Brimscombe Energy / BB-Demo – Proposal
Callcompleted
Brimscombe Energy · 2024-10-30 11:15
Proposal call for an Enterprise brain over key accounts, collections and complaints. Siân Pritchard is supportive but will not claim a benefit she cannot measure. Graham Tovey wants the price split in writing.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Proposal call for an Enterprise brain over key accounts, collections and complaints. Siân Pritchard is supportive but will not claim a benefit she cannot measure. Graham Tovey wants the price split in writing.
What happened: Tom Ashdown walked Siân Pritchard and Graham Tovey through scope, sources, implementation and price on 30 Oct 2024. The aim is a signature before the end of the year, with expected close pencilled as Fri 27 Dec 2024.
Customer view: Siân backs the idea but wants every answer traceable to its record and every benefit measured first. Graham wants one-off and annual costs kept apart in writing.
Commercial: the proposal figure is one hundred and forty-five thousand pounds, described as the total deal including implementation, not the subscription alone. Siân asked for the Sandbox and Tom has to confirm what is in the proposal and what is an add-on.
Watch: the billing system is old and thinly understood, and Siân will say if the build pulls her team off complaint deadlines. Graham will not sign without her view.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Enterprise proposal and scope
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Tom Ashdown to send the written proposal with the price split, add-ons and peak-period line within a couple of days.
- Siân Pritchard to send the user list by role and a first list of measures, and pass the security questionnaire to the right person.
- Tom Ashdown to diary a follow-up with Daniel Okafor before the end of November.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The billing system is old and few people understand it, which could slow the connector build.
- Siân will not claim a benefit she cannot measure, so unmeasured value could stall her backing.
- Price confusion between the one-off and annual figures could damage trust if the split is not sent in writing.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Siân asked for the Sandbox, which can be priced as a separate add-on line.
- Three teams (key accounts, collections, complaints) give room to grow use after go-live.
Transcript
Tom Ashdown NoneHello, hello. Can you hear me alright, Siân?
Siân Pritchard NoneLoud and clear, Tom. Morning. Graham's just finishing something off, he said to make a start and he'll drop in.- Tom Ashdown NoneNo drama. How's your week been? Busy, I'd guess, with the clocks about to change and everyone suddenly looking at their heating.
- Siân Pritchard NoneBusy, yes. Complaints always creep up when the weather turns, people see a bill and they ring. The team were asking me this week how much of that they could answer from one place instead of three different screens. Which is rather the point of today.
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt is, it is. And honestly that's the bit I'd keep hold of, because when we get into the paperwork it's easy to lose sight of it.
- Siân Pritchard NoneOne customer, one view. Everything else is detail, for me.
Graham Tovey NoneApologies, I'm here. Tom, Siân. What's the headline?- Tom Ashdown NoneMorning, Graham. Headline is, we've got a proposal for Enterprise, one brain over your key account, collections and complaints data, built and run inside your own Snowflake account. I want to walk you through scope, how we'd get it live, the money, and what I'd need from you to get to a signature before the end of the year.
- Graham Tovey NoneGood. Go on.
- Tom Ashdown NoneRight. So I'll share my screen, bear with me. Can you see the scope page?
- Siân Pritchard NoneWe can. It's a bit small but I can read it.
- Tom Ashdown NoneI'll make it bigger. There. So the way we've framed it is three teams, three sets of questions, one underlying picture. Key accounts want to see a business customer's sites, contracts, calls and bills together. Collections want to know whether a customer who's behind on a bill also has an open complaint, or a dispute about metering, before anybody picks up the phone. And complaints want the full history in front of them, so the answer they write is the answer the regulator would expect.
- Siân Pritchard NoneThat last one matters most to me. If a complaint answer goes out and it's missing something that was said on a call three weeks earlier, that's the sort of thing that comes back to bite us.
- Graham Tovey NoneHow does this hold up with Ofgem?
- Tom Ashdown NoneFair question, and I won't pretend to know your regulatory obligations better than you do. What I can say is that the brain doesn't take your data anywhere. It sits in your Snowflake, your access rules apply, and every answer points back to the record it came from. So if somebody asks how a response was put together, you can show the sources.
- Siân Pritchard NoneThat's what I'd want to test. What does the record say, and can I see it. If the chat says something and I can't trace it, I wouldn't let a complaints handler rely on it.
- Tom Ashdown NoneCompletely. Nobody should. That's built in, and we showed you a bit of it in the demo, but we can go through it again with real complaint cases when we get to the build.
- Graham Tovey NoneWhat does the customer see?
