Ardcarne Life Assurance / BB-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Ardcarne Life Assurance: documents · 2026-05-26 15:15
Niamh Costello, Chief Data Officer, liked the demo on her own broker data and wants a pilot group first. She wants a written timeline and the annual versus one-off split, and the security review still has open findings.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Niamh Costello, Chief Data Officer, liked the demo on her own broker data and wants a pilot group first. She wants a written timeline and the annual versus one-off split, and the security review still has open findings.
What happened: Matteo Ricci and Theo Gallagher showed the brain on a sample extract built around one broker firm. Niamh called the screen of one ticket and one distribution call together the whole case.
Customer view: She wants a pilot of a handful of relationship managers, a handful of service agents and her own data office. She will not override the security reviewer and accepts more time if needed.
Commercial: The proposal is £155,000 as total deal value, not an annual figure, including implementation. The split is owed in writing, and the security review may bring in the EU residency add-on and change the order form.
Watch: No start date is agreed with engineering and she wants it in writing before 30 Jun 2026. Service may need fresher data than the nightly refresh by 07:00. The evidence does not show whether the decision was made.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Enterprise demo and pilot
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Matteo Ricci to confirm the start date, milestones and annual versus one-off split in writing.
- Theo Gallagher to send written security answers with evidence and the demo recording.
- Niamh Costello to send broker firms for the next round and the service view on freshness.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- No implementation start date is agreed with engineering, and she wants a written timeline before 30 Jun 2026.
- Open security review findings could add the EU residency add-on and change the order form.
- Service teams may need fresher data than the nightly refresh by 07:00.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Enterprise subscription with a pilot in distribution and customer service, then wider rollout.
- Dashboards builder and training for her own team as a sign of ownership.
Transcript
Niamh Costello NoneHello, hello. Am I the first one here?
Matteo Ricci NoneBuon pomeriggio, Niamh. Just me so far, Theo is a minute behind. How has your week been?- Niamh Costello NoneBusy, as always. Papers for the board, and a lot of people wanting an answer by Friday. But I'm glad this is in the diary, because it's the one I've been looking forward to.
Theo Gallagher NoneSorry, sorry, my last call ran over. Good afternoon both. Can you hear me?- Matteo Ricci NonePerfectly, no problem at all. Let me restate where we are so we have the same picture. We are at the demo stage. Niamh's team has given us a sample extract so that Theo can show the brain on your own data. The decision timeline we agreed is a decision by the end of June, Tuesday 30 June 2026. And the security review with Declan is running alongside, with the first session held last week.
- Niamh Costello NoneRight. And may I start with the outcome, then the plan? What I want is for broker distribution and customer service to look at the same broker firm and see the same thing. Today a relationship manager has one picture and the service team has another. Neither is wrong, they're just incomplete. So what does good look like for the brokers? A broker rings, whoever picks up knows the recent history, the open service issues, and what distribution has been discussing with them. That's it.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThat is the brief I took away as well, and it is why Theo has built the demo around one broker firm rather than a tour of features.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. Let's not over-engineer it.
- Theo Gallagher NoneAgreed. One story, then. I'm sharing my screen now. Can you see the brain's home page?
- Niamh Costello NoneYes. Fairly clean.
- Theo Gallagher NoneSo what you're looking at is running on the sample extract from your CRM, the call recorder and the helpdesk. The records are your own, with names as they are in the extract. If I search for a broker firm, I get a page for that firm. This is a mid-sized one from your sample. On the page you've got the account record from the CRM, the recent calls with summaries, and the tickets, open and closed, from the service side, all in one place.
- Niamh Costello NoneAnd that page, did you build it, or does it build itself?
- Theo Gallagher NoneIt assembles itself from the connectors. What I did was choose which firm to show you. Nothing hand-tuned. The linking between a CRM account and a helpdesk organisation is the part that usually needs a bit of care, and I'll be honest about that in a moment.
- Niamh Costello NonePlease do.
- Theo Gallagher NoneLet me ask it a question first, typed the way a person would. Which firms in this extract have an open service ticket and also a recent call with distribution?
- Niamh Costello NoneMm, go on.
- Theo Gallagher NoneWhile that's running, notice it isn't just a list. Each statement in the answer carries where it came from.
- Niamh Costello NoneOh, that's useful. So I can click straight through to the source record.
- Theo Gallagher NoneYes. Every claim has its source link. That matters for your regulator conversation, I think. Nobody has to take the brain's word for it.
- Matteo Ricci NoneWhat does your regulator need to see, Niamh, if somebody acts on an answer like this?
- Niamh Costello NoneExactly that. Where did it come from, and who was allowed to see it. Declan will ask the second one before the first.
- Theo Gallagher NoneWhich is fair, and I'll show you the access side. The brain follows the access you set up, so a user sees the sources they're entitled to. On Enterprise there's single sign on and SCIM so it lines up with your directory. I'd want Declan's team to test that rather than take my word for it.
- Niamh Costello NoneHe will.
- Theo Gallagher NoneRight, here we are. It has found a few firms that match, so I'll open the first. You can see an open ticket from the service team, raised by a colleague in customer service, and a call with distribution that mentions the same issue. Two teams, one problem, and until now nobody had both in front of them at once.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is the whole case. I've been trying to say that in meetings for a year and that screen says it better than I do.
- Matteo Ricci NoneNiamh, who would use this day to day? The relationship managers or the service team?
- Niamh Costello NoneBoth, but I'd start with a pilot group in each. Let's not do everyone. A handful of relationship managers, a handful of service agents, and my own data office. I want evidence that it changes a conversation before we roll it out.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThat fits how we'd set it up. The tier covers the whole company, but the connectors and the first teams are a plan we agree, not a switch we flip.
