Harcastle Environmental / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 5 Mar 2026 12:30
Quarterly review on 5 Mar 2026. Nicola Brearley says she wants to keep Growth, will need sign-off upstairs, and wants any price change in plain words. Usage is up, no tickets, and a mailbox connector is being tested.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Quarterly review on 5 Mar 2026. Nicola Brearley says she wants to keep Growth, will need sign-off upstairs, and wants any price change in plain words. Usage is up, no tickets, and a mailbox connector is being tested.
What happened: Marcus Bell took Nicola Brearley and Imran Hussain through usage, support, connectors and the renewal. Contracted value of £40k matched what was invoiced and nothing was overdue.
Customer view: Nicola described value as faster customer context, early sight of complaints and fewer invoice disputes. She wants to keep the subscription but never commits budget on her own.
Commercial: Renewal falls on 11 Apr 2026 and Lewis owns price and terms. Imran asked about a shared mailbox connector, which Marcus said sits inside the eight Growth connectors, subject to an order form check.
Watch: Imran is the only person who understands how finance credits are coded. The evidence does not show the renewal outcome or the price quoted.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Growth renewal 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- Marcus Bell sends the list of users by name and a connector count email the morning after the call.
- Marcus Bell asks Lewis to get plain-worded renewal paperwork to Nicola well before 11 Apr 2026.
- Imran Hussain tests the shared mailbox on a sample and reports whether to switch it on.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Nicola cannot commit budget alone, so the renewal needs approval upstairs and the paperwork must arrive early.
- Only Imran understands how finance credits are coded, so the finance connector depends on one person.
- Some account managers still use the old spreadsheet, which limits the value the brain shows.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A shared mailbox connector fits within the eight Growth connectors, subject to the order form check.
- Forty licensed users against a handful of daily users leaves headroom, and a session for account managers would deepen adoption.
- Nicola's four value points give a plain-words case for the renewal conversation.
Transcript
Marcus BellHello, hello. Can you both hear me alright?
Nicola BrearleyLoud and clear. Afternoon, Marcus.
Imran HussainAfternoon. Give me a second, my camera's being awkward. There. Is that better?- Marcus BellPerfect. Thanks both for making time over lunch, I know it's a squeeze.
- Nicola BrearleyIt's the only gap I've got today, so you're welcome. Can I start with the worst of my week? It's still bugging me.
- Marcus BellGo on.
- Nicola BrearleyA big site had bins missed twice in the same fortnight. Different crews, same street. First thing I asked was which depot, which round, and it took half the morning to get a straight answer out of anyone.
- Imran HussainThat's the round data, though. It's not the brain. The routing export had the crew swap in it, I checked afterwards.
- Nicola BrearleyNo, I know, and that's actually my point. Once I put the customer's name into the brain, I had the collections, the complaint and the last invoice on one page. The account manager rang them before they rang us. Ten minutes, rather than the half day it used to be.
- Marcus BellThat's exactly what I'd hoped to hear. Is it okay if I share my screen and walk through what I've pulled together? I want to cover usage, support, connectors, and then the renewal, so we're not rushing the last bit.
- Nicola BrearleyPlease. Lists of three, I like it.
- Marcus BellRight, you should see it now. Let me know if the text is too small. So, the headline first. You're on Growth, you've got forty licensed users, and the contracted figure is thirty-nine thousand six hundred a year. That's £39,600, and it matches what's been invoiced.
- Nicola BrearleyGood. Finance will be pleased that someone else has checked it.
- Marcus BellAnd nothing's overdue on the accounts side, so thank you for that. I'll move on. Usage. Over the last thirty days, a bit over seven people a day are in there on average. And that's up by about a fifth against the quarter before.
- Imran HussainIs that daily active, or anyone who logged in at all in the month?
- Marcus BellDaily average, so the month total of different people is higher than that. I can send you the list by name if you want it. I'd rather not guess in front of you.
- Imran HussainYes please. I'd like to see who's in and who isn't. Some of the account managers are probably still using the old spreadsheet out of habit.
- Nicola BrearleySome of them definitely are. I know exactly who, as well. Let's see it from the customer's side: if one account manager has the brain and the next desk has a spreadsheet, the customer gets two different answers.