- Tom Ashdown NoneSo, Graham, the customer doesn't see the brain directly. What they see is your people being quicker and more consistent. The account manager who rings them already knows about the open complaint. The collections agent doesn't chase a bill that's under dispute. That's the benefit that lands on them.
- Graham Tovey NoneGood. That's the test I'll apply.
- Siân Pritchard NoneCan I add, Tom, that I'd rather we measured it before we claimed it. I'm happy to say it feels faster. I'm not happy to put it in front of the board until we can show it.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThat's exactly right, and it's easier to do it properly if we agree what we're measuring at the start. I'd suggest we pick a few measures in the first weeks, things like how long a complaint takes to pull together, and we baseline them before the brain is switched on.
- Siân Pritchard NoneYes. That I can do. I'll have a first list.
- Tom Ashdown NoneBrilliant. Let me move on to the sources, because that's where the work is. You told us on earlier calls which systems the three teams live in. We'd connect the CRM, the billing system, the helpdesk, and the call recorder. Anything beyond that is a conversation, and I'd rather get the main four right than try to do everything on day one.
- Siân Pritchard NoneThe billing side will be the hardest. It's old, and the people who really understand it are quite thin on the ground. I should be honest about that now.
- Tom Ashdown NoneI appreciate you saying it. We've been in older billing set-ups before, and it's usually fine as long as there's a named person on your side who can answer questions in the first couple of weeks. It doesn't have to be a lot of their time. It's more that somebody picks up the phone.
- Siân Pritchard NoneI can find that person. Probably a colleague in IT who's been there for years. I'd want to ask him first, mind.
- Graham Tovey NoneSiân, if you need him released for a few hours a week, tell me early, not late.
- Siân Pritchard NoneI will, Graham. Thank you.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThat's really helpful. So, implementation. It's a fixed fee, one-off, and on Enterprise it includes support through your security review. Our team would work to a plan with the connectors in order, and each connector promised in the order form carries a live-within commitment, so you're not left guessing.
- Graham Tovey NoneWhich brings me to the number.
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt does. So the figure on the proposal is one hundred and forty-five thousand pounds, and I want to be careful here because that's the total value of the deal, implementation included. It isn't the annual subscription on its own. I'll confirm the split in writing so there's no ambiguity, because I don't want to be quoting pieces of it from memory on a call.
- Graham Tovey NoneUnderstood. I'd rather see it in writing. What I don't want is to find, a year from now, that the one-off cost and the annual cost were confused in somebody's head.
- Tom Ashdown NoneWhich is why I'll send you a one-page summary that separates them. Subscription annual, in advance, implementation once. No drama, no footnotes.
- Siân Pritchard NoneDoes the hundred and forty-five include anything optional? Because I remember we talked about Premium support and the Sandbox.
- Tom Ashdown NoneGood catch. I'd need to check exactly what's in the version I've drawn up before I say yes or no, and I'd rather do that than guess. Leave that with me. I'll make sure the proposal states clearly what's in and what's an add-on.
- Siân Pritchard NoneThank you. I'd want the Sandbox if it's available. I'd like our people to be able to try things on a copy before they go near live complaint data.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThat makes sense. I'll price it as a clear line so you can decide.
- Graham Tovey NoneIs there any flexibility on the figure?
- Tom Ashdown NoneThere's a bit of room on the first term, Graham, and that's something I'd want to talk through with you once you've seen the full picture rather than throw about on a call. What I'd say is, let's get the scope right first, because moving the scope moves the number more than any discount does.
- Graham Tovey NoneFair. Scope first.
- Siân Pritchard NoneCan I ask about users? We'll have key accounts and collections, and complaints, and a handful of people in data. I don't want to be caught out by a limit.
- Tom Ashdown NoneEnterprise is built for company-wide use, so there's a comfortable ceiling, and if you ever got near it we'd talk about it before it became a problem. I'd rather you told me the real number of people you expect in the first year and I'll check it against what's in the proposal.
- Siân Pritchard NoneLet me count properly. I'll send you a list by role.
- Tom Ashdown NonePerfect. Roles are fine, I don't need names.
- Graham Tovey NoneOn security. Our information security people will have questions. They always do.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThey should. For Enterprise there's a proper security review, and our team supports you through it. What helps most is if your people send the questionnaire early, rather than at the end, because that's what normally slows a signature down. I'm not saying that's a problem here, just that it's the most common reason a date slips.
- Graham Tovey NoneNoted. Siân, can you make sure that goes to the right person this week?
