Carnmoor Fleet Leasing / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Carnmoor Fleet Leasing · 1 Sep 2026 09:30
Amara Obi told Gemma Thorne that about five people a day are active, roughly half the previous quarter, against 40 licensed. Gemma agreed a small group drives most questions and that she needs a value note for her director.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Amara Obi told Gemma Thorne that about five people a day are active, roughly half the previous quarter, against 40 licensed. Gemma agreed a small group drives most questions and that she needs a value note for her director.
What happened: Amara reported about five active users a day, roughly half the quarter before, with questions down in line. Gemma said she and two or three account managers ask most questions, and the service desk drifted away.
Customer view: Gemma said nobody has been stuck, they just have not been there. Account managers do not trust the brain's numbers until they see them match on their own clients.
Commercial: The contract runs to 1 Dec 2026 on Growth at £42k, paid on time. Gemma would take any commercial decision to her director, so a value note with real usage is needed.
Watch: Key-person risk sits with Gemma. A formal renewal notice from Amara was due within days.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Falling usage, value case
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Amara Obi sends the seat list with last activity by name and a one-page usage view by team this week.
- Amara checks that the connectors are loading and drafts the value note after the client sessions.
- Gemma Thorne picks the three clients by Friday and brings a service desk colleague.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daily active users have roughly halved against 40 licensed, with a small group asking most questions.
- Gemma cannot yet prove value to her director, who will question the £41,800 figure.
- Service desk and remarketing have barely adopted the brain, and account managers do not yet trust its numbers.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Side-by-side sessions on three corporate clients could build account manager trust.
- Bringing the service desk in alongside account managers could widen real use.
- A candid value note could give Gemma a case for her director.
Transcript
Amara ObiMorning, Gemma. Can you hear me all right?
Gemma ThorneMorning, yes, loud and clear. Sorry, give me one second, I'm just closing a deck I was in the middle of. There. Hi.- Amara ObiNo rush at all. How's the week going? It's only Tuesday but it feels like it's been a long one already.
- Gemma ThorneTell me about it. Half the team are only just back properly after the holidays, so my inbox is a lot. Good busy, mostly. I'm in the middle of preparing a review for one of our bigger corporate clients, so that's where my head is.
- Amara ObiRight, that's actually a good place to start, because I wanted to ask about exactly that. But let me do the proper bit first. This is a check-in, nothing formal. I'd like to look at how the brain's been used since the spring, hear what good looks like for you this quarter, and then talk about what we do before the contract ends on 1 Dec 2026.
- Gemma ThorneOkay. Yes. That's fair. I did see the renewal date in the diary, it's not far off, is it.
- Amara ObiThree months, near enough. So plenty of time, but not a lot of slack. Can I start with you? What does a good quarter look like for Client Services?
- Gemma ThorneHonestly? Client reviews that start from numbers we've all agreed. That's the whole reason I wanted it. Before, every account manager would build their own picture of a client's fleet, the queries the service desk had handled, the invoices, and half the time the three didn't match. Then we'd spend the first ten minutes of a review arguing about whose spreadsheet was right.
- Amara ObiMm. And that's the thing you bought Growth for. The fleet, the service desk and the invoices in one place, and remarketing seeing it too.
- Gemma ThorneExactly that. Remarketing was always the awkward one, to be honest. They only really care at the end of a lease, but when they do care they want the whole history.
- Amara ObiOkay. So, here's what the numbers say, and I'd rather give them to you straight than dress them up. Over the last month, on average about five people a day have been active in the brain. That's roughly half what it was the quarter before.
- Gemma ThorneHalf.
- Amara ObiRoughly, yes. And you have 40 licensed users, so five a day is a small slice of that. Questions asked have come down in line with it. I'm not saying that to alarm you, I just never let a drop like that go past without mentioning it.
- Gemma ThorneNo, no, I'd rather you did. Hm. That's lower than I'd have guessed, if I'm honest. I thought it had dipped over the summer, people being off, but I didn't think it was that much.
