What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Onboarding call with Kofi Asamoah, MI and Data Manager. Two extract gaps found (parent reference, related parties). Growth terms confirmed at £42k. Few users so far, by design, until the client list is right.
What happened: Hamza Akhtar and Kofi checked the first loads against the leasing system. They found parent and subsidiary clients unlinked and a related-party subsidiary missing from the brain.
Customer view: Kofi wants trust before breadth. He would rather ten people use it properly than forty log in once, and he will not invite account managers until the client list is right.
Commercial: Kofi confirmed Growth, forty users, £42k a year. Hamza confirmed it from the order form and said the first term runs to 1 Dec 2026.
Watch: adoption is thin at this stage. Stale or flat loads are the stated worry, so the nightly refresh and any source changes matter for the renewal.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Who was there
BB-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Kofi adds the parent client reference to the extract that night and checks the load the next morning.
- Hamza sends field names, a duplicate contact list and a one-page guide, and does the registration clean-up in the mapping.
- Kofi introduces Hamza to a finance colleague that week for read-only accounting access.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Only a handful of the forty Growth licences are in use, so early value is not yet visible.
- Source changes or a flat record count could leave the brain stale and erode trust.
- Two extract gaps (parent reference, related parties) give incomplete answers until fixed.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Driver service desk, remarketing and corporate account managers are named groups for rollout.
- Invoice visibility for account managers via a read-only accounting connector is an agreed next source.
Transcript
- Hamza Akhtar NoneHello Kofi, can you hear me all right?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYeah, loud and clear. Afternoon. Give me a second, my camera's being awkward.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneNo rush. Afternoon. How's your Monday going?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneSlow start, to be honest. Trains were a mess this morning, grey and wet the whole way in. But I'm here now. You?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSame weather down here. Right, I'm glad we've got this slot. I thought today we'd get the first sources properly wired in and agree who owns what on your side. Does that work?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneWorks for me. I'll start with the open tickets, as I always do. There aren't any. Nothing raised since we went live, which is either very good or means we haven't pushed it hard enough.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneA bit of both, I'd say, at this stage. Nothing showing on our side either. So a clean slate, which is a nice place to start.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYeah. Can I ask something before we dive in? We've got the forty licences and I've been the main one logging in. One or two others have had a look. Is that normal for this point?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneCompletely normal. Early on it's usually the admin and a curious colleague or two. The numbers come when the sources are loading properly and people see their own clients in there. That's really what today is about.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneGood, because I didn't want to start inviting the account managers until the client list is right. If they search for a client and get two versions of it, they won't come back.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneAgreed. Don't invite anyone yet. Which source is the master for the client list? Is it the leasing system?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneWhich source is that from, you mean for the record itself? Yes, the leasing system is the master. The CRM has the account managers' notes and contacts, but the legal name, the contract references, the fleet, all of that comes from the leasing system. The CRM drifts a bit. People type names in differently.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneRight, that's the classic one. So the brain needs one client identity and everything else hangs off it. We'd match on the leasing system's client reference, not on the name.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneExactly. Names will never match cleanly. That's a mapping question, not a bug. The reference should match.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood. Let me share my screen and show you what's loaded. Can you see it?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneNot yet. Ah, there it is.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSo this is the connector page. At the moment I've got the leasing system and the CRM as the first two, and then the helpdesk and the accounting system are the ones we agreed come after. Last night's load for the first two finished without errors as far as I can see. Does that match what you saw?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI'll check last night's load on my side to be sure, but yes, I looked this morning and it had completed. What I can't tell is whether the numbers are right, only that it finished.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's the right distinction. Finished isn't the same as correct. So let's do a spot check. Pick a client you know well, one with a big fleet, and we'll compare what's in the leasing system with what the brain shows.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneOkay. Give me a minute, I'll pull one up. I'll use one of the larger contract-hire clients. You'll see why in a sec.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneTake your time. I'll search the same one here.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneRight, sorry, the leasing system is slow on a Monday. Okay, so in there the client has a parent record and a few subsidiary entities underneath it. Each entity has its own vehicles.