Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 19 Nov 2025 14:45
On the 19 Nov 2025 check-in, Deepa Chauhan said usage is up and tickets are resolved, but credit control barely use the brain and the value story is weak. She asked for a session built on real accounts ahead of renewal.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026On the 19 Nov 2025 check-in, Deepa Chauhan said usage is up and tickets are resolved, but credit control barely use the brain and the value story is weak. She asked for a session built on real accounts ahead of renewal.
What happened: A two-person check-in with Deepa, the sponsor. She raised the term dates and asked how to get credit control and the regional directors onto the same account view.
Customer view: She called it a good year, but said the brain so far saves time and is not yet changing outcomes. A sceptical North regional director and her finance team will both ask what it is worth.
Commercial: Daniel Okafor confirmed £116k a year on Enterprise, matching the invoices, with the term to 27 Feb 2026. Deepa wants Lewis and her finance team in any terms conversation.
Watch: Only two or three credit control staff have logins and one uses it. A planned change to dispute coding could affect the connectors, and Deepa agreed to warn Daniel first.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Credit control adoption, renewal
Importance
renewal
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 returns by the end of next week with a time for the renewal conversation, with Lewis Kerr for terms.
- Daniel sends the order form reference, the usage summary and a plain list of what the regions can do.
- Deepa Chauhan picks the accounts for the credit control session and tells her finance team the renewal is coming.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The sponsor cannot yet show a decision changed by the brain, and finance will ask what it is worth.
- Credit control are largely outside the brain, so the account view stays split between invoices and orders.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A session on real disputed accounts, including a credit hold that should not have happened, can build the value story.
- Active users are well under half of the 200 licensed, so adding credit control needs no contract change.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforAfternoon, Deepa. Thank you for making the time. Can you hear me all right? I've got you coming through, but there's a bit of an echo on my side.
Deepa ChauhanAfternoon, Daniel. Yes, you're clear. Sorry, there's someone next door doing something with a drill, so if it gets loud I'll just mute myself.- Daniel OkaforNo problem at all. It's just the two of us today, I think? I did wonder whether anyone from credit control might join.
- Deepa ChauhanJust me. I did ask, but they've got month-end things going on. Which is partly what I wanted to talk about, actually. The one thing I need from this call is a sensible way to get credit control and the regional directors looking at the same account view.
- Daniel OkaforRight, good. That's a good place to start, and I'll come back to it properly. Can I just do a quick lap first, so we're both looking at the same picture? Usage, the couple of tickets you've raised, and then the contract side. Then we can spend the rest of the time on your question.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, that's fine. Methodical is good.
- Daniel OkaforSo, usage. I'm looking at the last quarter against the one before, and the number of people actually using the brain in a typical month is up by more than a quarter. Which is a really healthy move. How is the team finding it? Is that what it feels like from your side?
- Deepa ChauhanIt is, yes. It's mostly the branch managers, to be honest. A few months ago they were ringing head office and asking, which account, which branch, what's the position. Now a lot of them just look it up. The key-account managers were always going to use it, but the branches are the ones who surprised me.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear. And that fits what we see, the questions are coming from a wider spread of people than in the summer. Nobody is carrying a big share of them on their own, which is the thing I always keep an eye on.
- Deepa ChauhanMeaning if I get hit by a bus it all falls over?
- Daniel OkaforHa, no, I wouldn't put it that bluntly. But yes, in some accounts one champion asks half the questions and then when they move on, everything goes quiet. Not the case here. You're clearly the sponsor, but you're not the whole usage.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. I'd hate it to be me. I've said to the regional directors that I don't want to be the help desk for it.
- Daniel OkaforMm. Fair. Okay, tickets. There have been two in the last month, and neither was urgent. Just to close the loop, I believe both are resolved now. One was a how-to about saving a search, and the other was a question about when the overnight refresh lands.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, I raised the refresh one. One of the regional directors said the numbers looked a day behind first thing on a Monday, and I wanted to be sure before I told him anything.
- Daniel OkaforWhich was the right thing to do. And what we found was that it's refreshed on business days, so Monday morning shows Friday's close. It isn't stale, it's just the weekend sitting in the middle. We should probably have made that clearer on the page, so thank you for flagging it.
