What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Second demo on 7 May 2024, with Holly Tranter added. Her questions were data location, permissions and system changes. Saskia Mendes will take the proposal to Rupert; £54k is total deal value, not a yearly price.
What happened: Hannah Lowe ran the brain on the CRM extract and showed the admin view. Holly Tranter, Business Systems Analyst, asked about data location, permissions and system changes.
Customer view: Holly does not want to buy something that breaks when complaint logging is tidied up. Saskia Mendes said adoption is her concern.
Commercial: Priya Raman quoted £54k as total deal value, with Growth at eight connectors and forty users. Saskia will take the proposal to Rupert, whose role the evidence does not show.
Watch: The signature target is 19 Jun 2024. The evidence does not show whether it was signed.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Who was there
BB-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Hannah Lowe to send the architecture diagram, the data terms wording and Jess's three questions.
- Priya Raman to send the proposal with the one-off and annual split early the following week.
- Holly Tranter to send the security questionnaire and the list of systems with their owners.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- A change to complaint logging or a CRM field could stop a connector loading if BB-Demo is not told first.
- Directors may give up in the first fortnight if early answers are wrong or slow.
- Legal's security questionnaire could slow the route to the signature target.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Jess Ferrand is likely to be a loud advocate and pull other directors in.
- Scoped systems sit well inside eight connectors, leaving room for the call recorder later.
- Forty users cover the directors and operations team with room to spare.
Transcript
- Priya Raman NoneHi everyone, can you hear me alright? Hannah, I think you're on mute.
- Hannah Lowe NoneSorry, yes, there we go. Good morning all. Can everybody hear me?
- Saskia Mendes NoneLoud and clear. Morning! Right, quick story before we start, because it's exactly why we're here. On Monday one of my directors rang me at half past seven. A contractor invoice dispute had come in from a client, and nobody on the account could tell him what had actually been placed there last quarter. He was guessing. In front of the client.
- Priya Raman NoneOh, that's never a good start to the week.
- Saskia Mendes NoneNo. So, the directors need this. That's my whole pitch to the room today.
- Priya Raman NoneWell, happy to make this easy. Quick recap so we're all on the same page. We've had the discovery conversations, Hannah has been through your systems with Holly, and today is the demo on your own data. After this I'll pull together the written proposal, and if we can get this over the line by 19 June 2024 then we keep the momentum and you're set up well ahead of the summer. Does that still sound right on your side?
- Saskia Mendes NoneThat's the plan, yes. Holly, shout if I've got the timing wrong.
- Holly Tranter NoneNo, that's fine. Hello, everyone. I'm mostly here to listen to the technical side and ask awkward questions about access.
- Hannah Lowe NoneGood, I'll hold you to the awkward questions. Before I share anything, can I ask what each of you most needs to know by the end of the hour? That way I'll spend the time where it matters.
- Jess Ferrand NoneCan I go first? I've got a review with a technology client this afternoon, so I'm half in the call and half in my slides, sorry. What I need is simple. When the client asks me straight out, what have they been billed, what have they complained about, what roles are open, I want one place to look. Not four.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's helpful. So vacancies, placements, invoices and complaints for one client, side by side. Holly?
- Holly Tranter NoneMine is more, where does the data live, who can see what, and what happens if one of our systems changes. We're about to tidy up how we log complaints, so I don't want to buy something that breaks the moment we do that.
- Hannah Lowe NoneFair. I'll come back to that properly, and I'll put it in writing as well. Saskia?
- Saskia Mendes NoneMine is adoption, honestly. Can we make it simpler? If the directors have to learn a new tool, they won't. Jess will, because Jess never reads anything, but the others won't.
- Jess Ferrand NoneI resent that. It's true, but I resent it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneRight, so the plan is this. I'll show you the brain running on the extract Holly's team sent over, I'll ask it the questions Jess would ask, and then we'll talk about where it sits and who sees it. Stop me anywhere. Sharing my screen now.
- Hannah Lowe NoneCan you see that? It should be a plain page with a search box and a list of accounts down the left.
- Saskia Mendes NoneYes, I can see it.
- Jess Ferrand NoneYep. Looks like our client list.
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt is, more or less. To be precise, these are the organisations from your CRM extract, and underneath each one the brain has joined up what it found in the other sources you gave us: the invoices from the accounting system, the emails, and the complaint records. Let me pick a technology client. Jess, give me a name that won't embarrass you.
- Jess Ferrand NonePick the biggest one in the list, the one near the top. That's the one I'm seeing this afternoon, as it happens.