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneAnd in the brain I'm seeing the parent and the subsidiaries as separate clients with no link between them. So if an account manager searches the group name they'd get the parent only and miss the vehicles under the subsidiaries.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneThat's what I was worried about. In the leasing system there's a parent reference field. It isn't in the extract we set up originally. That's on me, I didn't include it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneNo problem at all, it's an easy add. If the extract carries the parent reference we can map the hierarchy, so a search on the group shows everything beneath it.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI'd rather do it carefully. I don't want to change the extract and have the load fall over tonight. Can you tell me exactly what the field should be called on your side, so I add it with the right name?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes, I'll put it in the notes after the call. We expect a column holding the parent client reference, and blank where there's no parent. Blank is fine.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneGood. Blank for top-level clients. And I'll tell my team before I make the change, so nobody's surprised when the client count looks different.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSensible. Would you run it tonight, in the quiet window, and then check the load in the morning?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYeah, tonight. I'll check the load first thing tomorrow before anyone's in and tell you what I see.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneBrilliant. Now, the other thing I spotted on that client. Look at the contacts tab. There are two entries that look like the same person.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneOh yes. That's the CRM. One was typed in with a nickname and one with the full name. I'm fairly sure they're the same fleet manager.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneFairly sure, or sure?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneFair. I'd want to look at the email addresses first. I don't guess at that sort of thing. If they share an address they're one person, and if they don't I'll leave them alone and ask the account manager.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's the right call. And the brain shouldn't merge people on its own either. We match on email where there is one, and otherwise we keep them apart and flag it. Better two entries than a wrong merge.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneAgreed. Wrong merge is worse, because nobody notices it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneExactly. Would it help if I sent you a list of every contact pair the brain thinks might be a duplicate? You could clear them at source, in the CRM, and the next load picks it up.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes please. Fixing it at source is the only way it stays fixed. If you tidy it on your side and I leave the CRM alone, it just comes back.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneRight. I'll pull that list this week. Let me move on to the helpdesk, because I know the driver service desk is one of the groups you want to see first.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes, they're the group I'm most keen on. They take the driver queries all day, things like a breakdown, a service booking, a question about an invoice. And at the moment they flip between three or four screens to answer one call.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSo the picture you want is a driver's query alongside the vehicle, the contract and the client's account manager. All in one answer.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneThat's it. Vehicle, contract, who looks after the client, and whether there's anything open already. If the desk can ask that in plain English, I'm a happy man.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's exactly what it's built for. The one catch is the vehicle registration. The helpdesk ticket has it typed in free text, and the leasing system has it clean. So we'll have to normalise spaces and capitals before they match.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYeah, that's a classic. Some of the agents put spaces in, some don't, some use lower case. I can do it in the extract rather than leave it for you, if that's easier.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneEither works. I'd lean towards doing it on our side in the mapping, because then it's written down in one place and you don't have to remember what you changed.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneFair point. Fewer places to forget. Okay, you do it in the mapping and I'll look at the result before we switch it on.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneDeal. Let me note that. So that's the parent reference from you tonight, the duplicate contacts list from me, and the registration clean-up in the mapping from me.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneAnd I'll confirm the helpdesk export includes the registration field at all. I think it does but I'd want to see it before I say so.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood. Now, can I ask about the accounting side? The profile says you want invoices sitting next to the fleet and the queries.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes. That's mostly for the corporate account managers. When a client rings up about a bill they want to see what was invoiced, what's been paid and what's outstanding, without ringing finance.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneUnderstood. Who in finance would own that connection? We'd need someone to give us read access to the accounting system.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneThat'd be a colleague in our finance team. I'll introduce you by email this week. They're careful, which I like, so expect questions about exactly what you can see.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood, I'd want them to be careful. Read-only, invoices and payments, nothing else. I'll write that up so they've got it in black and white.