- Deepa ChauhanRight, that makes sense. I'd half guessed. Okay, I've told him that now. He took it well, for a regional director.
- Daniel OkaforGood. So on that side, nothing is open, nothing is slow, and nothing has needed escalating. I'd say it's quiet in the best way.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I ask about the contract side before we go on? Because the year is going quicker than I'd like, and I'd rather not have it land on me at the last minute.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. So you're on Enterprise, with 200 licensed users, and the order form is for £116,500 a year. The invoices match that exactly, and nothing is overdue on either side. The term runs to 27 Feb 2026, and the renewal date is 28 Feb 2026.
- Deepa ChauhanShow me where that number comes from, so I can say it with confidence upstairs. Is the order form figure the whole subscription, or is there something else in there?
- Daniel OkaforIt's the annual subscription, the one that's been invoiced, so the order form and the invoices both say the same thing. The implementation fee was separate and a one-off back at the start, so it's not folded into that number. I can send you the order form reference, and Lewis can walk through it if your finance side wants it line by line.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, please. Lewis Kerr, that's your account owner, isn't it? I remember him from the early days. I'm not going around anyone on the money side, so if it's going to be a conversation about terms, I'd like it to be with him and with our finance team.
- Daniel OkaforAbsolutely, that's how it should be. Lewis owns the commercial side. I look after how it's going for you and the renewal conversation itself. So what I'll do is pick up the notice and the early conversation, and bring Lewis in for anything on terms.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd when would that be? Roughly. I don't want a date you don't own, I just want to know whether it's this month or the new year.
- Daniel OkaforI appreciate that. I'll come back to you by the end of next week with a proposed time for that conversation, once I've checked it against Lewis's diary. I'd rather give you something firm than guess.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's fine. That's honest, at least.
- Daniel OkaforSo, your question. Credit control and the regional directors. Tell me what you're picturing.
- Deepa ChauhanOkay. So at the moment the monthly account-data review is me, someone from credit control, and the regional directors. And what happens is credit control come with their view of an account, which is invoices and what's overdue, and the regions come with theirs, which is orders and disputes and what the customer said on the phone. And they're arguing about which one is right, when they're actually both right about different halves of the same account.
- Daniel OkaforMm. Yes. That's exactly the thing the Enterprise set-up was meant to cure. One trade account, with the orders, the disputes, the calls and the invoices all on the same page.
- Deepa ChauhanRight. And the branches and key accounts are there. Credit control are not, really. Two or three of them have logins, and one of them uses it, but the rest are still working from their own exports. And I don't want it to become a blame question, I want it to be a data question. If there's a dispute, everybody should see the same dispute.
- Daniel OkaforI think that's the right way to frame it, and it's one I'd happily say to them. So the first thing is: do they have the access? You've got 200 licensed users, and your active numbers are well under half of that, so there's a lot of room. Seats are not the constraint.
- Deepa ChauhanGood, because I was worried I'd have to go and ask for more, and then you'd say that's a conversation about money.
- Daniel OkaforNo, not for this. You could add the whole credit control team tomorrow and it wouldn't change anything on the contract. It's more about whether they'd actually open it.
- Deepa ChauhanRight, which is the real question. Because they're busy, and they've got their own way of doing things that has worked for ten years.
- Daniel OkaforYes. In my experience, people don't change because you tell them there's a better tool. They change when it answers a question they already have, in the meeting they're already in. So rather than a training session on the product, what if we built the session around one of your actual review meetings?
- Deepa ChauhanGo on.
- Daniel OkaforSo we take two or three real accounts that came up in the last review, ones where credit control and a region disagreed. And I sit with you and someone from credit control, and we ask the brain the questions each side was asking. Put the invoices and the disputes and the last calls next to each other. And let them see the disagreement resolve itself on screen.
- Deepa ChauhanI like that. Let's get credit control in the room, and let it be their accounts, not a demo. But I'd want to pick the accounts carefully. I don't want to embarrass a branch manager in front of credit control.
- Daniel OkaforOf course not. You choose the accounts, and we agree beforehand what we're looking at. Nobody gets surprised.
