Kestle Bay Hotels / BB-Demo – Negotiation
Callcompleted
Kestle Bay Hotels: documents · 2024-10-31 15:00
Kestle Bay's chief executive said the opening price was above budget. BB-Demo held at twenty-eight thousand pounds all-in for year one, and Sam Hollis accepted it. Order form and MSA were promised the same afternoon.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Kestle Bay's chief executive said the opening price was above budget. BB-Demo held at twenty-eight thousand pounds all-in for year one, and Sam Hollis accepted it. Order form and MSA were promised the same afternoon.
What happened: Tom Ashdown and Owen Tallis closed on a Starter price of twenty-eight thousand pounds for year one, implementation included. Gary Underwood asked for room on the number and was told that was the limit.
Customer view: Gary said the opening price was higher than budgeted. Sam Hollis then said twenty-eight thousand was okay for what they were getting.
Commercial: The call promised eight weeks of implementation and a quarterly check-in, while standard Starter terms are four weeks and a six-monthly check-in. The all-in figure also sits above the Starter list of £19,500 plus the £6,000 implementation fee, so the claimed discount needs checking.
Watch: The evidence does not show that an order form was signed. Only the executed order form will settle price and terms.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Starter price negotiation
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
mixed
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 order form and MSA the same afternoon and aim for signature within about a week.
- Tom Ashdown to confirm that the order form states the scope, timeline and support terms actually promised.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Eight weeks of implementation and a quarterly check-in were promised, which differ from standard Starter terms and could cause a dispute if the order form follows standard terms.
- Gary asked about the renewal price and was only told it would be the annual rate without implementation, so a later price rise could surprise him.
- The all-in figure was described as a good discount from list but sits above the Starter list plus implementation fee.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Five properties and the wish to query across all of them point to later extra users or connectors.
- A co-termed calendar-year renewal gives a clean renewal date for the CSM to plan the notice around.
Transcript
Tom Ashdown NoneRight, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for making time. So we've got Sam and Gary here from Kestle Bay, and Owen's joining me from our end. We wanted to walk through where we've landed on pricing and next steps. Sam, Gary, thanks for your patience. We know you were hoping for a different number.
Gary Underwood NoneYeah, we have been. Look, we think the solution is good. But the price point we started with was higher than we'd budgeted.
Owen Tallis NoneI hear you. So let me walk through the math. Kestle Bay is a multi-hotel business, you've got five properties, and you want the brain live across all of them so your operations teams can query across properties and your systems at the same time. That's a solid use case. You'd be on Starter tier, which covers fifteen users, plenty for your ops team and your admin. The subscription is one price, the implementation is fixed fee, and together it comes to twenty-eight thousand for year one, all-in.
Sam Hollis NoneAnd that's the final number?- Tom Ashdown NoneLet me put this into context. We're looking at fifteen users, four connectors: you've got your property management system, your finance system, probably a ticketing system. We handle all of that in the implementation. It's eight weeks of work from us, security review for your team, full training. For all of that, the all-in cost is twenty-eight thousand. If we strip things back, fewer users, fewer connectors, the price would come down. But you said you want a full implementation.
- Gary Underwood NoneOkay. And what's the renewal price? Does it stay the same?
- Owen Tallis NoneGood question. Year one is twenty-eight thousand. Year two, it would be the subscription piece on renewal, so you'd pay the annual rate without the implementation fee.
- Sam Hollis NoneOkay, so it's a one-off cost for the implementation, then ongoing annual.
- Tom Ashdown NoneExactly. And that annual rate is competitive, there's not many tools out there that do what the brain does across all your systems in one place.
- Gary Underwood NoneAnd the timescale? If we signed now, when would we kick off?
- Tom Ashdown NoneWe'd start immediately. The eight weeks runs from whenever you give us the nod, so you control the timing.
- Owen Tallis NoneAnd we've already done a lot of the discovery. We know your systems, we know your team structure. So it's straightforward.
- Sam Hollis NoneRight. And support? What does that look like?
- Tom Ashdown NoneStarter comes with email support, four-hour response time on any issues. And a quarterly check-in with one of our Customer Success team. So you're not left to figure it out alone.
- Gary Underwood NoneFair enough. Look, I think this is sensible. I just need to, is there any room on the number? Is there flexibility?
- Owen Tallis NoneOn pricing for the first year, yeah, there's a bit of room. Not a lot, we can't discount twice. But let me think about this for a second and come back to you.
- Tom Ashdown NoneTell you what, how about this. We lock in twenty-eight thousand for year one, you commit to a twelve-month term, and we co-term your renewal to the calendar year. That means if you sign in November, your first year runs to the end of December the year after, and then you renew on 1 January alongside everyone else. That gives you a clean renewal schedule.
- Gary Underwood NoneAnd there's no room on the price?
- Owen Tallis NoneThe twenty-eight thousand, that's as far as we can go. That's already at a good discount from list. Beyond that, I'd need an annual commitment of more than twelve months, and you've said you wanted to stay flexible.
- Sam Hollis NoneThat's fair. I think twenty-eight thousand is okay for what we're getting.
- Gary Underwood NoneAlright. So we sign an order form, and then what?
- Tom Ashdown NoneYeah. I'll draw up a formal order form with the price, the term, the go-live date. You review it, any questions you loop back, and once it's signed we're away.
- Gary Underwood NoneAnd the contract: is that standard, or can we have a look at it first?
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt's a standard MSA, yes. I can send it over today if you like, give you a chance to have your legal team cast an eye. But it's fairly boilerplate, it's what we use with all our customers.
- Sam Hollis NoneOkay. I think we're ready then.
- Tom Ashdown NoneBrilliant. I'll get the order form and MSA over to you this afternoon. You review, loop back with any questions, and let's aim to have this signed by: what do you reckon, a week or so?
- Gary Underwood NoneA week works for us.
- Owen Tallis NoneGreat. Thanks, Gary, Sam. Looking forward to getting you live.
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