Delancey Haig / BB-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Delancey Haig: documents · 2024-11-08 13:00
Saskia Mendes, sole customer attendee on the 8 Nov 2024 check-in, says use is growing and a director got ahead of a client dispute. About half the directors use it well. She wants proof for her managing board before renewal.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Saskia Mendes, sole customer attendee on the 8 Nov 2024 check-in, says use is growing and a director got ahead of a client dispute. About half the directors use it well. She wants proof for her managing board before renewal.
What happened: Daniel Okafor ran a 28 minute check-in with Saskia Mendes alone. She described a director who saw a three-week-old invoice query in the brain before a client review and raised it first.
Customer view: Saskia says adoption is mostly a habit problem, not a tool problem. About half the directors use it properly, and some still ask a coordinator to look things up.
Commercial: Delancey Haig is on Growth with 40 seats and about eleven people active on a typical day, so there is headroom. The term ends on 2 Jul 2025 and the renewal date is 3 Jul 2025.
Watch: Saskia wants evidence for the managing board, ideally a number for disputes caught early. A contractor payments colleague has asked for access, which is a possible new team.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Early adoption and value proof
Importance
praise
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Saskia sends Daniel the director names and one client each by Wednesday.
- Daniel proposes session slots early the following week and sends a monthly usage list by name.
- Daniel checks what can be produced on disputes caught early and reports back to Saskia.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Only about half the directors use the brain properly, so the value story may stay anecdotal.
- Saskia needs board-ready evidence of disputes caught early, and BB-Demo has not yet confirmed it can produce one.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A contractor payments colleague has asked for access, and the Growth tier has spare seats.
- Director sessions built around each person's own client could lift usage before the renewal.
Transcript
Daniel Okafor NoneHello, Saskia, can you hear me all right? I think the audio is a touch quiet on my side.
Saskia Mendes NoneYes, loud and clear. Hi Daniel. Sorry, I was just finishing a sandwich, give me one second.- Daniel Okafor NoneTake your time. Thank you for making the time this afternoon, I know Fridays are never quiet for you. It looks like it's just the two of us, is that right? Nobody else from your side joining?
- Saskia Mendes NoneJust me. I did invite one of the account directors but she's stuck in a client review that overran. Which, actually, is a bit of a story. Can I tell you the story?
- Daniel Okafor NonePlease, go on.
- Saskia Mendes NoneSo on Tuesday one of our directors is about to walk into a quarterly review with a big technology client. Ten minutes before, she opens the brain, types in the client name, and sees an invoice query from a contractor that had been sitting there for three weeks. Nobody had told her. She went in, raised it herself before the client could, and apparently the client's finance lead was almost impressed.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHa, that's lovely. And presumably a much better conversation than the one where the client brings it up first.
- Saskia Mendes NoneCompletely. That's the whole reason I bought it. The directors need this. They shouldn't be finding out about a dispute from the client's mouth.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's exactly what you described when we first spoke, back before you went live in the summer. So it's good to hear it actually happening. How is the team finding it more generally?
- Saskia Mendes NoneBetter than I expected, honestly, and I was an optimist. The numbers you sent me last week, the usage, I had to read twice. It's gone from a handful of people poking at it to something that's really in the week.
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes, I was going to come to that. If I compare the last quarter with the one before, the number of people using it on an ordinary day has almost quadrupled. On a typical day you've got around eleven people in there.
- Saskia Mendes NoneWhich sounds great until you remember we have forty licences.
- Daniel Okafor NoneRight, yes. Forty seats on Growth, so there's a lot of room still. I wasn't going to dress it up, but I don't think that's a bad place to be at this stage. It's a young deployment, you've been live since the start of July.
- Saskia Mendes NoneNo, and I don't want to pretend it's further along than it is. About half of the directors use it properly. Another few use it when I stand over them. And then there are the ones who still ask their coordinator to go and look things up.
- Daniel Okafor NoneMm. And do you know why? Is it habit, or is it something about the tool that gets in the way?
- Saskia Mendes NoneMostly habit. One or two said they didn't know what to ask it. They type something like a vague question, get a vague answer, and decide it's not for them. What did the client actually say, that's what I keep asking people, because that's the thing it's good at.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a really useful thing to hear. So it's less about whether it works and more about knowing what to put in. Would it help if we ran a short session with the directors who aren't there yet? Not a full training day, more like thirty minutes with real clients of theirs on the screen.
- Saskia Mendes NoneYes. Can we make it simpler though? If it's a long invite with an agenda they'll ignore it. If it's one slot, in their diary, with their own client name in the title, they'll come.
- Daniel Okafor NoneFair. Let me do this: you give me the list of directors and the client each of them would most want to look at, and I'll build each session around that client. Small groups, maybe two at a time.
- Saskia Mendes NoneI can do that by Wednesday. I'll just send you names and one client each. Is that enough?
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's plenty. Just to close the loop on that one, I'll come back to you early next week with some proposed slots, and you tell me what clashes.
- Saskia Mendes NonePerfect.
