Harcastle Environmental / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 7 Jul 2025 16:15
Check-in on 7 Jul 2025. Nicola Brearley praised the single customer view, asked for vehicle and crew data from the routing system, and was told renewal falls in April. A handful of people use it against forty seats.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Check-in on 7 Jul 2025. Nicola Brearley praised the single customer view, asked for vehicle and crew data from the routing system, and was told renewal falls in April. A handful of people use it against forty seats.
What happened: Marcus Bell walked Nicola through usage, the one ticket this month and next steps. She opened with a missed-collection story where the account manager saw the issue in the brain before the customer rang.
Customer view: Nicola is positive and describes the single screen as what she bought it for. Her one gap is vehicle and crew data, which still sits in the routing system.
Commercial: Marcus flagged the renewal on the eleventh of April at £40k a year. Nicola said she does not commit budget on her own, so the decision sits above her.
Watch: Five or six daily users against forty seats is headroom on Growth, with no extra cost to widen. A new connector depends on what the routing system lets BG-Demo read, and Marcus promised only a straight answer.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Adoption headroom, routing connector
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Marcus Bell to send slots for a Thursday afternoon call to plan account manager training.
- Nicola Brearley to email an introduction to her IT colleague so an engineer can assess the routing system.
- Marcus Bell to start a usage summary ahead of the renewal.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Only a handful of people use the brain daily against forty licensed seats.
- Nicola cannot commit budget alone, so the renewal decision sits with people not on the call.
- Vehicle and crew data is still outside the brain, so staff still ring the depot.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Widen use to more account managers and area managers on seats already in the Growth plan.
- Connect the routing system if the engineers confirm it can be read.
Transcript
Marcus BellHello Nicola, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Nicola BrearleyLoud and clear. Sorry, I'm a couple of minutes behind, I was on the phone to a depot.- Marcus BellNo problem at all. I'll share my screen in a second, just let me find the right window. There we go. Can you see that?
- Nicola BrearleyI can. Before you start, can I tell you about my week? It's been a bit of a monster. We had a run of missed collections on one round in West Yorkshire, a chain of cafes, and the customer rang their account manager before we'd even seen it on our side.
- Marcus BellOh, that's not what you want. Did the account manager have the full picture when they picked up?
- Nicola BrearleyThat's the thing, this time yes. She'd looked at the customer page in the brain that morning, saw the two missed collections, saw the ticket was already open, and she rang them back before they'd finished complaining. Honestly, a year ago she'd have heard about it cold. So, which depot, which round, what's the fix and who owns it, all on one screen. That's what I bought it for.
- Marcus BellThat's really good to hear. That's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to ask you about today, actually. I've pulled the numbers, and I'd like to walk you through what I'm seeing, then hear what's working and what isn't. Is that all right?
- Nicola BrearleyGo for it.
- Marcus BellSo, three things I want to cover. First, usage. Second, the one ticket you've raised with us this month. Third, where you might want to take it next. And I'll keep it to about half an hour.
- Nicola BrearleyLovely. Lists of three, I like it.
- Marcus BellHa, I thought you might. Right, usage. This is the active users line over the last few months. You were quite quiet when you first went live in April, which is normal, it's a handful of people finding their feet. And then it climbs, quite steeply, from the spring into June.
- Nicola BrearleyMm. That'll be when we moved the account managers over.
- Marcus BellThat's what I guessed. So on a typical day you've now got about five or six people in there. That doesn't sound like a lot against forty licensed users, but compared with where you were it's a big jump, several times what it was last quarter.
- Nicola BrearleyRight, so we've got a lot of headroom, is what you're saying.
- Marcus BellYeah, that's the polite way of putting it. You're paying for forty seats on the Growth plan and you're using a fraction of them day to day. Which is fine, nobody's complaining, but it does mean there's a lot of room to bring more teams in.
- Nicola BrearleyNo, I know. And I'll be honest with you, that's partly deliberate. I didn't want to flood everyone and have it fall over. I wanted a small group who'd really use it and tell me what's rubbish.
- Marcus BellWhich is sensible. Slow and steady usually sticks better than a big launch.
- Nicola BrearleyExactly. So what did they say was rubbish? Do you know? Because I've had a couple of grumbles, but nothing I'd call serious.
- Marcus BellThat's my second point, really. You've had one ticket in the last thirty days, nothing urgent, nothing high priority. It was a how-to question, I think. Let me bring it up. Yes, someone wanted to know how to filter a customer's invoices by month alongside their collection history.
- Nicola BrearleyOh, that was one of the finance girls. Sorry, one of the finance team. She was trying to match a disputed invoice against the missed collections that month.
- Marcus BellRight, that makes sense. And did it get sorted for her?
- Nicola BrearleyIt did, someone from your side came back to her the same day. She was very happy. She said it was the first time she'd seen the invoice and the complaint in the same place without three spreadsheets.
- Marcus BellGreat. I'll pass that on to the team, they like hearing that. And I'd say one ticket a month from a group that's growing like yours is a healthy sign, to be honest. People are asking, they're getting answers, nothing's sitting.
