, the eleventh of April. Nothing to do now, I just like to mention it early so it doesn't land on you out of nowhere. It's the thirty-nine thousand six hundred pounds a year at the moment, and we'd have the proper conversation closer to the time, with the right people.
- Nicola Brearley NoneOkay. Thanks for flagging it. That's the thirty-nine six, yes? I'd need to take anything like that upstairs anyway, I don't commit budget on my own.
- Marcus Bell NoneOf course. And I'd keep the price side with the account owner when we get there, but what I can do before then is put together a short summary of how you've used it, so you've got something to show them. What you've asked, what it's saved, that kind of thing.
- Nicola Brearley NoneThat would be really useful, actually. I'd rather walk in with a page than try and remember.
- Marcus Bell NoneHappy to. I'll start pulling it together over the next few weeks, and we can add the wider rollout once you've decided how far you want to take it.
- Nicola Brearley NoneGood. Is there anything on your side I should be worried about? Anything going stale, anything not loading?
- Marcus Bell NoneFair question, and no, nothing I can see. The records are coming in as they should, the connectors are all loading, and the nightly refresh has been landing on time. If anything went flat I'd be on the phone to you before you noticed.
- Nicola Brearley NoneGood. Because the worst thing is somebody quoting yesterday's data to a customer. We'd look daft.
- Marcus Bell NoneAgreed. And it's why I check it. Right, I think that's everything from me. Is there anything else on your list?
- Nicola Brearley NoneJust the routing thing, and the training, and I'll tell the finance lady she can ask the helpdesk anything. That's my three.
- Marcus Bell NoneHa, there we go, a list of three. So, to recap. I'll send you slots for a call on Thursday afternoon to plan the training. You'll introduce me to your colleague in IT about the routing system. And I'll start on the usage summary ahead of renewal. Does that sound right?
- Nicola Brearley NoneThat's it. I'll email you the introduction this evening, before I forget.
- Marcus Bell NoneBrilliant. Thanks for your time, Nicola, and I hope the cafe chain calms down.
- Nicola Brearley NoneSo do I. Thanks, Marcus. Speak soon.
- Marcus Bell NoneCheers, bye for now.
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