- Siân Pritchard NoneI'll do it today. I know who.
- Tom Ashdown NoneBrilliant. And if it helps, once I've got their questions I can get our team to answer them in one go rather than dribbling answers back over a fortnight.
- Graham Tovey NonePlease do.
- Siân Pritchard NoneTom, can I go back to something? When we did the demo, the data was ours, but it was a slice. What worries me a bit is what happens when it's the whole book. Sixty thousand sites is a lot of records.
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt's a fair worry. The brain runs in your Snowflake, so it scales with what you give it, and the build includes loading the full set and checking it. What I'd suggest is that the first milestone is a proper data check on the full book, with you, so nobody's surprised later.
- Siân Pritchard NoneI like that. A checkpoint where we say, yes, this is our data, and it's right.
- Graham Tovey NoneTell me early, not late, if that checkpoint finds something awkward.
- Tom Ashdown NoneAlways. If there's one thing I try never to do it's give you a surprise on a Friday afternoon.
- Graham Tovey NoneGood.
- Siân Pritchard NoneRight, so, timing. Where does this leave us for the end of the year?
- Tom Ashdown NoneI've pencilled the expected close as Friday 27 December 2024. I know that's a funny date, with everyone half out of the office, so I'd rather we aimed to have the paperwork agreed before then and just sign at the finish. Does that sit alright with you, Graham?
- Graham Tovey NoneIt's workable. I won't sign anything over the holiday period that I haven't had time to read, and I won't sign without Siân's view on it.
- Siân Pritchard NoneAnd I'd want my view to be based on the review and the data check, not on a feeling. So the sequence matters.
- Tom Ashdown NoneSo let's be explicit about the sequence, then. One, I send you the written proposal with the price split and the add-ons clear. Two, your security team gets the questionnaire and we answer in one go. Three, Siân gives me the user list and the first measures. Four, we sit down again, the three of us, before the end of November, and see if there's anything left.
- Graham Tovey NoneThat's a sensible order.
- Siân Pritchard NoneCan we make the fourth step a bit earlier? I don't like leaving things to the last fortnight.
- Tom Ashdown NoneOf course. Let's get something in the diary now rather than rely on memory. I'll send an invite for a date that suits you both and we can move it if we need to.
- Graham Tovey NonePlease. And copy my office.
- Tom Ashdown NoneWill do.
- Siân Pritchard NoneOne more from me, if there's time. After we're live, who do we talk to? Is it you, Tom, or is it somebody else?
- Tom Ashdown NoneOnce you're live, day to day it's Daniel Okafor, who's our customer success manager. He'd run the reviews with you, keep an eye on how the teams are actually using it, and he's the one who'll tell you honestly if something's being underused. I stay on for the commercial side and I'm not going anywhere.
- Siân Pritchard NoneGood. I'd like to meet him before we sign, not after.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThat's easy. I'll bring him to the next call.
- Graham Tovey NoneExcellent. He should hear what we've said about complaints first hand.
- Siân Pritchard NoneOne thing I want on the record. I'm supportive of this, I want to be clear on that. But I'll not claim a benefit I can't measure, and I'll not put the complaint deadlines at risk during the build. So if the build starts pulling my team off their day jobs, I'll say.
- Tom Ashdown NoneAnd that's the right thing to say. We plan the build around your busy periods, not on top of them. If there's a stretch where complaints are heavy, we flex.
- Graham Tovey NoneI'd want that written into the plan.
- Tom Ashdown NoneI'll write it in. A line on how we handle peak periods, and who agrees any change.
- Siân Pritchard NoneThank you.
- Tom Ashdown NoneRight. Is there anything we've skipped? I always think I've forgotten something about thirty seconds after I've put the phone down.
- Siân Pritchard NoneOnly data residency. Everything's in the UK for us, I'd assume that stays true.
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt's your Snowflake account, so the data stays wherever you've put it. I'll say that plainly in the proposal rather than leave it implied.
- Siân Pritchard NonePerfect.
- Graham Tovey NoneThen I think we're in a good place. Tom, send me the written version and I'll read it properly. Siân, you and I will talk after it arrives.
- Siân Pritchard NoneYes. Give me a day or two with it.
- Tom Ashdown NoneI'll aim to get it to you in the next couple of days, with the price split, the add-ons, the peak-period line and the security questionnaire. And an invite for the next call with Daniel on it.
- Graham Tovey NoneThank you both. Good call.
- Siân Pritchard NoneDiolch, Tom. Speak soon.
- Tom Ashdown NoneCheers, both. Have a good rest of the week.
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