Harcastle Environmental / BB-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 2025-05-14 09:45
Second onboarding call on 14 May 2025 with Imran Hussain alone. He is testing sources one at a time, has held back user invitations until the customer page is trusted, and confirmed the Growth price and users.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Second onboarding call on 14 May 2025 with Imran Hussain alone. He is testing sources one at a time, has held back user invitations until the customer page is trusted, and confirmed the Growth price and users.
What happened: Laura Penhaligon and Imran loaded one depot of routing data into the test area and reviewed low-confidence matches. Imran approved one clear duplicate and left an uncertain pair unapproved.
Customer view: Imran is cautious by design. He held back invitations so account managers do not meet a half-empty customer page, and wants the helpdesk switch-on to wait for the full routing load.
Commercial: finance asked him to confirm what Harcastle pays, and he checked it against Laura: £40k a year, Growth, 40 users. Laura referred commercial questions to Lewis Kerr or Marcus Bell.
Watch: the routing and helpdesk customer references do not line up cleanly. Phone tickets often lack one, and the helpdesk categories have been renamed.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Staged connector testing, cautious rollout
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Imran Hussain to send the ticket count, old category names and Sunday collection field.
- Imran Hussain to run the full routing set into the test area and review low-confidence matches.
- Laura Penhaligon to send the finance field list and recap, and set up the walk-through.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Inconsistent customer references across routing, helpdesk and finance could make the customer page unreliable.
- Invitations are held back, so adoption stays low until Imran trusts the customer page.
- Account managers keep asking when it will be finished and need a staged plan.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A half-hour walk-through for a few account managers, using their own customers' questions.
- Three spare connectors on Growth leave room for the CRM and call recorder later.
Transcript
Laura Penhaligon NoneMorning Imran, can you hear me alright?
Imran Hussain NoneMorning Laura. Yes, loud and clear. Sorry, I was just closing a spreadsheet, give me a second.- Laura Penhaligon NoneNo rush at all. How's your week been?
- Imran Hussain NoneBusy. We had a depot change on Monday so the routing team have been in my inbox all week. Calmer today, which is nice.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAh, that'll do it. Right, shall we crack on? I've got the connector list from last time open, so tell me where you've got to.
- Imran Hussain NoneYeah, so since last time I've done three things. First, I've added the routing system as a source, but only in the test area so far, because I wanted to see what it did to the record counts before I switched it on. Second, I've lined up the helpdesk credentials, so that's ready but not switched on. And third, I've got the accounting export sorted, so finance can see what the brain will pull.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood order to do it in. What did the record counts look like on the routing one?
- Imran Hussain NoneSo that's the thing I wanted to flag. The routing system has one entry per stop, not per customer, so when it loaded I got far more rows than we have customers. Same business showing up several times, once for each site it has collections at. Which is correct for routing, but it isn't what the account managers think of as a customer.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneRight, yes, that's quite common with collection businesses. So the question is which customer id ties those stops together.
- Imran Hussain NoneWhich customer id is that, exactly? That's what I've been asking myself. The routing system has its own account code, the helpdesk has a different reference, and finance uses a third one. I've got a mapping sheet that joins them but I don't fully trust it yet.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneMm. How did you build the sheet?
- Imran Hussain NoneBy hand, mostly. I matched on the trading name and the postcode of the site, then checked a sample against the invoices. There are a few dozen where the names differ slightly, one with 'and' written out and one with an ampersand, that sort of thing.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneSure. That's exactly what the matching step in the brain is for, so you don't have to carry that sheet forever. What I'd suggest is we keep your sheet as the starting point, let the brain propose matches, and you approve them. Nothing merges without you saying so.
- Imran Hussain NoneI like that. I'd want to see the proposed matches before anything is committed. I don't delete anything I can't restore, so if it merges two sites by mistake I need to be able to undo it.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneCompletely. Merges are logged and reversible, so you can split them back out. And we'd run it on the test area first, same as you've done with the routing source.
- Imran Hussain NoneGood. That's the way I like to work, to be honest. I'll test it before we switch it on.
- Laura Penhaligon NonePerfect. Can I ask about the helpdesk next? You said the credentials are ready.
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, I've got a service account with read-only access. It can see tickets, the missed-collection category, and the customer reference on each ticket. It can't change anything. I've not switched it on, because I wanted to check the customer reference field first. Do you want me to share my screen? It's easier to show you.