- Daniel Okafor NoneCan I ask about the other side of it? The people who are using it, what are they asking? I can see the volume of questions going up, but I only see the pattern, not the content in any detail.
- Saskia Mendes NoneIt's mostly three things. One, what's open for a client right now, vacancies and who's been placed. Two, invoices, who's been billed, who's paid, what's disputed. And three, complaints. That third one is the one that surprised me. The directors never used to see complaints unless somebody forwarded an email.
- Daniel Okafor NoneAnd that's the combination you were after, isn't it? All of it in one place for one client.
- Saskia Mendes NoneExactly that. Before, I'd get a director asking me for a view of a client and I'd literally be opening four systems and pasting things into a document. I did it for hours, Daniel. Now they just ask.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI remember the document. You showed me a version of it on one of the early calls and it was, I think, nine pages.
- Saskia Mendes NoneEleven by the end. Don't remind me.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHa. Well, no more of that, I hope. Let me ask about the practical side. We haven't had any tickets from your team in the last month, and nothing flagged as urgent. Is that because everything is fine, or because people are quietly putting up with things?
- Saskia Mendes NoneHonestly? I think it's fine. If something was broken I'd hear about it within the hour, they know where I sit. There was one thing, a director said a figure looked a little out of date on a Monday morning, but when I checked it had refreshed by the time she looked again. I think she looked too early.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat sounds right. The overnight refresh finishes before seven in the morning on working days, so if somebody's in there at, say, half past six they might catch it mid-way. If it happens again and it's later than that, tell me and I'll look properly.
- Saskia Mendes NoneWill do. I told her it was probably that but I wanted to be sure.
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt's a good instinct to check. And on the invoicing side from our end, everything is paid and nothing is outstanding, so thank you for that. Your finance team have been very tidy.
- Saskia Mendes NoneI'll pass that on, they'll be thrilled. They don't hear it often.
- Daniel Okafor NoneJust so we're both looking at the same thing, you're on Growth, forty seats, and the annual contract value is £41,800. That's what's on the order form and it's what we've invoiced, so no surprises there.
- Saskia Mendes NoneYes, that matches what I have. And that runs through to next summer, doesn't it?
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt does. The term ends on 2 Jul 2025 and the renewal date is 3 Jul 2025. It feels a long way off, and I'm not raising it to make you think about it today. I just like people to know that I'll be the one coming to you well ahead of time, not at the last minute.
- Saskia Mendes NoneGood. I'd rather have that conversation in plenty of time and with some proper evidence about what it's done. If I can say to our managing board that the directors are walking into reviews better prepared, that's the argument.
- Daniel Okafor NoneAbsolutely. And that's partly why I'd like the sessions with the other directors, because the more of them using it, the stronger that story is. Is there anything else you'd want to be able to show the board, by next summer, that you can't show today?
- Saskia Mendes NoneHm. Good question. I think I'd like something that shows how often a dispute was caught before the client raised it. Right now it's anecdotes, like the one I told you. I'd love a number.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a good one, and I don't want to promise something I haven't checked. Let me look at what we can actually produce from the data you've got connected, and I'll come back to you on whether it's a quick thing or something we'd need to build with you.
- Saskia Mendes NoneThat's fair. Even a rough version would help.
- Daniel Okafor NoneUnderstood. Now, a couple of other things before we finish. Are there any teams outside client operations that have started asking about it? Sometimes when directors talk about it, finance or the people running the contractor side get curious.
- Saskia Mendes NoneA little. Someone from the contractor payments side sat in on one of my sessions and asked whether she could get in. I said let me think about it. I didn't want to add people before we'd got the directors properly using it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's sensible, and you've got the room on seats when you're ready. I'd just say, when you do add her, tell me and I'll make sure she has the right view and isn't wading through things meant for the directors.
- Saskia Mendes NoneYes. Let's get the directors sorted first, then I'll come back to you on that.
- Daniel Okafor NonePerfect. I think that's most of what I wanted. Is there anything on your side that's bothering you? Anything small, even?
- Saskia Mendes NoneOnly that I'd like a quicker way to see who's actually been in there. I can see the totals from what you send me, but I'd like to know which directors haven't touched it in a fortnight, so I can nudge them.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI can send you a simple list each month for now, and then we can see whether you want something more regular. Does that work?
- Saskia Mendes NoneMonthly's fine to start. Thank you.
- Daniel Okafor NoneRight. So just to recap, so we both leave with the same list. You'll send me the director names and one client each by Wednesday. I'll come back to you early next week with some session slots. I'll send a short monthly usage list by name. And I'll look at whether we can give you something on disputes caught early, and let you know what's possible.
- Saskia Mendes NoneThat's all of it. I'll also have a think about the contractor payments person, but that's mine.
- Daniel Okafor NoneGood. Thank you again, Saskia, and well done on the director who got in ahead of the client. That's the sort of thing I'll be telling people about.
- Saskia Mendes NonePlease do. Right, I've got a stack of things waiting. Speak soon, Daniel. Best, Saskia.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSpeak soon. Have a good weekend, and best wishes.
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