Harcastle Environmental / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 2 Sep 2025 11:00
Healthy quarter with no tickets and invoices paid on time, but a handful of people do most of the asking out of forty licensed users. The CFO asked about the contract; Lewis said he would not push extras.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Healthy quarter with no tickets and invoices paid on time, but a handful of people do most of the asking out of forty licensed users. The CFO asked about the contract; Lewis said he would not push extras.
What happened: Marcus Bell ran the quarterly review. No tickets, invoices paid on time, usage up slightly, but questions come mostly from Nicola's team and Imran.
Customer view: Andrew Sugden asked whether paying for forty and using a handful was a problem or a rollout. Nicola Brearley wants account managers to open the brain before calling back a complaint.
Commercial: Lewis Kerr confirmed Growth at £40k a year, term to 10 Apr 2026, renewing 11 Apr 2026. He said he would not push additions while seats sit unused, and Andrew welcomed that.
Watch: Value rests on a few names, and the duplicate site records Imran Hussain is cleaning up block the dashboards builder and the complaints-per-contract margin view Andrew wants.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Rollout lag before renewal
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Imran to finish the duplicate site clean-up and send Nicola the list of unclear records.
- Marcus to pull the early-warning picture and meet again in a few weeks with Andrew for the start.
- Lewis to send the written contract summary the same day.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Value sits with a few people, so a departure would be felt before the renewal.
- Duplicate site records block the dashboards and the margin view Andrew wants.
- Forty seats are largely unused ahead of the April renewal.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Roll the brain out to more account managers within the existing Growth seats.
- Build the dashboards builder views for missed collections and complaints per contract.
- Add the call recorder and CRM connectors within the eight included.
Transcript
Marcus BellMorning, everyone. Can you hear me all right? I'll give it a minute for people to drift in.
Nicola BrearleyMorning Marcus, yes, loud and clear. Sorry, I'm in a minute late, I was dealing with a complaint. A customer on the Leeds side has had the same bin missed twice and the account manager only found out when the customer rang. Which depot, which round, I'm still chasing. Anyway. Hello all.
Imran HussainMorning. I'm here. Can everyone see my camera, or is it frozen again?- Marcus BellYou're fine, Imran. Andrew, are you with us?
Andrew SugdenI'm here. I've got until about midday, then I'm into the month-end numbers. What's the headline?- Marcus BellFair enough, I'll give you the headline first. Lewis is on as well, so if anything commercial comes up he can pick it up. Lewis, you there?
Lewis KerrI'm here, morning all. I'll mostly listen, and then say a word at the end about the contract so nobody's surprised later.- Marcus BellRight. I'm going to share my screen. Can you see the usage page? Good. So the headline, Andrew: it's a quiet, healthy quarter. No tickets raised, no high priority anything, invoices all paid on time. Usage is up a little on the last quarter, but it's still a small group doing most of the asking. That's the one thing I want to spend time on.
- Andrew SugdenSmall group meaning what? How many people is it touching?
- Marcus BellOn a normal day it's a handful of people. You've got forty licensed users, so there's a lot of seats that aren't being used yet. I've pulled the numbers by person, and the questions are mostly coming from Nicola's team and from Imran testing things.
- Nicola BrearleyThat sounds about right, to be fair. My team lives in it. The account managers, the wider ones, they've been told it exists and then got swallowed by their own week.
- Andrew SugdenSo we're paying for forty and using a handful. Put it in plain terms for me. Is that a problem or is that a rollout?
- Marcus BellI'd say it's a rollout that's gone slower than it could. It isn't a problem with the product, nothing's broken. What it means is the value is sitting with a few people, and if one of them moved on, you'd feel it. I'd rather widen it than have it depend on two or three names.
- Andrew SugdenFine. That's fair. What does widening it cost me in time?
- Marcus BellNot much money, it's the seats you already have. It's mainly an hour or so per team, and someone to say this is how we want account managers to work now. Nicola, that's probably you.
- Nicola BrearleyYes. Let's see it from the customer's side. When a customer rings to complain, the account manager should open the brain before they pick up the phone, not after. Collections, tickets, last call, last invoice, all in one place. If I can get that into their routine it sells itself.
- Marcus BellThat's exactly the picture. Can I show you something on that? Give me a second to switch tabs. Here, this is a customer page for one of the business customers, picked at random. You can see the missed collections, the helpdesk tickets and the invoices in one view. Someone who's never opened it can ask in plain English, which round was missed and what did we say to them.
- Nicola BrearleyRight, and that's the bit the account managers keep telling me they can't get from the routing system. They have to ring the depot.
- Imran HussainCan I come in on that? Since last time I changed one thing on the routing connector. We had a duplicate site record for a couple of customers, same address under two customer ids, so the missed collections were splitting across two pages. I merged what I could and I've left the rest, because I can't restore a record if I delete it wrongly.
- Marcus BellThat's helpful, thanks Imran. Does it show now as one record per site?
- Imran HussainFor the ones I've done, yes. There's a longer tail I haven't touched. Which customer id is that, is usually the first question, and sometimes I honestly can't tell which is the right one without asking a depot.
- Nicola BrearleySend me the list, Imran. I'll get the depot managers to tell you which is the live one. Won't take long if I put it in front of them.
- Imran HussainI'll put it in a sheet today. Thanks.