- Laura Penhaligon NonePlease, go ahead.
- Imran Hussain NoneOkay, can you see that? This is the ticket list, filtered to missed collections. And here's the reference field. See how it's filled in on most, but blank on some?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYes, I can see it. What's behind the blanks, do you know?
- Imran Hussain NoneI think those are tickets raised by phone, where the agent didn't pick the customer from the list. Honestly I wouldn't want to overstate it, I've only looked through a handful. But it looks like phone tickets are the gap.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's useful. So for those, the brain can still try to match on the contact's email or the site name, but they'd come through as lower confidence. You'd see them flagged rather than silently attached to the wrong customer.
- Imran Hussain NoneOkay, that's fine. Flagged is better than wrong.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAgreed. How many tickets are we talking about, in total, roughly?
- Imran Hussain NoneOver a year, a few thousand. I can export the exact count after this call and send it. I don't want to guess in front of you.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's fine, an export would be great. Now, the accounting system. Tell me what you've lined up.
- Imran Hussain NoneSo finance have given me a scheduled export of invoices, credit notes and payments. Nothing about payroll, I've asked them to keep that out. The invoices carry the routing account code, which helps. It's the one bit of luck in all of this.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOh, that's helpful. So that's your bridge between the routing account code and finance. That might be the most reliable join you have.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat's what I thought. I'd want to build the mapping around that rather than the names.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneI think so too. Let's do that, and use the names only as a fallback.
- Imran Hussain NoneRight. How many connectors have we got left, by the way? I've counted routing, helpdesk and accounting, and I know sales will want the CRM and the call recorder.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOn Growth you have eight connectors in total, so you've got room. Routing, helpdesk, accounting, CRM and call recorder takes five, which leaves three. Though I'd suggest we don't fill them all at once.
- Imran Hussain NoneNo, I wouldn't either. New sources shouldn't break old ones. At a previous job I added something and it shifted the ids in the existing data, and we spent a week untangling it.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneHa, yes, that's the nightmare scenario. So the plan is we add one source at a time, check the counts of the existing ones haven't moved, and only then move on.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat's the plan I'd have written myself. Good.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneCan we talk about the people side? You've got forty licensed users, and at the moment I can see only a couple of people actually logging in. Is that what you'd expect at this stage?
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, that's me and one of the account managers who's been testing it. I held back the invitations on purpose. If people log in and the customer view is half empty, they'll decide it doesn't work and not come back.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's a very sensible instinct. First impressions matter. So what would good enough look like before you let account managers in?
- Imran Hussain NoneHonestly? For a customer, they open the page and see their collections, any missed-collection tickets, the last few calls, and the invoices. If those four things are there and they belong to the right customer, that's good enough to start. Calls we can add later.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOkay. So really the first milestone is that single customer page with routing, helpdesk and invoices, and the call recorder comes after.
- Imran Hussain NoneYes. And one record per site, so if a business has several depots the account manager sees them grouped under one customer, but can open each site.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's the site hierarchy. We can do that. The brain supports a parent customer with sites underneath. It'll depend on the routing data having something that says which sites belong together, though.
- Imran Hussain NoneIt does, there's a parent account field. It's filled in for the bigger customers and probably blank for the smaller ones.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThen we'll treat blank as standalone and let you review the odd ones.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneShall we try a quick load of a small slice of the routing data now, in the test area, while we've both got time? Maybe just one depot.
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, let me pick one that I know well. Give me a minute to filter it.
- Imran Hussain NoneOkay, I've picked one depot, filtered the export to that and saved it. It's a decent size, so we should see whether the grouping behaves.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneLovely. I'm starting the load from my side now. It'll take a few minutes, so tell me, is it the usual grey up there?
- Imran Hussain NoneGrey but dry. Spring's easier for the drivers than autumn, to be fair. Wet leaves and narrow streets are the worst.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneI can imagine. Right, it's chewing through the stops now. While it runs, can I check one thing about the nightly refresh? You'll want the data in the brain by the start of the working day.
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, account managers start early. If the routing data is stale when they sit down, they'll be looking at yesterday's missed collections, and that defeats the purpose.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThe refresh is meant to be complete by seven every business morning, your time. If we ever see it land later than that, I'd want to hear about it, and so would Marcus.