- Amara ObiSummer will be part of it. It always is. But it started falling before the holidays, so I don't think it's only that.
- Gemma ThorneNo. Right. Let me think about who's actually in there. Which, um. Which is probably the uncomfortable bit.
- Amara ObiCan I ask it a different way? Who do you think is asking most of the questions?
- Gemma ThorneMe. Probably me, and two or three of the account managers who got into it early. Which isn't a good answer, is it.
- Amara ObiIt's an honest one, which helps. I can see from the activity that a big share of the questions come from a very small group. That's what I'd call a key-person risk. If you're away for a fortnight, the brain more or less goes quiet.
- Gemma ThorneYeah. Yeah, that's fair. I've been the one saying look, use it, look what it does, and then I've gone and used it myself and left it at that.
- Amara ObiWhich is what champions do, it's not a criticism. Can I ask about the service desk? Who from there has been in?
- Gemma ThorneVery few. A couple of the team leaders looked at it at the start. But the desk is under pressure, they've got queues, and if opening the brain isn't faster than the thing they already do, they won't. I did say to them it would be, but I haven't sat with them and shown them properly.
- Amara ObiOkay. And I want to be careful here, because I wasn't on the account in the first weeks after you went live, so I'm going on the records and what you tell me. When the service desk did go in, did they find what they needed?
- Gemma ThorneI think so. I never had anyone come back and say it was wrong. Nobody said it was broken. They just... drifted. You know how it is. A new tool, three weeks of enthusiasm, then somebody has a bad Monday and goes back to what they know.
- Amara ObiThat matches something else I see, actually. You've raised no tickets with us in the last month. Not a single one, and none that were urgent either. Normally with a user base your size I'd expect a few how-to questions at least.
- Gemma ThorneWhich you'd read as good news.
- Amara ObiI'd love to. But with usage going down as well, quiet can mean nobody's hitting a problem because nobody's using it. So I'd rather ask you than assume.
- Gemma ThorneNo, you're right. It's the second one. If anyone had been trying to do something and got stuck they'd have rung me, and I'd have rung you. Nobody's been stuck. They just haven't been there.
- Amara ObiOkay. That's useful. So the data isn't the issue and the product isn't the issue, as far as you can tell. It's habit, and it's who's been shown what.
- Gemma ThorneI think so. I mean, I can't see the connector side, that's your end and IT's end. But nothing's looked wrong when I've asked it things.
- Amara ObiFrom what I can see the sources are still loading. I'll double check that after this call so I'm not just telling you what you'd like to hear. Can I come back to the review you're preparing? What did you do for it, which route did you take?
- Gemma ThorneFunny you ask. I used the brain for the fleet and the invoice side, because that's the bit that used to take an afternoon. It took me, I don't know, a fraction of the time. Then I went back to the spreadsheet for the service desk history, because I wasn't sure the account manager would trust it if I said it came out of the brain.
- Amara ObiInteresting. So there's a trust gap with the people who'd be presenting it, not with the answer itself.
- Gemma ThorneYes. That's exactly it. They've been burnt before by a system that said one thing and the client said another. And I always ask, what did the client actually see? If the answer is different from what we're showing the client, we lose the room.
- Amara ObiThat's a good test. So what would it take for an account manager to take the brain's numbers into a review without checking them against a spreadsheet first?
- Gemma ThorneSeeing it match, a few times. On their own clients. Not a demo client, theirs. Which client, which fleet, and then the figures lining up with what they already know.
- Amara ObiRight. That I can help with. What if we pick, say, three of your corporate clients, the ones with reviews coming up, and sit down with the account managers who own them? We run the brain's picture next to what they'd normally build and look at where it differs.
- Gemma ThorneYes. I like that. And the differences are the useful bit, aren't they. If it's different, either the brain's wrong or the spreadsheet is, and we find out which.
- Amara ObiExactly. And if the brain's wrong, I want to know about it, because that's mine to fix. So who else should have access? Is there anyone on the desk or in remarketing who isn't set up and should be?