- Marcus BellGood. On connectors, you're running routing, helpdesk and finance, as you know. Growth includes eight connectors, so there's room. Imran, you asked last time how many we've got left.
- Imran HussainI did. And the answer is still plenty, which is useful. I'd like to add the call recorder next, and maybe the CRM, but I'll test each one before we switch it on. I don't want a new source breaking the old ones.
- Marcus BellCompletely agree. Test it in a quiet week, and shout if the first load looks odd. I'd rather you told me early than found it a month later.
- Andrew SugdenSorry, going back a step. If we added another business, say we acquired an operator, would the brain cope with their depots and their systems? I'm not saying we are. I just need to know what it would cost to bring them in, so it's in the plan.
- Marcus BellHonest answer, it depends on what systems they run. If they've got a routing tool and a helpdesk it's a connector each, and Imran's already shown it's doable in a week or so of testing. I'd not want to put a number on it from a call, though. If that ever becomes real, loop me in early and we'll scope it properly.
- Andrew SugdenGood. That's what I wanted. Not a number, just that it's not a re-platform.
- Imran HussainIt isn't. The structure stays, you'd be adding sources. The thing I'd watch is duplicate customer records again, because the same business customer can be in two systems.
- Marcus BellYes, that's the main risk. Right, I want to show you the dashboards builder, because it's in your Growth plan and nobody's built anything yet. Let me find a good example.
- Marcus BellSo this is a blank one. You pick the measure, say missed collections by round, and the period, and it draws it. It's not clever, but it's something the depot managers could look at on a Monday without asking anyone.
- Nicola BrearleyOh, that I like. Missed collections by depot, by round, by week. That's literally the Monday meeting. At the moment someone builds that by hand in a spreadsheet and it's out of date by lunchtime.
- Andrew SugdenAnd the same for repeat complaints per contract? Because that's the margin question. A contract that generates three complaints a month is costing us more than it earns.
- Marcus BellIt should be possible, complaints per customer against what they pay, as long as the invoice data and the tickets line up on the same customer id. Which brings us back to Imran's clean-up, so that's actually a good reason to finish it.
- Imran HussainYes. I'd rather not build the dashboard on top of duplicates. It would look right and be wrong, and that's worse than nothing.
- Nicola BrearleyAgreed. Clean first, then dashboard. Imran, how long for the rest of the sites?
- Imran HussainCouple of weeks, if the depots answer me. I'll tell you if it slips.
- Marcus BellOkay. Let me do support quickly so it's on the record. Nothing raised in the last month, nothing high priority, so there's nothing to review there. If that's because things are working, great. If it's because people aren't sure how to ask, tell me, because I'd always rather hear a small question.
- Imran HussainThere's one thing, not a ticket as such. The nightly refresh, it's always been done by the morning, and I check. It's been fine. I'd say if it were late I'd have raised it.
- Marcus BellGood, and I can see it's been completing on time. Same on my side. So nothing there.
- Andrew SugdenRight. Let me ask the commercial question while I still have time. Lewis, where are we on the contract? I've got it in the plan but I'd like it from you.
- Lewis KerrThanks Andrew. So, to put a number on it, you're on Growth at £39,600 a year, and the invoices match the order form, so there's no mismatch to worry about. The term runs to 10 Apr 2026 and renews on 11 Apr 2026. I'll send you the exact terms in writing today rather than quote from memory, with the VAT position on it.
- Andrew SugdenAnd what happens if we do nothing?
- Lewis KerrMarcus will give you formal notice of the renewal about three months ahead, so you'd hear well before April. Nothing happens by surprise. What I'd say is that I won't be pushing you to add anything. With this many seats unused, it wouldn't be right. The better conversation is how many of the forty you're actually using by then.
- Andrew SugdenI appreciate that. Honestly it's the first time a supplier's told me not to buy more.
- Lewis KerrWell, I'd like you to renew because it's earning its keep, not because of a clause.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich makes my job clear. I need to show Andrew something he can put in the plan. Marcus, can you get me something like missed collections caught early versus customers who rang first? Even rough.
- Marcus BellI can pull what's in there for the helpdesk side and we'll see what's honest. I'd need Imran's clean data for it to mean much. Shall we book half an hour in a few weeks to look at it together, rather than me emailing a chart nobody trusts?
- Nicola BrearleyYes please. And Andrew should be there, even if he only watches.
- Andrew SugdenI'll be there for the first ten minutes. What's the margin on a contract, how many complaints. Bring me those two lines and I'm happy.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. Two lines. Let me read back what I've got. One, Imran finishes the duplicate site clean-up and sends Nicola the list of unclear ones today. Two, Nicola gets her account managers to open the brain before they call back a complaint, and tells me who struggles. Three, I pull the early-warning picture and we meet again in a few weeks, with Andrew for the start.
- Lewis KerrAnd I'll send the contract summary today. Nothing else from me.
- Imran HussainOne more from me. When I add the call recorder, should I tell you before or after I test it?
- Marcus BellBefore, ideally. Drop me a message, and if you want, we'll go through the first load together. Happy to jump on a call.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. I'm going to go and ring the depot about that bin. Thanks all, this was useful, and better than last time because I can see what to do next.
- Andrew SugdenThanks everyone. Send me the summary when it's written.
- Marcus BellWill do. Thanks, all. Speak soon.
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