- Imran Hussain NoneGood. I'll keep an eye on it for the first few weeks and tell you if it slips. I check things first thing anyway.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneHa, that's reassuring.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneRight, that's done. Can you refresh the test area on your side?
- Imran Hussain NoneRefreshing. Yes, here we are. Oh, that's tidier than I thought. The customer count's lower than the stop count, so the grouping has clearly done something.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood. If you open the review list, the pane on the left, you'll see anything it wasn't sure about.
- Imran Hussain NoneGot it. There are a handful here, marked as low confidence. Let me open one.
- Imran Hussain NoneThis is two entries for what's obviously the same business. One has Limited written out and the other has Ltd. Same postcode, same contact. So that's right to group.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneWould you approve that one?
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, in the test area. I'd want to check a couple more before I trust the rule, but yes.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneFine. Have a look at another.
- Imran Hussain NoneRight, this one I'm not so sure about. Two entries with similar names but different parent accounts in the routing system. They might be related, they might just be two firms with similar names. I'm not going to guess. I'll leave that one unapproved and ask the account manager who knows them.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's exactly the right call. It stays separate until someone who knows says otherwise, and nothing is lost either way.
- Imran Hussain NoneGood. That's what I'd expect.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneSo from this slice, how would you feel about running the rest of the routing data into the test area, rather than into the live brain?
- Imran Hussain NoneInto test, yes. Not live yet. I want to run the full set, go through the low confidence ones in a batch, and then decide. Probably early next week, if that works for you.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneWorks for me. I'll make a note to check in after the full load and look at the counts with you.
- Imran Hussain NoneBefore I forget, finance asked me to confirm what we're paying for, so they can match it against the paperwork. I've got £39,600 a year for Growth with 40 users. Does that sound right to you?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat matches what I have on the order form: £39,600 a year, Growth, 40 users. I'm not really the right person for commercial questions, that's Lewis, but nothing I can see contradicts it. If finance want anything in writing, I'd ask Lewis or Marcus to send it.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat's all I needed. I'll tell them it lines up.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOkay, helpdesk. Do you want to do the same thing, a small slice in the test area?
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, that's the plan. One thing first: how hard does the connector pull on the first run? I don't want to hammer the helpdesk.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneIt pulls in batches and backs off if the helpdesk slows down, so your agents won't notice. The first run is the slowest, after that it's only changes. Nothing is written back.
- Imran Hussain NoneGood, because that's what the helpdesk team will ask me. I'll tell them it's read-only and it backs off.
- Laura Penhaligon NonePlease do. If they want to talk to me directly I'm happy to, honestly.
- Imran Hussain NoneI'll offer. Alright, so I'll set up the helpdesk slice after I've exported the ticket count. I'll limit it to the missed-collection category first, because it's what the account managers care about most.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneSensible. And I'll check that the category maps cleanly. Categories sometimes get renamed over time, which can break the grouping, so let's make sure.
- Imran Hussain NoneThey've been renamed here, actually. Twice, I think. I'll write down what they used to be called and send you the list.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneBrilliant, that'll save us a surprise.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneLast area then, the rollout to account managers. You said you've held back invitations. What's your thinking about who gets in first?
- Imran Hussain NoneTwo or three of the more patient account managers. People who will tell me what's wrong rather than quietly give up. Then, once the customer page is right, the rest of the team.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneI like that. Do you want a short walk-through session for them? Half an hour or so?
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, half an hour would be about right. People here don't give you longer than that. Could you show them how to ask the brain a question, not just look at pages? I think that's where the value is, but they won't know it till they've tried.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAgreed. The questions are what people end up using most. We'll do it with their own customers, so it's real. Something like, which of your customers have had repeated missed collections and an unpaid invoice.
- Imran Hussain NoneHa, they'd like that one. That's the sort of thing they currently do with three tabs open.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneExactly. Then that's the pitch.
- Imran Hussain NoneOne thing I want to be careful about is who sees the invoices. Account managers can see invoice status, but not everything, like the credit terms we've agreed with some customers. Can we limit that?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYes, access follows the groups you set up. We'd typically start with the narrowest and widen it. Who looks after that on your side, you?
- Imran Hussain NoneMe, and then the finance manager signs it off. I'd do it with finance in the room.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThen let's do that as a short session, you, me and someone from finance. I'll bring the list of fields so they can say yes or no to each one.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat's helpful. A list with yes or no is easier than a conversation.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneHa, people always say that. Right, what about the call recorder, are you thinking of that soon?