- Gemma ThorneLet me think. Remarketing, no, I don't think they've ever really had a login that they used. I'd have to check who's set up. Let's get the service desk in on this as well, actually, rather than do it just with the account managers. If the two sides see the same thing in the same room, that's half the battle.
- Amara ObiAgreed. I'll send you a list of everyone who's got a seat and when they last logged in, so you can see it by name. Be warned, it's not flattering in places.
- Gemma ThorneThat's fine. I'd rather see it. Better from you than from somebody upstairs asking.
- Amara ObiWhich brings me to the renewal. Can I be straightforward about that?
- Gemma ThornePlease.
- Amara ObiThe contract runs to 1 Dec 2026. You're on Growth, and the annual figure on the order form is £41,800, which matches what's been invoiced. That's all in order, and you've paid on time every time, so there's no issue on that side at all.
- Gemma ThorneGood. I'd hate for it to be a billing thing.
- Amara ObiIt isn't. The thing I'd flag is this: if someone senior at Carnmoor looks at that figure next to usage that's halved, the question they'll ask is what it's worth. And I'd rather we had an answer for that before they ask it.
- Gemma ThorneYeah. Yes. And that would come to me, and then to my director, because I can't take a commercial decision like that on my own. I'd have to take it upstairs.
- Amara ObiOf course. So that's what I'd like to help you with. Not a sales pitch. A short, honest note on what the brain has done for Client Services, with real numbers from your own usage, and a clear view of where it hasn't landed yet.
- Gemma ThorneThat would help. Because honestly, at the moment, if my director said what do we get for it, I'd say the review prep is quicker, and then I'd run out of things I could prove.
- Amara ObiThat's the gap. And I won't put anything in that note I can't back up from the records. If the honest picture is that it's working for a handful of people, then that's what it says, and we show what we're doing about it.
- Gemma ThorneGood. I'd rather that. I've been burnt by a supplier who sent me a glossy summary that didn't match what we were seeing.
- Amara ObiNot going to do that. What else would your director want in it? What would make them comfortable?
- Gemma ThorneTime saved, I think. And clients. Whether it helped us hold on to the corporate fleets we've already got, because that's what they care about. Not how many questions get asked.
- Amara ObiOkay. I can't promise I'll be able to show a link to client retention from the data I have, and I'd be inventing it if I tried. But the time saved on review prep, the three clients we walk through together, and who's using it by team, I can do all of that.
- Gemma ThorneThat's enough. If I can add what the account managers say after the sessions, that's the colour.
- Amara ObiPerfect. Now, timing. The formal renewal notice will come from me in the next few days, just so you're not surprised by it. It's a standard step, it doesn't commit anyone to anything, but it'll land with your name on it and probably get forwarded.
- Gemma ThorneThanks for the warning. I'll tell my director it's coming so it's not a cold email.
- Amara ObiHelpful. And Sophie Ling, who looked after the original deal, is aware of the date too, so if there are commercial questions on the terms she's the person to speak to alongside me.
- Gemma ThorneOkay, good. Right. So, what do you need from me, and what do I need from you?
- Amara ObiFrom me: the list of seats with last activity by name, and a one-page view of usage by team, both this week. A check on the connectors, so you know the data's fresh. And a draft of the value note once we've done the client sessions.
- Gemma ThorneAnd from me, the three clients and the account managers, and getting someone from the service desk to come along. I'll pick the clients by Friday.
- Amara ObiLovely. And let's get the next QBR in the diary while we're here. Somewhere after the sessions, so we have something real to look at together, but well before the renewal.
- Gemma ThorneYes. Send me a couple of options and I'll pick one. I'd like my director to sit in for at least some of it.
- Amara ObiThat would be ideal. I'll send options with the usage summary. Anything else on your mind before we finish?
- Gemma ThorneOnly that I'm glad you said it plainly. I'd half expected a pitch. It's better to know where we actually are.
- Amara ObiThat's what I'm here for. Thanks, Gemma. Speak soon, and good luck with the review.
- Gemma ThorneThanks, Amara. Speak soon, bye.
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