Carnmoor Fleet Leasing / BB-Demo – Renewal
Callcompleted
Carnmoor Fleet Leasing · 2026-09-01 11:45
Ian Prendergast, Finance Director, accepted Starter at £22k in place of Growth at £42k, subject to an order form. Fifteen users stay, twenty-five come off at term end, and BB-Demo wants signature by 22 Sep 2026.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Ian Prendergast, Finance Director, accepted Starter at £22k in place of Growth at £42k, subject to an order form. Fifteen users stay, twenty-five come off at term end, and BB-Demo wants signature by 22 Sep 2026.
What happened: Amara Obi laid out low usage, about five daily users against forty licensed. Sophie Ling proposed Starter at £22k, the current list price with no discount.
Customer view: Ian accepted the shape of the deal and will read the order form line by line. Gemma Thorne said the wider rollout never happened beyond the corporate account managers.
Commercial: Term ends 1 Dec 2026 and the renewal would start 2 Dec 2026. Ian wants users and connectors written in words, and the add-on price for extra users in the covering note.
Watch: Starter has a hard limit of four connectors and more are connected today. Ian does not want to discuss Growth again until usage is shown.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Downgrade to Starter
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- Sophie Ling to send the Starter order form and an add-on note, with the form back to Ian before 22 Sep 2026.
- Gemma Thorne to send the fifteen names and a paragraph on value, and Amara Obi to send the usage summary and check-in dates.
- Darren Holloway to check the names against logins and remove the other twenty-five accounts on 1 Dec 2026.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The subscription shrinks from the Growth order form figure of £41,800 to a Starter price of £22,000.
- More connectors are live than the Starter hard limit of four allows, so the four to keep must be agreed before signature.
- Ian will not discuss a return to Growth until Carnmoor has shown it uses what it has.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Amara described a route back to Growth if usage picks up, and Gemma wants a check-in before the end of the year.
- Additional users come in blocks of ten as an add-on if the count goes above fifteen.
Transcript
Amara Obi NoneHello, can everyone hear me? I can see Gemma and Ian. Darren, are you on as well?
Darren Holloway NoneYes, I'm here. Sorry, just fighting with the headset. Can you hear me now?- Amara Obi NoneLoud and clear.
Gemma Thorne NoneHi all. Apologies if I echo, I'm in the small room by the service desk because every meeting room in the building is taken today.
Sophie Ling NoneNo echo here. Hi everyone, it's Sophie. Thanks for finding the time just before lunch, I know the diary is tight.
Ian Prendergast NoneHello. I have until about half past twelve, so I would rather we used the time on the numbers than on pleasantries.- Sophie Ling NoneFair enough. Amara, do you want to kick us off?
- Amara Obi NoneHappy to. For anyone who hasn't dealt with me much, I'm Amara, I'm your customer success manager, so adoption and the renewal conversation sit with me, and Sophie owns the commercial side. What we want from today is simple. Where are you with the brain, what does good look like for you between now and the end of the term, and what do you want the contract to look like from December.
- Ian Prendergast NoneBefore we get there, what has changed since the order form? Because I signed a Growth contract on the basis that several teams would be using this, and I would like to know whether that is still the case.
- Amara Obi NoneRight, and I'd rather say it plainly than dress it up. Here's what the numbers say. Activity has roughly halved against the previous quarter. On a typical day we're seeing about five people active, where a quarter ago it was nearer ten.
- Ian Prendergast NoneHalved from what base? A percentage on its own does not tell me much.
- Amara Obi NoneFair. From about ten daily users to about five, out of forty licensed users. So the licence is a lot bigger than what's being used.
- Ian Prendergast NoneForty licensed, five using it. Right. That is the thing I have been looking at on the invoice.
- Gemma Thorne NoneCan I come in here, because I think I'm partly the reason Ian is looking at that line. I've been preparing the client reviews for the autumn and I went back through who actually opens the brain, and it's not the picture I had in my head when we signed.
- Sophie Ling NoneGo on, Gemma. We'd rather hear it straight.
- Gemma Thorne NoneSo the account managers who run the corporate fleets use it a lot. They start every review from it and they like it. But the wider rollout never really happened. Remarketing looked at it for a bit and drifted off, and the service desk dipped in and out. That's on me as much as anyone, I didn't push it hard enough once the first few months were past.
- Amara Obi NoneI wouldn't put it all on you, Gemma. Part of it is that we didn't get the service desk properly onboarded. Which client, which fleet, what did the client actually see, that's the question they ask, and I don't think we showed them how to ask it.
- Gemma Thorne NoneThat's kind. The service desk team are good, they just had a busy summer and this was one more tool.
- Ian Prendergast NoneUnderstood. Then let me ask the direct question. If five people use it daily, what am I paying for at Growth?
- Sophie Ling NoneYou're paying for headroom, honestly, and for the dashboards builder and the quarterly reviews. At the moment you're contracted at £41,800 and that's both what's on the order form and what we've invoiced, so there's no mismatch to chase. But I don't think it's right to sit here and tell you that you need all of it.
