Brimscombe Energy / BG-Demo – Check In
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Brimscombe Energy · 20 Feb 2026 13:30
Siân Pritchard reported a healthy account with strong examples of use. She flagged key-person risk in who asks questions and floated, without commitment, extending the brain to the billing operations team.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Siân Pritchard reported a healthy account with strong examples of use. She flagged key-person risk in who asks questions and floated, without commitment, extending the brain to the billing operations team.
What happened: Siân gave examples of complaints and collections questions answered in minutes with sources listed. Daniel said around fifty people are active on a typical day against 180 licensed.
Customer view: Siân said a few heavy users ask a great deal and the numbers would look very different if they moved on. She wants an honest answer ready when Graham asks about licence use.
Commercial: Siân would sponsor the billing operations team idea but it is not hers to fund, and she asked for nothing today. Daniel confirmed the term to 9 Jan 2027 and said pricing would come from Tom in writing.
Watch: Concentrated use of the brain among a few people is the risk to the value case. She also wants to speak about the brain at an industry event.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Usage, value case, billing team
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor sends Siân Pritchard the monthly usage view and who is in it by the end of next week.
- Siân comes back with slots for a hands-on session, avoiding month end.
- Daniel and Tom Ashdown pencil in the renewal conversation for the autumn.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A small group of heavy users asks a large share of questions, a key-person risk.
- Graham may question licence use against the daily active figure at renewal.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Bringing the billing operations team into the brain, which Siân would sponsor once a case is shown.
- Hands-on sessions with collections and complaints to widen use beyond the heavy users.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Siân, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Siân PritchardAfternoon, Daniel. Yes, loud and clear. Can you hear me? I've got the headset on today, the room next door is being used for something noisy.- Daniel OkaforPerfectly clear. Thank you for making the time, I know Fridays get squeezed. Is it just the two of us today, or is anyone else joining?
- Siân PritchardJust us. I did ask a couple of the team to dial in, but they're deep in a complaints backlog, so I said I'd report back.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fine, that's what I'm here for. How's the week been? You had the regulator's visit on your mind last time we spoke, if I'm remembering right.
- Siân PritchardHa, you do remember. That's moved on, thank you. It was a request for information rather than a visit, and we got the answers back on time. Which, to be honest, is partly why I wanted to start with what the teams asked the brain this week.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do. I always like hearing it from the people using it.
- Siân PritchardSo the complaints team asked it to pull together everything we hold on one of our larger corporate customers: the sites, the contract terms, the calls with the account manager, the last few bills. Before, that was four systems and somebody's afternoon. They had a single answer in a couple of minutes, with the sources listed underneath, which is what I care about. One customer, one view.
- Daniel OkaforMm. And the sources underneath matter for the regulator side, presumably, because you can show where an answer came from.
- Siân PritchardExactly. When a complaint response goes out, I want to be able to say what the record says and point to it. And the collections team asked something similar on Wednesday, about a business that had disputed an invoice and then gone quiet. They wanted to know whether anyone had spoken to them since, and the brain found a call note that nobody had linked to the account.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a lovely example, the call note nobody had linked. That's the sort of thing the brain is there for. How is the team finding it overall? Not just the champions, the everyday users.
- Siân PritchardMixed in the best sense. The key-account people use it constantly now. Collections are getting there. Complaints are the ones who needed convincing, because they've got deadlines they can't miss, so they don't trust anything until it's proved itself twice.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is sensible, frankly. Can I share a couple of things from our side, just so we're looking at the same picture? I've got the usage summary open.
- Siân PritchardGo on.
- Daniel OkaforSo over the last month, you've got around fifty people active on a typical day, and that's up on the previous quarter. Not dramatically, but it's moving the right way. And you're licensed for one hundred and eighty.
- Siân PritchardRight. So we're using roughly a quarter or so of the licences on an average day.
- Daniel OkaforRoughly, yes. And I'd say that carefully, because daily activity isn't the same as who has used it at all in a month. A lot of people dip in weekly. I can get you that other cut if it helps.
