Calderbrook Housing Group / BB-Demo – Qbr
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group: documents · 2026-08-03 15:30
On the 3 Aug 2026 QBR, Helen Marsden said the contract is unlikely to renew because her executive team is moving reporting to an in-house platform. Double-counted repairs jobs eroded trust and usage.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26On the 3 Aug 2026 QBR, Helen Marsden said the contract is unlikely to renew because her executive team is moving reporting to an in-house platform. Double-counted repairs jobs eroded trust and usage.
What happened: Amara Obi opened the Growth QBR with usage at just over two daily users against forty licensed, down by nearly half on the previous quarter. Helen Marsden, Head of Business Intelligence, said the executive team has asked IT to move reporting onto an in-house platform.
Customer view: Paul Rigby, Repairs Data Analyst, traced the double-counting to the source system after its upgrade. Housing officers stopped trusting the numbers, and Paul stopped raising tickets because nobody could change the source.
Commercial: Helen called renewal unlikely and said the decision is now about cost and one platform. The £44,000 is fixed for the term, and Paul asked whether the cost of unused licences could be cut.
Watch: The brain is still the only place that joins tenant calls and complaints to arrears. Helen wants the section four reconciliation and a confirmed data export and handover regardless.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Likely non-renewal, in-house platform
Importance
churn
Sentiment
negative
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Paul Rigby sends Amara Obi the duplicates extract and the board-pack figure so the section four lineage can be traced and written up.
- Amara Obi books a Thursday call with the implementation consultant to confirm data export, dashboard documentation and handover, including saved searches.
- Amara Obi takes Paul's licence cost question back and answers it plainly, given the £44,000 is fixed for the term.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Helen says the renewal is unlikely because the budget line is going to the in-house platform.
- Double-counted repairs jobs from the source system have cost the brain the trust of housing officers and driven usage down.
- Paul stopped raising tickets, so the account is quiet rather than healthy.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- The brain is still the only place that joins tenant calls and complaints to arrears, which the in-house version does not yet do.
- A dedupe rule for rebooked jobs and a written lineage for section four could restore credibility with the board.
Transcript
Amara Obi NoneHello, can you hear me all right? I think I've got the mute button the right way round this time. Hi Helen, hi Paul.
Helen Marsden NoneHello Amara, yes, loud and clear.
Paul Rigby NoneAye, hi. Can hear you fine.- Amara Obi NoneBrilliant. Afternoon, both. Thanks for making the time, I know it's the tail end of the day. How's the weather up in Leeds? It's absolutely tipping it down here.
- Paul Rigby NoneSame. Been raining since breakfast. Nowt unusual.
- Amara Obi NoneHa, fair enough. Right, let me introduce myself properly, because we've only swapped a couple of emails so far. I'm Amara, I look after customer success at BB-Demo, and I've picked up Calderbrook fairly recently. So I'll be honest, I'm still getting my head round the history, and I'd rather you told me where things really stand than have me pretend I know it all.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's appreciated. It's been a few different faces on your side, so we're used to starting again.
- Amara Obi NoneYeah, and that's on us, not you. So this is the quarterly review. I'll walk through the usage numbers, we'll talk about what's working and what isn't, and then look ahead to the renewal. But first, what does good look like for you this quarter? What would make this hour worth your while?
- Helen Marsden NoneCan I start with the thing I'm chasing? It's the one I keep coming back to. The rent arrears figure in section four of the board pack doesn't reconcile with what the brain gave us. The board will ask, and I can't tell them which one is right.
- Amara Obi NoneOkay. Good, put that on the table. Is that a difference you've seen recently or has it been there a while?
- Helen Marsden NoneA while. Since the housing management system was upgraded. Paul can speak to it better than me.
- Paul Rigby NoneIt's the repairs jobs. Since the upgrade, the system counts a job twice when it's rebooked. Double-counted again, every week. That feeds the repairs side, and it knocks on into the cost per home that goes in the pack.
- Amara Obi NoneRight. And is that the source system doing it, or is it something the brain's doing on the way in?