- Hannah Lowe NoneLovely. So this is the account page. Open roles at the top, placements this year, then invoices, then anything flagged as a complaint. Nothing clever yet, it's just everything in one view.
- Jess Ferrand NoneHang on, scroll back up. Is that placement count right? That looks high.
- Hannah Lowe NoneGood question, and this is the thing I'd like you to get in the habit of. Click the number and it shows you the records behind it. There. Each line is a placement, with where it came from.
- Jess Ferrand NoneOh. Two of those are the same person. A contractor who was extended.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat'll be how we log extensions. It creates a second line. I can tell you which field it is.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's exactly the sort of thing we'd fix in the first weeks. The short answer is, the brain shows you what the source says. The longer answer is, we agree with Holly how an extension should count, and then it counts that way everywhere.
- Holly Tranter NoneRight. That's reasonable. I'd rather know that on day one than find out in a client meeting.
- Priya Raman NoneAnd that's what the first stage is for. Hannah's team sit with Holly and get those rules right before anyone else touches it.
- Saskia Mendes NoneOkay, can you ask it something in plain English? That's what I want the directors to do. What did the client actually say?
- Hannah Lowe NoneSure. I'll type: what has this client raised in the last quarter that we haven't resolved. Give it a moment.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThere we go. It's given a short answer first, then the sources. Two open items. One is a query about a contractor's hours, one is a note that a timesheet was approved late. Each has a link back to the original email or record.
- Jess Ferrand NoneThat's, yeah, that's real. The timesheet one was a pain. I wouldn't have thought to bring that up, and the client absolutely would have.
- Saskia Mendes NoneThat's it. That's the whole thing. Jess, you'd have walked in without that?
- Jess Ferrand NoneI'd have found it eventually. After the meeting.
- Priya Raman NoneWhich is what we're trying to move earlier in the day.
- Hannah Lowe NoneLet me do the invoice side as well, because I think that's where your disputes start. Show me everything invoiced to this client this year, and anything unpaid.
- Hannah Lowe NoneSo, a table. Invoice date, amount, status. One unpaid. And here, which I like, it's put the contractor name next to the invoice, because it could join the placement record to the invoice line.
- Saskia Mendes NoneRight, so if a client says this invoice is wrong, the director can see which placement it was and who approved the timesheet?
- Hannah Lowe NoneProvided those two things are recorded in your sources, yes. If a source doesn't hold it, the brain won't invent it. It'll say it can't find it. I'd rather it said that than guessed.
- Saskia Mendes NoneGood. Good, I like that. I trust a tool more when it tells me it doesn't know.
- Jess Ferrand NoneIs this up to date though? Like, if I closed a placement this morning, would it be there?
- Hannah Lowe NoneThe short answer is, not instantly. The longer answer is, the brain refreshes overnight and it should be complete by 07:00 each business morning. So something you did yesterday afternoon would be there by the time you sit down today. Something you did ten minutes ago, no.
- Jess Ferrand NoneOkay, that's fine. I just need to know. I used it this morning is what I'd like to be able to say, and I don't want to be caught out.
- Hannah Lowe NoneEvery page shows when it last refreshed, top right, so you'd see it.
- Holly Tranter NoneCan I ask the access question now? Where does all of this actually sit? Our legal team will ask me in the first thirty seconds.
- Hannah Lowe NoneOf course. It's built and run inside your own Snowflake account. We don't copy your data into a BB-Demo system and hold it there. The connectors read from your sources into your Snowflake, and the brain sits on top of that, in your environment.
- Holly Tranter NoneSo we keep control of it. If we ended the contract, the data is still ours and still in our account.
- Hannah Lowe NoneYes. I'd want to give you that in writing, with the exact wording of the order form and the data terms, rather than paraphrase it on a call. I'll put that in writing in the follow-up.
- Holly Tranter NoneThanks. And who sees what inside the firm? Because recruiters shouldn't see another director's margin on a client, for instance.
- Hannah Lowe NonePermissions follow groups. You decide which groups see which sources and which accounts, and the brain respects that when it answers. If someone isn't allowed to see invoices, the answer simply won't include them. I can show you the admin screen if that helps.
- Holly Tranter NonePlease. I'd like to see what I'd actually be doing as the admin.
- Hannah Lowe NoneRight, so this is the admin view. Sources on the left, each with a status. Groups here. And this is where you'd set which group can see which source. It's less scary than it sounds, and it's mostly a one-off at the start.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat's cleaner than I expected. And if we change something in the CRM, say a field is renamed, what happens?