- Niamh Costello NoneAnd that's the thing. What does the plan look like? Dates, please. I don't accept vague timelines.
- Matteo Ricci NoneLet me be careful here, because I would rather you heard it from me than discovered it later. The standard Enterprise implementation is twelve weeks, and that includes support for the security review. I do not yet have a start date agreed with engineering, so I will not give you one today. What I can do is confirm it in writing once they have confirmed it.
- Niamh Costello NoneFine, but I'd like the written version before the end of June, and not a range so wide that it means nothing.
- Matteo Ricci NoneUnderstood. I will ask for a specific start and the milestones, and if the answer is a range I will tell you why.
- Theo Gallagher NoneAnd I'd add, from the delivery side, that most of the elapsed time isn't our engineering. It's access to your source systems and getting the right people to confirm how records link.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat's my team, and that's fine. Tell me who needs to do what and I'll make sure somebody owns it.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThen let me go back to the linking, as promised. Here's an example where it isn't clean. Two CRM accounts that look like the same firm, with slightly different names. The brain shows them as two firms and flags the likely match instead of merging them silently.
- Niamh Costello NoneOh, we have plenty of those. Trading names, group structures, the lot.
- Theo Gallagher NoneI thought you might. So that's where your data office decides, and the brain remembers the decision. I'd rather it asked than guessed.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. Declan would say exactly the same.
- Matteo Ricci NoneTheo, can you show the dashboards? Niamh mentioned she'd like something for the weekly distribution meeting.
- Niamh Costello NoneYes. Not a hundred charts. One view the weekly meeting can actually use.
- Theo Gallagher NoneSo the dashboards builder is here. I'll build a small one live: firms with open service issues, next to the date of the last distribution contact. Give me a moment. I pick the firm field, add the ticket status, and then the last call date from the call recorder. And there it is. That took me about a minute because the fields are already linked.
- Niamh Costello NoneAnd someone in my team can do that without you?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYes. Dashboards built by the customer's own people are a good sign of ownership, honestly. We train your people on it, and I'd suggest the training is part of the plan, not an afterthought.
- Niamh Costello NoneAgreed. One more thing before we get to freshness. What does it do when it doesn't know? I'd rather it said so than made something up.
- Theo Gallagher NoneGood question, let me show you. I'll ask about a broker contact the extract doesn't cover. See, it says it can't find a source for that and points to the nearest records instead. It doesn't fill the gap. That behaviour is deliberate, and I'd want your data office to try to break it during the pilot.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. That's what I wanted to see. Now freshness. If a broker rang at nine in the morning and the service ticket was logged last night, does the brain know?
- Theo Gallagher NoneThe nightly refresh completes by 07:00 local time on business days, so last night's ticket would be there. Something logged at eight that morning would not be, until the next refresh. That's the trade-off in the design, and I'd rather say it than have a user find out for themselves.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat's acceptable for distribution. Service might want more.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThen that is a conversation to have properly, and I'll put it on the list. What does good look like for service? Is next morning enough, or do they need something nearer live?
- Niamh Costello NoneI'll ask them and come back to you. And since we're here, I'd better ask about the money. What's the number we're talking about?
- Matteo Ricci NoneThe proposal as it stands is £155,000 for the deal. That is the total value, not an annual figure, and it includes the implementation fee as well as the subscription. The split between the two, and what the subscription looks like in later years, I will confirm in writing so there is no ambiguity. I don't want you quoting a number internally that is only half of the story.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. I'll need to take that to the person who signs for us, and they will ask the same thing: what is annual, and what is one-off.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThen you will have the split in writing before the end of this week.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you. And Declan. Theo, where are we on the review? I need Declan comfortable, and I can't be seen to lean on him.
- Theo Gallagher NoneSession one was last week: architecture, residency and subcontractors. It was demanding, as it should be. There are open findings, and I owe him written answers by the end of this week with the evidence attached. The one I'd flag to you is what we hold outside your Snowflake account, and whether that means you need the EU residency add-on. That could touch the commercial terms, so Matteo knows.
- Matteo Ricci NoneI do. And I would rather you heard that from me, Niamh. Declan raised it, and it may change the order form. I will write it up with the proposal so you see it in one place.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you. That's what I want from a vendor: early, even when it's awkward. And I won't override him. If he needs more time, then we take more time.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThat is the right way round.
- Theo Gallagher NoneOn next steps, then. I'll send the demo recording and the list of questions I asked it, so your team can rerun them against the sample. Niamh, if your team can send me two or three broker firms you'd like me to try in the next round, including one with messy linking, I'll do those at the follow-up. And I'll make sure Declan's team has what they need to test the access side themselves.
- Niamh Costello NoneI'll ask my team tomorrow and send you the names, and I'll ask service about freshness at the same time. So: Matteo, a written timeline and the annual split. Theo, the security answers to Declan. Did I miss anything?
- Matteo Ricci NoneNo, that's all of it. I'll put the next conversation in the diary after Declan's second session, so it follows his work and doesn't try to lead it. And Elena will join us then, as she'll be looking after the adoption side.
- Niamh Costello NonePerfect. Thank you both. That was good, and the broker page is exactly the thing I wanted my own people to see. I'll show the recording to a couple of colleagues before we speak again.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThanks, Niamh, thanks Matteo. Good to have the questions to work from. I'll stop sharing now.
- Matteo Ricci NoneGrazie, Niamh. I'll confirm everything in writing today.
- Niamh Costello NoneSpeak soon, both. Bye.
- Matteo Ricci NoneCiao for now.
Callsmade from