- Paul Rigby NoneSource. I can see it in the extract before it gets anywhere near the brain. But the brain reports it, so the brain gets the blame.
- Helen Marsden NoneAnd I'll say, I've not been able to show the board the source. Can you show me the source? That's the question I get asked.
- Amara Obi NoneThat's fair, and we can look at lineage on that. Hold that thought, I'll come back to it, because I think it ties into what I want to show you. Let me share my screen. Can you see the usage page?
- Paul Rigby NoneYep, got it.
- Amara Obi NoneSo here's what the numbers say. You're on Growth, 40 licensed users, at £44,000 a year, and that's what's been invoiced, no overdue invoices, nothing odd on the finance side. The part I'm not happy with is the users. Over the last thirty days we're averaging just over two people a day actually using it. Against forty licensed.
- Helen Marsden NoneMm.
- Amara Obi NoneAnd compared with the previous quarter that's down by nearly half. Questions asked into the brain have dropped in step. So it's not that two people are asking twice as much. It's that fewer people are asking at all.
- Paul Rigby NoneThat'll be about right. It's me, mostly, and Helen now and then.
- Amara Obi NoneThat's what I assumed. Can I ask, who else should have access? There's the repairs team, there were housing officers on the original rollout, the arrears team. Have they dropped off, or did they never really come on?
- Helen Marsden NoneSome came on, at the start. The housing officers used the tenant call summaries for a few months. Then the double-counting started, the numbers they were quoting in meetings were wrong, and they stopped trusting it. I'm not going to dress that up.
- Amara Obi NoneNo, I'd rather you didn't. And that's useful, thank you. So the trust went first, and then the usage followed.
- Helen Marsden NoneYes. And then there's the other thing, which I should be straight about, because you'll see it in the numbers anyway.
- Amara Obi NoneGo on.
- Helen Marsden NoneOur executive team has asked IT to move reporting onto an in-house platform. Built on our own data estate. It's been going on a few months. I'll say, plainly, that wasn't my plan. I put the brain forward, I argued for it. But the decision came from above me and it's been made.
- Amara Obi NoneOkay. Thank you for saying it straight. I appreciate that can't have been a comfortable thing to say.
- Helen Marsden NoneIt's not. But it's better you hear it from me.
- Paul Rigby NoneWe've been asked to move the repairs reports across first. That's why I'm in there less.
- Amara Obi NoneThat makes sense of the chart, honestly. So the dip is partly the double-counting, and partly your reporting moving elsewhere. Is that fair?
- Paul Rigby NoneFair.
- Helen Marsden NoneFair, yes. Though I'd add that the brain is still the only place that joins the tenant calls and the complaints to the arrears. The in-house version doesn't do that yet. Nobody's pretending it does.
- Amara Obi NoneThat's worth knowing. Can I dig into that a bit? Because that's the part I'd call the value, and I'd like to be sure I'm describing it the way you would. What's the question you'd still ask the brain that you can't ask anywhere else?
- Helen Marsden NoneWhich tenants with arrears have also complained about a repair and had a call logged in the last quarter. That's the pattern the board cares about. Housing officers can see pieces of it. Nobody could see it together until we had this.
- Paul Rigby NoneDashboards are the same. The one I built for repairs turnaround, I check it before the morning stand-up. When it's right it's the best thing we've got.
- Amara Obi NoneAnd when it's wrong?
- Paul Rigby NoneI check it against my spreadsheet, and then I don't bother.
- Amara Obi NoneHa. Okay. That tells me something. Right, can I be a bit blunt back? I don't see any tickets from you in the last thirty days. Not one. Normally with a double-count problem I'd expect noise. Did you stop raising them?
- Paul Rigby NoneI raised a pile earlier in the year. Job refs attached, screenshots, the lot. Any update on this, I kept asking. In the end I stopped because it's the source system, and nobody on your side could change that.
- Amara Obi NoneThat's a fair read, and I'd rather you'd kept shouting than gone quiet. A quiet account worries me more than a loud one. So there's something we can do, even if we can't fix their system. We can add a rule on our side that dedupes rebooked jobs before they hit the dashboards, and flags it so it's visible. Would that have been enough?