- Ian Prendergast NoneThat is a more candid answer than I expected from a supplier.
- Sophie Ling NoneI'd rather we kept you at the right size than lost you in December on a bad feeling. So here's what I'd put on the table. Starter, at £22,000.
- Ian Prendergast NoneStarter at twenty-two thousand. Walk me through what Starter is, in terms of what I lose. I want the list, not the brochure.
- Sophie Ling NoneAmara, you're closer to the product on this, do you want to?
- Amara Obi NoneSure. Starter is one team. You'd have fifteen users, that's a soft limit, and four connectors, and that one is a hard limit. You keep pages, chat and search, which is what the account managers actually use. What goes is the dashboards builder, and the quarterly QBRs become a six-monthly check-in.
- Ian Prendergast NoneSoft limit meaning what, precisely?
- Amara Obi NoneMeaning we won't switch someone off on day sixteen. If you drift over, I'd flag it to you and we'd talk about extra users as an add-on. The connectors are different. Four is four, the brain won't load a fifth.
- Gemma Thorne NoneFour we can live with, I think. Can I ask which ones we'd keep? Because right now there are more than four feeding the review pages.
- Amara Obi NoneYes, and I'll be straight, that's the bit that needs care. You've got more connected today than Starter allows. I'd suggest we go through them with you and keep the four that feed the client reviews and the service desk view. The others would be switched off at term end, not before.
- Gemma Thorne NoneOkay. Let's get the service desk in on that, because they'll have a view on what they'd miss.
- Ian Prendergast NoneHang on, let me stay on the money for a moment. Twenty-two thousand against forty-one thousand eight hundred. I can do that subtraction myself. What I want to know is whether twenty-two is a firm figure or an opening one.
- Sophie Ling NoneIt's the Starter price. There's no discount layered on it, it's the list and it's what a new Starter customer would pay today. I'm not going to pretend there's lots of room beyond that.
- Ian Prendergast NoneGood. I prefer a straight list to a negotiated one I then have to explain to the board.
- Ian Prendergast NoneAnother thing. I don't like renewals that happen by themselves. What is the sequence, and what is the cut-off, so that nothing rolls over at the old price without somebody deciding it?
- Sophie Ling NoneTerm ends on 1 December 2026, and the renewal would start the day after, 2 December 2026. Nothing renews until there's an executed order form. What I'd like is a signed Starter order form by 22 September 2026, so we've got a clean run at the data and the connectors before the term closes.
- Ian Prendergast NoneTwenty-second of September. That's three weeks.
- Sophie Ling NoneAbout that, yes. Is that too tight?
- Ian Prendergast NoneNo, it's perfectly workable. I'll say this now so nobody has to guess later. Starter at twenty-two thousand is acceptable to me. I'll want it on an order form and I will read it line by line, but you have my agreement on the shape.
- Sophie Ling NoneThat's really helpful, Ian. Thank you.
- Amara Obi NoneAnd can I just say, I think it's the right call for where you are. If usage picks up, there's a route back to Growth and we'd be glad to have that conversation.
- Ian Prendergast NoneWe will take a view at the next renewal. I'd rather not talk about going back up before we've shown we use what we have.
- Gemma Thorne NoneThat's fair, and it's right. Okay, so, the people. Ian, shall I just say who I'd keep? Because Amara will need the names.
- Ian Prendergast NonePlease. And I'd like it to be a number I can reconcile, not a rough idea.
- Gemma Thorne NoneFifteen. That's my number. It's me, the corporate account managers who actually run client reviews, and the leads from the service desk, because I want them looking at the same picture as the account managers. That's the thing I care about, the service desk and the account managers telling the same story to a client.
- Amara Obi NoneFifteen exactly. That sits right on the Starter soft limit. Can you send me the list, or shall Darren pull it from the admin console?
- Gemma Thorne NoneI'll write it down and send it, then Darren can check it against who's actually active. I don't want to take anyone off by accident.
- Darren Holloway NoneThat makes sense. Can I ask a practical question? What happens to the other accounts? There are forty licensed and only fifteen staying.
- Amara Obi NoneGood question. Twenty-five would be surplus. From our side, they'd stop at the end of the term. What I'd normally ask is that your team removes them, so access is cleaned up properly on your side rather than just disappearing.
- Darren Holloway NoneYes, I'd want to own that anyway. I'm not comfortable with accounts sitting there that nobody uses and nobody's accountable for. Leftover licences are exactly what the auditors pick up.
- Ian Prendergast NoneWhich is a reasonable thing to say, and I'd rather it was done deliberately.
- Darren Holloway NoneSo, to be clear for the record. I'll remove the other twenty-five accounts at term end. Not before, so nobody loses access in the middle of a review cycle, but on the day the term ends, 1 December 2026, they come off.
- Amara Obi NonePerfect. Could you confirm to me in writing once it's done, so I can note it against the account?
- Darren Holloway NoneYes, I'll send you a short note. I'll also cross-check Gemma's fifteen against current logins, so if there are people on her list who've never signed in, I'll tell her before we finalise.