- Kofi Asamoah NonePerfect. While we're on money, can I check one thing? Our finance team asked me to confirm the contract numbers so they can tie them up. We're on Growth, forty users, and the annual figure is forty-one thousand eight hundred. Is that what you've got?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes. Growth, forty users, and the order form says £41,800 a year. The invoicing matches it. You've been with us since 2 December 2025 and the first term runs to 1 Dec 2026.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneGreat, that's what I told them. I just like to hear it from you rather than rely on my memory of the paperwork.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneVery sensible. Anything about the contract itself should go to Sophie, she's your account owner, or to Amara as your customer success contact. I'm here for the implementation side.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneUnderstood. Sophie for commercial, Amara for how it's going, you for getting it working.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's it exactly. Right, let me go back to the connectors. I'll show you the refresh schedule.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneOkay.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSo each night the sources refresh and the brain should be up to date before your teams start. That's the promise and it's the thing I'd most like you to hold us to. If you open the brain in the morning and the answer is stale, tell me or raise a ticket the same day.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI will. And honestly that's what matters most to me. A tool that's right nine days out of ten is worse than no tool, because people stop trusting it on the tenth.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneCompletely agree. So here's a suggestion. For the first few weeks, you look at the load status first thing, before the teams are in. If something's off, you catch it before anyone else does.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneThat's already what I do. I'll check last night's load every morning, and I'll tell you if the record counts look odd. A flat count for a few days would worry me more than an error.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes, a flat count is the quiet one. An error shouts, a flat count just sits there. Good instinct.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneCan I ask about changes on our side? We're likely to change a field or two in the leasing system over the year. What happens then?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's the main way a connector breaks. Someone renames a field or changes a format, and the load carries on but the mapping points at nothing. So the ask is simple: tell us before you change a source, even if it seems minor.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI can do that. Most of those changes go through me anyway. I'll make it part of how we sign them off.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat'd be ideal. Now, rollout. You said you didn't want to invite the account managers until the client list is right. Who do you want first?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI'd go with a small group. Two or three corporate account managers who are good with the leasing system and who'll tell me straight if something's wrong. Then the driver service desk team leader, and one person from remarketing.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneI like that. A small group that'll be honest with you. What does remarketing want out of it?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneDifferent thing again. They care about vehicles coming off contract, what condition they're in, what service history there is, and whether the client had any disputes. Today that's a spreadsheet that somebody emails round.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneAnd a spreadsheet emailed round is out of date as soon as it's sent.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneBefore it's sent, usually.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneHa, fair. Then I'd suggest we show remarketing the end-of-contract view as the first thing they see, because it replaces something they do by hand every week. That tends to win people over.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes. Fewer spreadsheets. That's pretty much my whole career goal.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThen we're aligned. How do you want to run the first session with them? I can do a walkthrough, or I can sit alongside while they ask their own questions.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneSecond one. People learn it faster when they ask about their own clients. Maybe forty minutes, each group separately, so the service desk aren't sitting through remarketing's questions.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneFine by me. I'd keep each session short and give them homework, which is to ask the brain three real questions before the next one. Then they come back with what it got wrong.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI like the homework idea. I'd rather hear what's wrong early and fix the mapping than hear nothing and find out in three months.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSame. Now, there's one thing I should mention about permissions. By default everyone you invite sees everything that's loaded. Is that what you want, or are there things certain people shouldn't see?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneGood question. Right now I'd say no one needs to be locked out of client information, because the account managers already see it in the leasing system. But the invoices, that I'd want to restrict. Not everybody needs to see payment status.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOkay. So invoices to the corporate account managers and finance, and not the service desk or remarketing for now. We can change it later if you want to widen it.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes, start narrow. It's easier to open it up than to explain why something was visible that shouldn't have been.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneAgreed. I'll set that up once the accounting connection is in. Until then there's nothing to restrict anyway.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneRight. So, do you want me to go back to the parent reference? I've been thinking about whether there are clients with more than one level. A group, a company under it, and then a depot under that.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes, good thing to raise. The mapping can handle more than one level as long as each record points to its direct parent. So the reference column should be the immediate parent, not the top of the group.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneImmediate parent. Right, that's what I thought. I'll check what the field actually holds before I trust it. I've seen it filled in inconsistently on older records.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's worth doing. If it's inconsistent, send me a handful of examples and we'll decide whether to clean it at source or handle it in the mapping.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneWill do. I won't change anything on the older records without telling the team. It's their data as much as mine.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOf course. Let me try something while we're both here. I'll ask the brain a real question and you tell me whether the answer is right. Something like, which of the client's vehicles are due to come off contract in the next quarter.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneGo on then. Pick the same client we looked at.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneTyping it in. This takes a few seconds.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOkay, it's come back with a list and it's saying the client has several vehicles ending in the next quarter, grouped by subsidiary. Not by parent, because of the missing link we found. Does the list look right?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneLet me compare it. Mm. Mm. Yes, the vehicles are right, I recognise them. But there are a couple missing that I'd expect. Hold on, they're under a subsidiary that isn't in the brain at all.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneNot in the brain at all? Then that's separate from the parent link. Is that entity in the leasing system under a different client type?