- Paul Rigby NoneIt'd have helped. A year ago.
- Amara Obi NoneUnderstood. I'm not going to argue with that.
- Helen Marsden NoneI do want that reconciliation done regardless, Amara. Even if we move. The board pack for this quarter still has section four in it, and I need to be able to say the figure is right and where it came from.
- Amara Obi NoneAgreed. Let's make that a proper action, not a nice idea. Paul, if you can send me the extract showing the duplicates, and the board-pack figure Helen's comparing it with, I'll get someone to trace it end to end and write up the lineage. Something Helen can put in front of the board.
- Paul Rigby NoneI can do that tomorrow.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you. Show me the source, and the figures, and I'll be happy.
- Amara Obi NoneDone. Now, I do have to talk about the renewal, and I'd rather do it now than send you a notice and surprise you. The contract runs to the start of September. Our usual practice is the renewal conversation well ahead of that. I won't pretend I've got a clever pitch. What's your honest sense of where it's heading?
- Helen Marsden NoneHonestly? I think it's unlikely to renew. I'm not the one signing it, and I haven't been told in so many words, but the direction is clear. Our director has said the budget line goes to the in-house platform.
- Amara Obi NoneOkay. I appreciate it. Can I ask one thing, and then I'll leave it? If we showed a clean, reconciled view of the arrears and repairs picture, and the numbers held, would that change the conversation, or is the decision already beyond that?
- Helen Marsden NoneIt's beyond it, I think. If you'd asked me in the spring, yes. Now it's about cost and about having one platform. I'd be misleading you if I said otherwise.
- Amara Obi NoneNo, that's helpful, and I'd rather plan properly than chase a maybe. So let's work on what we'd need if it does end. You'll want your data safe, your dashboards documented, and a tidy hand-over to whoever's building the replacement. Is that right?
- Paul Rigby NoneAye. I'd want my dashboards written down so I can rebuild them. And what the brain actually does with the calls and the complaints.
- Helen Marsden NoneAnd I'd want to know what we keep. Because it runs in our own Snowflake, so I assume the tables are ours regardless. But I want that confirmed, not assumed.
- Amara Obi NoneGood instinct, and yes, I'm fairly confident, but I'll have our implementation consultant, Laura, confirm it in detail rather than me waving my hands. She knows how it's built. Can we put a short call in the diary later this week, specifically for that? Thursday, say, around lunchtime?
- Helen Marsden NoneThursday works for me.
- Paul Rigby NoneSame. Not before quarter past twelve, though, I've got the stand-up overrunning.
- Amara Obi NoneQuarter past twelve it is. I'll send the invite after this. Let's get that one in the diary, and I'll ask Laura to bring a list of what can be exported and how.
- Helen Marsden NoneOne more thing, Amara. When we leave, can I ask that the people who've been using it, the housing officers, don't lose their saved searches without warning? They'll ask me and I'd like to have an answer.
- Amara Obi NoneYes. I'll make sure that's on Laura's list. Nobody should be surprised.
- Paul Rigby NoneCan I ask about licences? We've got forty. If we're only using two, is there anything on your side that, I dunno, cuts the cost for the last bit?
- Amara Obi NoneFair question. The order form is the order form, so the £44,000 is fixed for the term, and I can't change that on this call. What I can do is take your question back and see whether anything is possible, and tell you straight if the answer's no. I won't promise something I can't deliver.
- Paul Rigby NoneFair enough.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's all I wanted for today. I'm glad we've been plain with each other.
- Amara Obi NoneMe too. So, to recap. Paul sends me the duplicates extract and the board-pack figure tomorrow. I get the lineage traced for section four and back to Helen. I send the invite for Thursday with Laura, to cover the data export and handover. And I check the licence question and come back to you. Anything I've missed?
- Helen Marsden NoneNo, that's it.
- Amara Obi NoneLovely. Thanks, both. Speak Thursday.
- Paul Rigby NoneCheers.
- Helen Marsden NoneKind regards, both. Bye.
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