- Hannah Lowe NoneGood one, given what you said about the complaints logging. The connector would flag that records stopped loading from that source. You'd see it here, and it would go to whoever is on the admin list. Tell us before you change it and we'll adjust the mapping the same day.
- Holly Tranter NoneI can do that. I'll make sure we tell you before, not after.
- Saskia Mendes NoneHolly, put it in the change checklist. Please. Because it'll be me they come to when it breaks.
- Holly Tranter NoneAlready writing it down.
- Priya Raman NoneCan I just come in on scope, because I think it's a natural place to? On Growth, which is what we've shaped this around, you get several teams on it, eight connectors and forty users, and the dashboards builder and quarterly reviews with our customer success lead, Daniel Okafor, once you're live.
- Saskia Mendes NoneForty users. Okay. That's enough for the directors and the operations team with room to spare, I think. Holly, how many connectors are we likely to want?
- Holly Tranter NoneOn what we've scoped so far, the CRM, the accounting system, email, the helpdesk, and then the complaints log. So well inside eight.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat matches what I had. It leaves you room for the call recorder later if you want it.
- Saskia Mendes NoneRight. Then I have to ask the boring question, because Rupert will ask me it before I've sat down. What's the number?
- Priya Raman NoneOf course. The figure on the proposal at the moment is £53,800. To be clear, that's the total deal value, not a yearly price. The written proposal will break out what's one-off and what's annual so there's no confusion when it goes to Rupert.
- Saskia Mendes NoneThat's what I needed. I'd rather he saw it split out than saw one big number and had to ask.
- Jess Ferrand NoneCan I try one before I run? I've got about five minutes. Hannah, ask it which of my technology clients have open complaints and no contact from us in a month.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's a good one. Let's see if it can do it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThree clients. And two of them have something on the list from the last fortnight, so that's probably the extract's date range. The third has a complaint and, as far as the sources show, the last email out was a while ago.
- Jess Ferrand NoneThat third one I know. That's a good catch, actually. Right, I have to go and be a person in a client meeting. This was useful. Send me the three questions you just asked and I'll steal them.
- Hannah Lowe NoneI'll include them in the follow-up. Good luck this afternoon.
- Jess Ferrand NoneCheers. Bye all.
- Saskia Mendes NoneShe'll be the loudest advocate we've got, you know. Once she's said it to the others, I won't have to.
- Priya Raman NoneThat's what we've seen elsewhere, that one heavy user pulls the rest in. Hannah, shall we take Saskia's question on adoption? Because I think it's the real one.
- Hannah Lowe NoneYes. Saskia, what would make the directors give up on a tool in the first fortnight?
- Saskia Mendes NoneIf the first thing they ask gets a wrong answer. Or a slow one. Or they have to log in to something new. They have a couple of tries and that's it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThen I'd suggest we don't start with all of them. We start with Jess and one or two other directors, tune the answers on their real accounts until they're right, then widen. And we agree beforehand the five or six questions that need to work perfectly on day one.
- Saskia Mendes NoneI like that. Can we make it simpler still and have those questions as buttons or something on the home page?
- Hannah Lowe NoneYou can pin saved questions to the front page, yes. I'll show you that in the next stage on your actual wording. I'd rather not promise a layout today that I haven't built.
- Saskia Mendes NoneFair enough. Good. I like that you say that.
- Holly Tranter NoneOne more from me, and then I'll leave you alone. Security questionnaire. Our legal team will have a long one. Who answers it, and how long does that take?
- Hannah Lowe NoneI answer it, and if there's anything I'm not completely sure of I check with our security lead, Ewan, before I write it down. I won't guess. Send it over whenever you have it and I'll tell you honestly how long it'll take once I've seen how long it is.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat's all I wanted. Thank you.
- Priya Raman NoneSo, to wrap up, and keep this easy for everyone. Hannah will send the written notes from today: the architecture diagram, the data terms wording Holly asked about, and Jess's three questions. I'll send the proposal with the one-off and annual split. Holly, if you can send the questionnaire and the list of systems with who owns each one, then we're nicely lined up for 19 June 2024.
- Saskia Mendes NoneAnd I'll take it to Rupert once I've got the proposal, with Jess's name on the front of it as the person who's already sold. Can you get it to me early in the week so I've got time?
- Priya Raman NoneEarly next week. Absolutely.
- Saskia Mendes NoneBrilliant. Thank you both. Thanks, Holly.
- Holly Tranter NoneThanks all. Speak soon.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThanks everyone. Speak soon.