- Siân PritchardIt would, because that's the question I'll get asked. Graham will look at the licence count and look at the daily figure and ask me why we're not using what we've bought. And I'd rather have the honest answer ready than a defensive one.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. I'll come back to you with that, the monthly view and who's in it, by the end of next week.
- Siân PritchardThank you. Let's measure it before we claim it, that's all I'm asking.
- Daniel OkaforAgreed. Now, on the support side, there's very little to say, which I'll take as good news. Nothing raised with us in the last month. No high priority anything. Does that match your experience, or has the team been quietly grumbling somewhere else?
- Siân PritchardHa. No, I think it matches. The nightly refresh has been in before the teams start, every morning I've checked, and nobody's come to me with a stale answer. If they had, I'd have told you.
- Daniel OkaforI'd like to think so. And on the finance side, invoices are all up to date, nothing outstanding, and what's being invoiced matches the order form. That's one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred a year, so £120,500, just to close the loop.
- Siân PritchardYes, that's what I have as well. I don't deal with the payment side directly, but nobody's flagged anything to me.
- Daniel OkaforGood. So that's the housekeeping. I'd like to spend the rest of the time on where the value is, and where it could go, if that suits you.
- Siân PritchardThat suits me very well.
- Daniel OkaforTell me about the people asking the questions. When I look at the usage, a good share of the questions come from a small group. Is that how it looks from where you sit?
- Siân PritchardIt is, and it's something I've been uneasy about. The key-account managers and two or three people in my own team ask a great deal. Then there's a long tail who ask now and then. If a few of those heavy users moved on or changed roles, the numbers would look very different.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a fair thing to be uneasy about, and I'd rather we talked about it now. One thing that tends to work is a short, practical session for the teams in the tail, built around their own questions rather than a general tour. Collections might be a good place to start, given what you said about them getting there.
- Siân PritchardI like that. Collections and complaints both. If it's about a real case they're dealing with that week, they'll turn up. If it's a presentation, they won't.
- Daniel OkaforThen we do it with real cases. I can run it, or one of my colleagues can. You tell me when suits the teams, because I don't want to guess your calendar.
- Siân PritchardGive me a few days to ask them. I'll come back to you with a couple of slots. The month end is difficult for collections, so not then.
- Daniel OkaforNoted, nothing around month end. Now, the other thing I wanted to ask is about the dashboards. You've got the builder as part of Enterprise, and I can see a handful have been created, but I don't know whether anyone's relying on them.
- Siân PritchardA few. I built the first ones myself, mainly for the complaints volumes by category, so I could show the leadership team a trend without hand-typing a spreadsheet. Two of the key-account leads have made their own, which pleased me, because I didn't ask them to.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good sign, people building things unprompted. It usually means they trust the underlying data.
- Siân PritchardMm, or they're bored of waiting for me. Either way.
- Daniel OkaforHa, well, either way. And is there anything you'd like it to do that it doesn't do today? New sources, a team that's not connected, anything like that?
- Siân PritchardYes, and I'll be straight with you, it's not fully formed. There's a conversation going on about whether the billing operations team should be working from the same facts as everyone else. At the moment they're not really in the picture. If they were, a lot of the complaints that start as billing disputes could be answered at the first touch.
- Daniel OkaforThat makes sense. Who would sit behind that on your side? Is that something you'd sponsor, or is it for someone else to decide?
- Siân PritchardI'd sponsor it, but it's not mine to fund. I'd need to show it's worth it first, and I'd take that through the proper channels, I'm not going to spring anything on anyone. So I'm not asking you for anything today. I just wanted you to hear it from me early.
- Daniel OkaforI appreciate that, truly. For what it's worth, from my side, there's no need to decide anything quickly. When you're ready, we can look at what it would involve: which systems the billing team work in, whether they're already connected, and what it would mean for users. We'd do that properly rather than guess.
- Siân PritchardGood. And I'd want a simple measure going in. Something like how long a billing-related complaint takes to answer now, so we can see afterwards whether it changed.