- Deepa ChauhanOkay. And then the regional directors. Because I have a different issue there. A couple of them keep asking for things. Can it do this, can it show that, can it send me a weekly summary. And I have never promised the regions a feature before it exists, and I'm not going to start now.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is wise, and I'd say the same. What I can do is tell you what's there today and what isn't, so you can answer them straight. Would it help if I wrote that down for you, a short list of what the regions can do right now, with the dashboards builder and the searches, in plain words you can forward?
- Deepa ChauhanYes. A plain list. Three or four things they can do on Monday morning without calling me.
- Daniel OkaforI can do that. And if a request isn't on the list, I'll tell you honestly whether it's something we'd look at or not. I won't leave you holding a promise.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. That's what I need. Honestly, that's half my job, stopping a nice idea turning into a commitment.
- Daniel OkaforHa, I know that one. Can I ask you something, while we're on the people side? When you chair the monthly review, who are the quieter voices? Is there anyone who's a sceptic?
- Deepa ChauhanThere's one regional director, in the North, who is, let's say, unconvinced. He's not against it. He just says he has never seen it change a decision. And I think he's partly right, because most of what we've done so far is stop people ringing each other. It saves time. It isn't yet changing outcomes.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a thoughtful distinction, and I'd rather you said it to me than not. Okay. So if we wanted to show a decision changing, what's the kind of decision it would be?
- Deepa ChauhanCredit holds, probably. When a trade account goes over its limit, credit control put a hold on, and then the branch is furious because the customer is stood at the counter. And half the time there's a dispute open that explains why the invoice is unpaid. If the branch and credit control saw the dispute first, you wouldn't put the hold on.
- Daniel OkaforRight. That's a very concrete one. A hold that wouldn't have happened if the dispute had been visible. That's something we could measure, even roughly.
- Deepa ChauhanIt is. If I could take that to him, a real example with a real account, I think he'd stop saying it doesn't change anything.
- Daniel OkaforThen let's make that one of the accounts in the session. Find me the clearest example you can, and I'll prepare it so it reads cleanly. And if there's a quarterly review with the regional directors coming up, I'd happily show it there too.
- Deepa ChauhanI'll have a look at the diary. December's going to be tight with the year-end, so it might be that we do the credit control session first, and the regional directors in the new year.
- Daniel OkaforThat's sensible. I'd rather do one thing properly than two things in a hurry. And it fits with the renewal conversation, because by then you'll have something concrete to say about value, which you'll want when your finance team asks.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. They will ask. They always ask what are we getting for it. And at the moment my answer is a lot of phone calls that don't happen, which is true but not very satisfying.
- Daniel OkaforIt's true, and it's valuable, but you're right that it's hard to put in a column. So let's work on that together. I'll pull together the usage picture, who's asking, how it's grown, so you have the numbers, and then the credit hold example gives you the story.
- Deepa ChauhanNumbers and a story. Yes. That's how I'd present it.
- Daniel OkaforOne more thing from my side, and then I'll let you go. Is there any system change coming on your side that I should know about? A new CRM release, a change to how credit control record disputes, anything that might affect the connectors?
- Deepa ChauhanNothing planned that I know of. There was talk of tidying how disputes are coded in the new year, but it's a conversation, not a project. If it becomes one I'll tell you before it happens, not after.
- Daniel OkaforI'd really appreciate that. Because when a source changes shape, the first sign is usually that the brain looks a bit quiet, and by then it's been a few weeks. A heads up means I can check the connector at the same time.
- Deepa ChauhanUnderstood. I'll put you on the list for it.
- Daniel OkaforThank you. Right, let me just close the loop on what we've said, so we both leave with the same list. I'll send you the order form reference, and the usage summary. By the end of next week I'll come back with a time for the renewal conversation, with Lewis in it for anything on terms. And I'll write you the plain list for the regions.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd from me, I'll find the accounts for the credit control session, including the hold that shouldn't have happened, and check who from credit control can attend. And I'll talk to our finance team so they know the renewal is coming and who to expect.
- Daniel OkaforThat's perfect. And if anything comes up before then, a ticket, a question from a region, just pick up the phone. You don't have to wait for the next check-in.
- Deepa ChauhanI know. I appreciate it. It's been a good year, honestly, better than I expected when we started. Thanks, Daniel.
- Daniel OkaforThat means a lot, Deepa, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, and I hope the drilling stops. Best wishes.
- Deepa ChauhanHa, it has, just now. Speak soon. Bye.
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