- Marcus BellThat's the pattern I see on other accounts too, honestly. Forty licensed and a handful in daily means there's a lot of room before you'd ever need to think about more seats. So it's headroom, rather than a worry.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich is a polite way of saying I need to get my team in there.
- Marcus BellHa, I wasn't going to say it. But yes, happy to help with that. Shall we come back to it at the end?
- Nicola BrearleyYes. Park it.
- Marcus BellOkay. Support next. This one's short. No tickets in the last thirty days, none at all. So nothing high priority, nothing waiting.
- Imran HussainThat's about right. Nothing's broken since the last time we spoke. I'd say it's been quiet, in a good way.
- Marcus BellIt's worth saying, though, because quiet can mean two things. On a lot of accounts I'd read no tickets alongside falling usage and start asking questions. Here, usage is going the other way, so I read it as things just working.
- Nicola BrearleyGood, that's how I read it as well. What's the fix and who owns it, that's my test, and at the moment the answer is nobody needs to fix anything.
- Marcus BellFair. Imran, you usually open with what you've changed since last time. Did I steal your slot?
- Imran HussainYou did, but that's fine. So, yes, two things. I tidied up the duplicate customer records on the routing side. Some sites had two entries, one under the old trading name and one under the new. I merged them, and I kept a copy of what I merged, in case anything needed restoring.
- Marcus BellThat'll help with the brain's answers, won't it? One customer, one record, otherwise you get half the collections on one and half on the other.
- Imran HussainExactly. I ran the routing connector again after the merge and I tested a handful of customers by hand before I told Nicola's team. A couple of them looked odd at first, and that was the old name coming through, so I fixed those.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich I noticed, by the way. Two customers I'd been chasing suddenly made sense. I thought, somebody's done something good.
- Imran HussainThat was me. And the second thing is smaller. I've gone through the helpdesk connector and tightened which fields it pulls. It was loading a lot of fields nobody looks at.
- Marcus BellDid that change how quickly it loads?
- Imran HussainA bit. The nightly refresh finishes earlier than it did. I wouldn't want to overstate it, though, I've only watched it for a couple of weeks.
- Marcus BellThat's sensible. Honest numbers are better. Can I ask about connectors while we're on it? On the screen, you've got routing, helpdesk, finance and the call recorder running, and they're all loading cleanly. Records are still coming in on each one.
- Imran HussainRight. And my question is the usual one: how many connectors have we got left under Growth? I've got a source in mind, but I'd test it before we switch it on.
- Marcus BellGrowth gives you eight in total, and you're well short of that. I'll confirm the exact number in an email so it's in writing rather than from memory. Which source were you thinking of?
- Imran HussainThe shared inbox the customer service team uses for collection queries. At the moment those emails sit outside everything, and Nicola's team can't see them next to the tickets.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich is the thing I keep moaning about. Someone emails to say the bin wasn't collected, and it never makes it into the helpdesk. It's lists of three problems and that's the biggest one.
- Marcus BellThat sounds like a good use of a connector. Let me check whether your mail setup is one we connect to directly. If it's Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, it's a standard one. I'll come back to you on that rather than guess.
- Imran HussainIt's Microsoft 365. I can pull together what I'd need to give access to, and I'd only allow the one shared mailbox.
- Marcus BellGreat, that's the sort of scoping that makes security teams relax. Send me what you've got and I'll pass it to our side so we can look at it together.
- Nicola BrearleyWhile you're at it, can we talk about what the brain does with those emails? If someone emails twice about the same bin, I don't want two complaints sitting there looking like two problems.
- Imran HussainThat's down to how I match them to the customer record. Which customer id is that, in the end? If the email address maps to a site, fine. If not, it'll be an orphan.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich will be about a third of them, knowing our customers. They write from personal addresses.
- Imran HussainThen I'd rather start by testing it on a sample and see how many land. If it's too messy, I won't switch it on, I'll tell you why.
- Marcus BellThat's the right way round, I think. Test first, then decide. And no hurry on my side.
- Nicola BrearleySlight hurry on mine, but fine. Do the test.
- Marcus BellHa. Okay. Can I bring us onto value for a minute, because that's what a review is meant to be about, and I don't want to only talk about plumbing.
