Delancey Haig / BB-Demo – Escalation
Callcompleted
Delancey Haig: documents · 2026-03-23 12:00
Saskia Mendes escalated after a wrong answer reached a client review. Five high-priority tickets in thirty days, trust slipping, and she said the summer renewal is now under harder thought. Support took ownership.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Saskia Mendes escalated after a wrong answer reached a client review. Five high-priority tickets in thirty days, trust slipping, and she said the summer renewal is now under harder thought. Support took ownership.
What happened: Saskia asked for the call after a client-account director got open vacancies and invoice figures that did not match his own calls. Dominic Hale confirmed five high-priority tickets in thirty days and took ownership; Samir Haddad said some look like one pipeline issue, unproven.
Customer view: Saskia said one wrong answer makes directors distrust the others. Usage is up, but some directors check the brain and then check elsewhere.
Commercial: Saskia said the renewal is in the summer and this month has made her think harder. Daniel Okafor said the term ends on 2 Jul 2026 and proposed a one-page value case before any price talk.
Watch: Dominic owes a written timing review against the Growth P1 first response by end of the next day. The evidence does not show the outcome.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Trust after wrong answers
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Dominic Hale sends the written timing review on the five tickets by the end of the next day.
- Samir Haddad continues the root cause and Dominic relays findings in plain English.
- Daniel Okafor speaks to the director this week and then sits down with Saskia on the value case.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Answers from stale data look available and confident, so directors lose trust and return to spreadsheets, which threatens the Growth renewal.
- Saskia felt two tickets sat unpicked for a long time; if the timing review shows a first-response miss, confidence falls further.
- Saskia said the renewal is under harder thought after this month.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A one-page value case built from what directors actually ask could rebuild the case for renewal.
- Usage is up, with more directors and some account managers asking the brain unprompted.
Transcript
Daniel Okafor NoneHello, Saskia, hello Dominic. Thank you both for making the time, I know diaries are tight on a Monday. Samir, are you with us as well? I can see you in the lobby.
Samir Haddad NoneYes, here. Sorry, I was fighting with the audio. Can you hear me all right?- Daniel Okafor NoneLoud and clear. Saskia, can you hear us?
Saskia Mendes NoneI can, yes. Hi everyone. Right, so, quick story before we start, because it's why I asked for this call. One of my client-account directors was getting ready for a review with a client on Friday, and he asked the brain for the open vacancies and the latest invoice position. What came back didn't match what he knew from his own phone calls that week. So he rang me, a bit sharp, and said, can I trust this thing or not?- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a difficult phone call to take, and I'm sorry he had that experience. Just to close the loop on how we got here, Dominic has the tickets, so perhaps I'll hand to him for what we know, and then we can talk about what it means for your directors.
Dominic Hale NoneThanks, Daniel. Hello, Saskia. I'll start with what's confirmed and what's not, if that's all right. Confirmed: over the last thirty days you've raised five tickets with us, and all five were marked high priority. I've gone through each of them this morning and I've taken ownership of this, so from now on you deal with me directly rather than the queue. Not confirmed: whether they share a single cause. I'm not going to guess at that until the facts are in.- Saskia Mendes NoneOkay. That's helpful, genuinely. But five in a month, all of them high priority. I've got a team of people who are, frankly, quite patient, and I'd say that patience is running out. Can I be straight about that?
- Dominic Hale NonePlease do.
- Saskia Mendes NoneWhen we bought this, the pitch was that a director sees the client whole. Vacancies, placements, invoices, complaints, all in one place. And when it works, it really does that. People love it. But the moment one answer is wrong, they stop trusting the other answers too. It doesn't matter that nine out of ten are right.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's fair, and it's exactly the right way to put it. One wrong answer costs us more than ten right ones earn. How is the team finding it otherwise? Day to day, I mean, setting the tickets aside.
- Saskia Mendes NoneHonestly, usage is up. More of the directors are in there than a quarter ago, and a couple of the account managers have started asking it things on their own. Which is what I wanted. But more people in there means more people noticing when something's off. So it cuts both ways.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a good problem in one sense and an uncomfortable one in another. I'd rather have people noticing than not looking. Samir, you've been in the detail. Would you walk Saskia through what you've seen, in plain terms?
- Samir Haddad NoneSure. So I've read all five tickets and then gone and looked at the way your data is flowing into the brain over that period. I'll be careful here because I don't want to over-claim. What I can say is that a few of the tickets look like they touch the same part of the pipeline. Not all of them. Two of them, I think, are probably something different, and I haven't been able to line those up yet.
- Saskia Mendes NoneWhen you say the same part of the pipeline, what does that mean for a director? I'm not an engineer. Can we make it simpler?
- Samir Haddad NoneYeah, fair. In simple terms: the brain answers from data that has been pulled in from your systems. If a pull doesn't complete the way it should, the brain still answers, it just answers from what it had before. So it looks available and it sounds confident, but it's slightly behind. That's the pattern I think I'm seeing in some of these. I want to be clear that I haven't proven it.
- Saskia Mendes NoneSo it's confidently wrong. That's worse, in a way, than just being down.
- Samir Haddad NoneI understand why you'd say that. It's something we should be better at, telling people when the data is behind. I'd rather say that plainly.