- Daniel OkaforI'd welcome that. It's far better than me telling you it'll be faster. If you can pull the current picture from your side, I can help make sure the brain is able to report the same thing afterwards.
- Siân PritchardI'll sort out the baseline. It's the sort of thing I should have done a year ago, to be honest.
- Daniel OkaforEveryone says that. Right, can I touch on the contract, since it's coming up? Not to open a negotiation, just so there are no surprises.
- Siân PritchardPlease.
- Daniel OkaforYou joined us on 10 Jan 2025, and the current term runs to 9 Jan 2027, with the renewal falling on 10 Jan 2027. That feels a long way off in February, but the sensible time to talk is the autumn, well ahead, so you've got room to do your own internal thinking.
- Siân PritchardRight. That's the one I need to plan around, because my budget conversations happen earlier than people expect. Who's going to speak to us about it? You, or Tom?
- Daniel OkaforI'll lead the renewal conversation as your CSM, and Tom Ashdown looks after the commercial terms as account owner, so you'll hear from both of us. I'd just ask that when we get there, we have your value case in hand, which is where the baseline and the usage cut come in.
- Siân PritchardThat's fair. I'd rather build it now, slowly, than do it in a panic in December. And I won't claim anything I can't back up. If the evidence is that collections hardly use it, I'd rather know and fix it.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is exactly the right way round. And I'd say the same from our side. If a team isn't getting value, I'd rather hear it from you in a check-in than discover it in the numbers.
- Siân PritchardUnderstood. Anything on pricing you'd like me to know about now?
- Daniel OkaforNot today, no, and I won't guess at it. That belongs with Tom and it'll be in writing, properly, when we get to it. What I can promise is that you won't hear the number for the first time on a call.
- Siân PritchardFine. That's all I'd ask.
- Daniel OkaforIs there anything about how the brain behaves that's been nagging at you? Slow answers, odd results, a source that looks incomplete?
- Siân PritchardOne small thing. Occasionally an answer cites a call that, when I open it, is a very short one, a voicemail or a dropped line, and it's not obviously useful. It's not wrong, exactly. It just adds noise.
- Daniel OkaforThat's useful to know. Do you remember roughly when you saw it, or which team's question it was?
- Siân PritchardComplaints, earlier this month. I can forward the question if that helps. I didn't want to raise a ticket for something so minor.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do forward it, and raise a ticket as well if you're happy to. Small things are exactly what I'd like to see, because they're often the early signs of something we could tune. I'll look at it and come back to you.
- Siân PritchardI'll send it across this afternoon.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. Anything else on your list?
- Siân PritchardOne more, and it's more about me than the product. I've been asked to speak about the brain at an industry event later in the year. I'd like to talk about it honestly, with what we've measured. Would you be comfortable with me sharing the kind of examples I gave you today?
- Daniel OkaforI'd be delighted, and thank you for asking. It's your data and your story. I'd only suggest we look over anything with customer detail in it together beforehand, mostly to protect you.
- Siân PritchardOf course. Nothing identifiable, ever. It'd be the shape of the work, not the customers.
- Daniel OkaforPerfect. Right, let me read back what we've agreed, just to close the loop. I'll send you the monthly usage view, who's in it, by the end of next week. You'll come back with a couple of slots for a hands-on session with collections and complaints, away from month end. You'll forward that example with the short calls and I'll look into it. And you'll start on that baseline for billing-related complaints, with no commitment either way.
- Siân PritchardAnd you'll pencil in the renewal conversation for the autumn, with Tom.
- Daniel OkaforI will. I'll suggest a time nearer the date, so it's not something that sits in a diary for months and gets forgotten.
- Siân PritchardGood. I think that's everything from me. Nothing alarming, which is how I like a check-in.
- Daniel OkaforNor from me. It's a healthy account, and you've got the right questions in front of you. Thank you again for your time, Siân, and say hello to the team for me.
- Siân PritchardI will. Speak soon, Daniel. Diolch.
- Daniel OkaforBest wishes, Siân. Bye for now.
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