- Imran Hussain NoneNot yet. Sales haven't told me which calls they want in. I'd rather be asked than assume. Can it wait?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAbsolutely, it's a later phase, and you've got the room. I wouldn't start it until the customer page is trusted.
- Imran Hussain NoneAgreed. Trust first, then more sources.
- Imran Hussain NoneOh, and I raised a ticket with your support recently, just the one. An invitation link that had expired. It was sorted quickly, so thanks for that, I just wanted to mention it.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThanks for telling me, I'll pass it on. Glad it was quick.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneBefore we wrap up, do you want to try asking it something? Just in the test area, with the depot we loaded. Type in the chat box, something simple like which customers had a missed collection this month.
- Imran Hussain NoneOkay. Typing, give me a moment, I'll write it properly.
- Imran Hussain NoneRight, it's come back with a short list, and each line has the customer name and a link to the ticket. Let me click one.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood. Does the list look right to you?
- Imran Hussain NoneMostly. Two of them I recognise, they had a miss on Tuesday, I remember because the account manager was on the phone to me. The others I can't verify from memory, so I'll check against the helpdesk directly.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's the right way to check. Click the source link on one, you'll see the ticket it drew on.
- Imran Hussain NoneYes, it opens the ticket, with the customer reference and the date. That's good. I like that it shows where it got it. I don't want something that just gives me an answer with no source.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's by design. Every answer links back to the record. If it can't find a source it should say so rather than make something up.
- Imran Hussain NoneGood. And if the data's thin? Say the helpdesk connector hasn't loaded properly, will it tell me?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneIt should say what it's drawing on, and the connector status page will show you if records have stopped coming in. Keep an eye on that page for the first few weeks, because flat record counts are usually the first sign of a broken source.
- Imran Hussain NoneI'll check it each morning. I'm doing that anyway.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOkay, let me recap what I've got, and you stop me if I've got it wrong. You'll export the ticket count and the old category names and send them to me. You'll run the full routing set into the test area early next week and go through the low confidence matches. I'll send you the list of finance fields for the access session, and we'll book that with someone from finance. And I'll set up the half-hour walk-through for the account managers once the customer page looks right.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat's it. One addition, if I may: I'd like to hold the helpdesk switch-on until I've seen the full routing load. I don't want two things changing at once.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneFair, that's the rule we agreed. One source at a time, counts checked, then the next.
- Imran Hussain NoneAnd how will I know the counts haven't moved? Is there a before-and-after view?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYes, I'll send you a short comparison after each load, records indexed per connector before and after. If an existing source changes when you add a new one, you'll see it straight away.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat would be ideal.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneI'll copy Marcus in as well. He's your customer success manager, and he'll look after the adoption side once this is live. You've met him?
- Imran Hussain NoneBriefly, at the start. Lewis introduced us.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood. He'll be in touch about a first check-in once account managers are using it. Don't worry about that yet.
- Imran Hussain NoneOkay.
- Imran Hussain NoneCan I ask something about timing? My managers keep asking when it'll be finished. I don't want to promise something silly.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneFair. I'd tell them the customer page comes first, and I'll send you a plan with the order of things and who's doing what, so you can show them. I'd rather you say soon, in stages, than give a date that slips.
- Imran Hussain NoneThat's what I'll say. Soon, in stages.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneHa. Perfect. And honestly, you're doing the hard bit well. Testing before switching on saves a lot of grief later.
- Imran Hussain NoneThanks. It's slow, but I've been burnt before.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAnything else on your side? Anything I haven't asked about?
- Imran Hussain NoneLet me think. Give me a second, I'm just looking at the routing fields. Yes, one thing: the Sunday collections. Some customers are only collected on Sundays and the routing data marks those differently. I don't know if that'll matter for the grouping.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneWorth knowing. It shouldn't affect grouping, but it might for any question about last week's collections. Can you note which field marks it and send it with the other things?
- Imran Hussain NoneWill do. I'll put it in the same email.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneLovely. Right, I think that's us. Thank you for being so organised. I'll send the recap and the finance fields list this afternoon.
- Imran Hussain NoneGreat. I'll send the ticket count and the old categories by end of day.
- Laura Penhaligon NonePerfect. Speak soon, Imran.
- Imran Hussain NoneSpeak soon, Laura. Cheers.
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