- Dominic Hale NoneAnd I'd add, from the support side, that I don't want you to have to work out whether it's a freshness issue or a wrong-answer issue. That's our job. Here's what we know: five tickets, a likely common thread on some of them, and one engineer, Samir, now looking at the lot rather than ticket by ticket. What we don't know yet is the full cause and the full list of affected answers.
- Saskia Mendes NoneRight. And what did the client actually say, in the one that kicked this off? I only have my director's version. He was annoyed on the phone, not necessarily precise.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a good question, and I'd like to know too. Saskia, would it help if I spoke to him directly, with your say-so? Not to defend anything, just to hear what he saw.
- Saskia Mendes NoneYes. I'd like that actually. He'll tell you more than he'll tell me, because he's trying to be polite to me. Do it this week if you can.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI'll come back to you by Wednesday with a time that suits him. I'll keep it short and I'll write up what he says and send it to you as well, so there's nothing hidden.
- Saskia Mendes NoneThank you. Okay. Dominic, can I ask you something a bit blunt? Two of these tickets, I felt like nobody picked them up for a long time. Is that a fair feeling or am I imagining it?
- Dominic Hale NoneI'd rather check than answer from memory. I've got the timestamps in front of me for all five and I'll go through them against what your Growth plan promises for first response on a priority one. If we fell short on any, I'll tell you which and by how much. If we didn't, I'll tell you that too, and then we need to talk about why it felt that way, because that matters as well.
- Saskia Mendes NoneThat's fair. I'd take that. I'd rather have the true answer.
- Dominic Hale NoneYou'll have it in writing, with the times, by the end of the day tomorrow. And here's the other thing. Next update by sixteen hundred today, UK time, even if the update is only that Samir hasn't found it yet. You shouldn't ever be wondering where we are.
- Saskia Mendes NoneSixteen hundred. Good. Put it in an email so I can show Rupert, because he'll ask.
- Dominic Hale NoneI will. It'll come from me, with Daniel copied.
- Daniel Okafor NoneSaskia, can I ask about the other side of this, the people side? You said a couple of account managers had started using it on their own. Do you think the directors are still reaching for it first, or has this last month pushed them back to spreadsheets?
- Saskia Mendes NoneMixed. Some of them, yes, spreadsheets. Two of them have said to me, I'll check it in the brain and then check it again somewhere else. Which defeats the purpose. We've got forty seats and I'd say a decent share of them are being used, but there's a gap between people who log in and people who rely on it. I don't want to pretend it's better than it is.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThank you for being honest about that, it's much more useful than a polished answer. And I think it's the real measure. Not whether people log in, but whether they've stopped double-checking.
- Saskia Mendes NoneExactly. And I should say, because it's on my mind and you'd rather I said it than not, the contract comes up for renewal in the summer. I'm not going to hide that this month has made me think harder about it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI appreciate you saying it out loud. For the record, so we're talking about the same thing, the current term ends on 2 Jul 2026 and the renewal date is 3 Jul 2026. You joined us on 3 Jul 2024, so you've had almost two years with the brain by then. You're on Growth at forty-four thousand a year, forty users.
- Saskia Mendes NoneRight. So I have time, but not a lot of it. And I'd want to walk into that conversation able to say the thing earns its keep, to Rupert and to the partners.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's the right bar, and it's mine as well. What I'd propose is this. Let's get this month's issues properly closed first. Then, once Dominic and Samir have given you the write-up, I'd like to sit down with you and look at what your directors have actually been asking and how often, so we can put a value case on one page. Nothing about price until you feel the trust is back. Does that sound reasonable?
- Saskia Mendes NoneIt does. Though I'll say, I won't be shy if it goes badly again. The directors need this, but they need it to be right.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI'd expect nothing less, and I'd be worried if you were shy.
- Samir Haddad NoneCan I add one thing? It's a smaller point. If your directors notice a wrong answer in future, it would help me a lot if they could tell us which question they asked and roughly when, even if it's just a screenshot. The sooner I can see it, the less I'm guessing from logs afterwards.
- Saskia Mendes NoneCan we make that simpler? If I tell them to email a screenshot to a support address, half of them won't. Is there a button or something?
- Dominic Hale NoneSimplest route today is to forward it to me directly, and I'll log it under the same incident so it doesn't start a fresh queue. I'll put my address in the email I send at sixteen hundred. If we can build something smoother, that's a conversation for Samir and me afterwards, and I'll come back to you on it rather than promise it now.
- Saskia Mendes NoneFine. That I can tell them. Forward it to Dominic. Done.
- Daniel Okafor NoneJust to close the loop, then, so we all leave with the same list. Dominic sends an update by sixteen hundred today with his contact details. Dominic sends the written timing review on the five tickets by the end of tomorrow. Samir carries on with the root cause and Dominic passes on whatever he finds. I speak to your director this week and send you the notes. And once all that's landed, you and I sit down and look at value together. Have I missed anything?
- Saskia Mendes NoneNo, that's it. Maybe, Samir, when you do have an answer, tell me in English, not logs.
- Samir Haddad NoneUnderstood. Short and plain, and I'll say what I'm sure of and what I'm not.
- Saskia Mendes NonePerfect. Thank you all. I know it's a lot of people on a Monday lunchtime and I appreciate it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThank you for being so direct with us, Saskia. Speak soon.
- Dominic Hale NoneThanks, everyone. Speak at sixteen hundred, by email.
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