- Gemma Thorne NonePlease do. I'd rather know.
- Darren Holloway NoneOne more thing from my side. With fewer people and fewer connectors, does anything about how data is held change? Because I signed off a security position on the original setup.
- Amara Obi NoneNo, the brain still runs inside your own Snowflake account, so where the data lives doesn't move. What changes is how many sources feed it and who can see it. If anything that's a smaller footprint than you approved.
- Darren Holloway NoneGood. That's the answer I was hoping for.
- Ian Prendergast NoneLet me ask something about value, since we are being honest. If I were the board, I'd ask whether the brain has earned its keep over the first year. What do I say?
- Gemma Thorne NoneI can answer that one. The account managers say they don't rebuild each client's picture by hand any more. They used to spend most of a morning pulling the fleet, the queries and the invoices together before a review. Now they open it and start. I can't give you a pound figure, but I can give you the hours they've stopped spending.
- Ian Prendergast NoneI would take that, written down, even without the pounds. The board can work with a clear statement from the person who runs the team.
- Gemma Thorne NoneI'll write you a paragraph.
- Amara Obi NoneAnd I can add to that from my side. I'll put together the usage for the last two quarters so you've got something clean to take upstairs. Questions asked, who's asking them, and where the drop-off happened. No spin.
- Ian Prendergast NoneThank you. Though, I'll be candid: the drop-off is what I'll be asked about, not the questions.
- Amara Obi NoneUnderstood, and it'll be in there. I'm not going to leave it out.
- Sophie Ling NoneCan I check one more thing before we go too far on the paperwork? Ian, anything on the invoicing side? Quarterly or annual, payment terms, anything you want changed on the new order form?
- Ian Prendergast NoneSame as we have. Annual in advance, thirty days. I have no complaint about how you've billed us, nothing has been late and nothing has been wrong. I'd like to keep it that way.
- Sophie Ling NoneGreat, that's the easiest part. I'll draft the Starter order form on those terms.
- Ian Prendergast NoneAnd please put the user number and the connector number in words as well as figures, if the form allows. I'd prefer it was impossible to argue about later.
- Sophie Ling NoneI'll make sure it's explicit. Fifteen users, four connectors, six-monthly check-in.
- Gemma Thorne NoneCan I add a request? The check-ins. Could the first one be before the end of the year rather than waiting until after the new term starts? I want us to see whether usage has gone up once the service desk has had a go.
- Amara Obi NoneYes, absolutely. Let's get the next check-in in the diary now rather than leave it. I'll send a few options after this call and we'll pick one that suits you and the service desk leads.
- Gemma Thorne NoneLovely. And I'd like someone from the service desk on it, not only me.
- Amara Obi NoneWho else should have access to the session? Give me a name and I'll add them.
- Gemma Thorne NoneI'll come back to you with a name once I've talked to them. I don't want to volunteer somebody who's on leave.
- Darren Holloway NoneCan I also ask, are the four connectors you keep decided before term end, or after? Because I'd like to stage the removals sensibly.
- Amara Obi NoneBefore. I'd like it agreed with Gemma and her team by the time the order form is signed, so there's nothing to decide on the last day. Then on the day, it's just a switch.
- Darren Holloway NoneGood. Send me whatever list comes out of that and I'll plan around it.
- Ian Prendergast NoneI have one last thing, and it is a question rather than a demand. If the user count goes above fifteen in the new term, what does that cost? I want to know the exposure before it happens.
- Sophie Ling NoneAdditional users come in blocks of ten as an add-on. I don't want to quote a number off the cuff and get it wrong, so I'll put the add-on price in the covering note with the order form. That way it's written, not remembered.
- Ian Prendergast NoneThat's the correct way to do it. Thank you.
- Gemma Thorne NoneHonestly, I came into this call expecting to feel worse about it. It's clearer now. Fewer people, the right people, and the account managers carry on.
- Amara Obi NoneThat's what I'd like too. Smaller, but used. And if it works, we talk about growing it back.
- Ian Prendergast NoneRight. Let me make sure I have the actions, since I'll be asked. Sophie sends the Starter order form and a note on additional users. Gemma sends the fifteen names and a paragraph on value. Darren checks the names against logins and removes the other twenty-five at term end. Amara sends the usage summary and the check-in dates.
- Sophie Ling NoneThat's all of it. I'd add the connector shortlist, which Amara and Gemma will agree with the service desk.
- Amara Obi NoneYes, that's mine to start. I'll send Gemma the current connector list this week so she's got something to react to.
- Ian Prendergast NoneAnd the order form comes back to me before 22 September 2026, not on it.
- Sophie Ling NoneUnderstood. You'll have it well ahead of that, so there's time for you to read it properly.
- Darren Holloway NoneFine from me. Thanks, all.
- Gemma Thorne NoneThanks, everyone. Speak soon.
- Amara Obi NoneThanks, all. Best of luck with the reviews, Gemma. Speak soon.
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