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI think so. It's flagged as a related party, not as a client, so my extract filtered it out. I filtered on client type to keep the list clean at the start.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat makes sense. So you'd want related parties included, at least where they have vehicles on contract.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes. I'd rather not guess at the rule, though. Let me check how those entities are flagged and I'll come back to you with the exact condition. I don't want to pull in internal test records by accident.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneFine. That's your call as the person who knows the system. Just tell me when it changes and I'll watch the next load.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneWill do. So to be clear, I now have two changes to the extract, the parent reference and the related parties. I'd rather do them one at a time so if the load breaks we know which one did it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood thinking. Parent reference tonight, related parties once you've confirmed the rule. Then each load tells us something clean.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneRight. That's a sensible order.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneLet me use the last bit of time on the support side, since you've not needed it yet. If something goes wrong, you raise a ticket in the usual place, and it comes to the support team and then to me for anything connector related.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneAnd I should say how urgent it is. I've done that before with other suppliers and it does help.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneIt does. If the load fails and people can't work, say so. If it's a wrong mapping that's irritating but not blocking, say that instead. We'll match the response to the tier you're on.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneSensible. And if I'm not sure which it is?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThen email me directly and we'll work it out between us. I'd rather have a question than a silence.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneOkay. That's helpful. Thank you.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOne more thing about the rollout. When you do invite the first group, would you like a short guide from me, one page, with the sort of questions that work well? Account managers often don't know what to ask at first.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes please. Written for our people, not for data folk. Use our words, so contract, vehicle, driver, client. Not whatever the technical terms are.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneUnderstood. I'll draft it from today's examples, and you can mark it up before it goes anywhere. I'd rather it sounded like you than like us.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneBrilliant. That'll save me a job.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOkay. Before we wrap, let me check the thing I was most worried about, which is the user count. With forty licences and only a handful in use, I don't want you to feel pressure to fill them quickly.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneI appreciate that. I'd rather ten people use it properly than forty log in once and give up. We'll grow it as the data earns the trust.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's the right way round. And when you're ready to widen it, tell Amara, because she'll want to check in on how adoption's going.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneWill do. She mentioned a check-in when we spoke before. I'll let her know where we are after this call.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood. So, let me read back what we've agreed, and you tell me if I've got anything wrong.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneGo on.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOne. Tonight you add the parent client reference to the leasing system extract, blank where there's no parent, and you tell your team first. Two. Tomorrow morning you check the load and tell me what you see. Three. You confirm how related parties are flagged and send me the condition, and that goes in as a separate change. Four. You introduce me to your finance colleague by email this week, so we can set up read-only access to the accounting system.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneYes. And I'll confirm the helpdesk export has the vehicle registration in it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneRight, five. And on my side, I send you the field names in the notes after this call, the list of possible duplicate contacts this week, and the one-page guide in draft. And I do the registration clean-up in the mapping.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneThat's everything I've got. Do you want another call to see where we've got to?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneI'd say yes. Next week, once the parent link and the related parties are in. Then we can decide whether the first group is ready to be invited.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneSounds right. I'd like to see the group search working properly before anyone else sees it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSame. I'll send an invite for later in the week, and we can move it if the loads need more time.
- Kofi Asamoah NonePerfect. Can I ask one last question, a bit off topic? When the nightly load runs, is it all sources at once, or one after another?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOne after another, in a set order, so a slow source can delay the ones behind it. That's one reason I like you checking each morning. If the leasing system is slow, the helpdesk might finish late.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneRight, that explains why it was slower this morning. I'd wondered. Okay, I'll keep an eye on the finish times as well as the counts.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood. And if finish times start creeping, that's worth telling me about before it becomes a problem.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneUnderstood. I think that's me. Thanks, Hamza, this was useful. I came in thinking it'd be mostly connector admin and we've actually found a couple of real things.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's the best use of the time. Better to find them now with just you and me looking than after the account managers have seen it. Thanks for pulling the live example up.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneNo bother. Right, I'll go and start on that extract before I lose the afternoon to something else.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGo for it. Notes will be with you within the hour, and I'll copy Amara so she's in the picture.
- Kofi Asamoah NoneLovely. Speak soon, then. Cheers, Hamza.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneCheers, Kofi. Speak next week. Take care.