- Nicola BrearleyGo on, I'll tell you what it's worth to me.
- Marcus BellPlease do.
- Nicola BrearleyThree things. One, the account managers don't spend the first part of every customer call hunting through four systems. Two, I can see a complaint building before it's a cancellation threat. Three, when a customer disputes an invoice, we can see the collection history next to the invoice, and half the time the argument just stops.
- Marcus BellThat's useful. Do you mind if I write that down as it is? I'd like to use your wording, not mine.
- Nicola BrearleyUse it. And contracts that stay profitable, put that in as the fourth one. If we're giving credits for missed collections, I want to know before the month ends, not after.
- Imran HussainThat's one for the finance connector, really. The credits are in there, but they're coded in a way only I understand. I could document it better.
- Nicola BrearleyYes. Document it. Then somebody other than you can answer a question about it. No offence.
- Imran HussainNone taken. It's a fair point. If I'm off for a week, nobody can read it.
- Marcus BellThat's a good thing to sort anyway. Could I suggest we put it on the list, and I'll send you a short note on how the finance data shows up in the brain, so you've got something to build from?
- Imran HussainYes please. Short is good.
- Marcus BellShort it is. Right, the renewal, because the date's getting closer. You signed up on 11 April 2025, and the current term runs to 10 April 2026, with the renewal falling on 11 April 2026. So we're about five weeks out.
- Nicola BrearleyAlready? It's gone so quickly. A year in April.
- Marcus BellIt does. So what happens next is Lewis, who looks after the commercial side of your account, will get in touch with the renewal paperwork and the terms. Price and terms are his, I'd only get them wrong. My job is to make sure you've got the usage picture and that you're getting the value.
- Nicola BrearleyFine. I'll say now, from my side, I want to keep it. I'm not hunting for reasons not to. But I never commit budget on my own, so it'll need to go upstairs, and I'd like to see the paperwork with a decent amount of time.
- Marcus BellUnderstood, and that's what I'll flag to Lewis. I'll ask him to get it to you well before the date, so there's no scramble in the last week.
- Nicola BrearleyPlease. And if there's any change to what we pay, I want it explained in plain words, not a table with footnotes.
- Marcus BellI'll pass that on word for word. I can't speak for what it will say, but I'll make sure he knows you want it plain.
- Imran HussainCan I ask something on the practical side? If we add the mailbox connector before the renewal, does that change anything contractually, or is it all within what we've got?
- Marcus BellWithin Growth, one more connector is inside what you've got. I'd still like to check against the order form so I'm not answering from memory. I'll put it in the same email as the connector count.
- Imran HussainGood. I'd rather know before I build anything.
- Nicola BrearleyRight, go back to my team. What would you do, Marcus, if you were me? Get them all in at once, or one at a time?
- Marcus BellOne group at a time, I think. Pick the account managers whose customers complain the most, and show them the one page, the collections, the complaints and the invoices. That's the bit that sells itself. Then Imran's list of who's in and who isn't tells you where to go next.
- Nicola BrearleyI can do that. I'll take the top handful and sit with them next week. Imran, can you get me that list by Monday?
- Imran HussainMarcus is sending it. If I get it from him, yes.
- Marcus BellI'll send it tomorrow morning, so you've got it with time to spare. And if it's useful, I'm happy to jump on a call with the account managers, thirty minutes, show them how to ask the questions.
- Nicola BrearleyYes. Do that. They'll listen to you more than to me.
- Marcus BellI doubt that, but I'll take it. Let me recap so we're all clear. I send Imran and Nicola the list of who's using it, plus an email confirming the connector count and whether the mailbox fits within the order form. Imran tests the shared mailbox on a sample and tells us whether it's worth switching on. Nicola takes the first group of account managers through the one page. And I speak to Lewis so the renewal paperwork reaches you in good time.
- Imran HussainAnd I'll write up the finance credits so someone else can read them.
- Marcus BellYes, thank you, and I'll send that short note on the finance data first. Anything I've missed?
- Nicola BrearleyNo, I think that's it. That was a good one, Marcus, thank you. Right, I've got a customer call at one, so I'm off.
- Imran HussainThanks both. Speak soon.
- Marcus BellThanks, both. Have a good afternoon. Bye for now.
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