- Nicola BrearleyNothing sits overnight with me, you know that.
- Marcus BellI do know that. Okay, let me show you something else. This is the questions people have asked the brain. Not the dashboards, the actual questions typed in.
- Nicola BrearleyOh, go on, I love this bit.
- Marcus BellSo you can see a pattern. There's a lot of customer-by-customer stuff, as you'd expect. Which of my customers have had more than one missed collection this month. What did we say to this customer last time they rang. Is their invoice paid. Those are the bread and butter.
- Nicola BrearleyYeah, that's the three things. Collections, complaints, invoices. That's the whole reason.
- Marcus BellAnd then there's a few that are a bit more interesting. Somebody asked it which rounds have the most repeat misses. Somebody else asked which customers had a complaint and then stopped ordering extra collections.
- Nicola BrearleyThat'll be Keith. Sorry, that'll be one of the regional managers, I won't say who. He's been getting very creative.
- Marcus BellWell, I'd tell him to keep going. That's the kind of question I'd say is the best single measure of whether you're getting value out of it. Not how many people log in, but what they ask.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. So is it mostly a few people asking, or is it spread?
- Marcus BellGood question. It's reasonably spread, actually. There's a couple of people who ask more than the rest, you'd be one of them, but it's not all you, which is what I'd worry about if it was.
- Nicola BrearleyHa, so I'm a key person risk. Brilliant.
- Marcus BellNo, no, not at all, you're fine. I just always look at it. If it's all one person and they move on, the thing goes quiet.
- Nicola BrearleyNo, fair. I'd rather it wasn't just me. I've been trying to get the area managers to use it in their Monday meetings so it's not my thing, it's their thing.
- Marcus BellThat's the best thing you could do. If it's in the Monday meeting, it's part of how the business runs.
- Nicola BrearleyMm. Though I'll be honest, there's one thing that's bugging me. Can I raise it?
- Marcus BellPlease do.
- Nicola BrearleyWhen I look at a customer I can see the missed collection tickets and the invoices and the calls. But the bit that tells me which vehicle, which crew, that's still in the routing system and it's not in there. So I still have to ring the depot. Is that something that could be connected, or is that a different conversation?
- Marcus BellIt's a fair thing to ask. I don't want to promise anything on the spot, because it depends what the routing system lets us read and how it's set up. What I'd suggest is I get one of the engineers to have a look at it with whoever looks after it for you, and then we can tell you straight whether it's easy, hard or not worth it.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's fair. I don't want a promise, I want a straight answer. Who looks after it on our side is a colleague in IT, I'll introduce you.
- Marcus BellPerfect. Send me a line and I'll set up thirty minutes with them and one of our people. And while we're on connectors, you've got room on the plan, so it wouldn't be a problem in terms of what you're allowed to add.
- Nicola BrearleyGood. Okay, noted. Let's see it from the customer's side, though. If I'm a cafe owner, I don't care about the routing system. I care that somebody comes on Tuesday.
- Marcus BellRight. And that's why the brain's useful, because the account manager can say, we missed you on Tuesday, here's why, here's what happens on Thursday.
- Nicola BrearleyExactly. That's what the cafe chain call was about this week. She could actually say that.
- Marcus BellWhich is brilliant. Okay. Let me move on to the third thing, which is where to take it next. And honestly this might just be a thought for you to chew on. You've got about forty seats, a handful of people using it day to day, and you said you want the area managers in the Monday meetings.
- Nicola BrearleyYes.
- Marcus BellSo one option is just to widen it. Get the rest of the account managers on, then the area managers. You've got the seats already. There's no extra cost for that, it's all in the plan.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's good to know. Because I'd got it in my head that going wider would be another conversation with finance.
- Marcus BellNot for the seats, no. If you wanted to go beyond forty users, or add more connectors than the plan allows, that'd be different, but you're nowhere near that.
- Nicola BrearleyRight. And if we did that, would you help me with the training? Because the first lot I trained myself and I'm not sure I did it very well.
- Marcus BellHappy to jump on a call with them. I could do a session for the account managers, an hour or so, show them the customer page and the sort of questions that work. Shall we book thirty minutes next week to plan it?
- Nicola BrearleyYes please. Wednesday or Thursday, afternoon's better. I'm out on the rounds in the morning, I try to ride along at least once a month.
- Marcus BellLovely, I'll send you a couple of slots. Thursday afternoon, I'll aim for.
- Nicola BrearleyPerfect.
- Marcus BellCan I ask something a bit different? How are the people who use it feeling about it? Not the numbers, just the mood.
- Nicola BrearleyMostly good. The ones who use it every day wouldn't want to go back. There's a couple who are still a bit suspicious, they think it's a way of checking up on them. I keep telling them it's the opposite, it's so they don't get blindsided by a complaint.
- Marcus BellThat's a really common one. It helps if the manager says it, not us.
- Nicola BrearleyYeah. I'll say it again on Monday.
- Marcus BellAnd one more thing, just so it's on your radar. Your contract's up for renewal in April next year, the eleventh of April. Nothing to do now, I just like to mention it early so it doesn't land on you out of nowhere. It's the thirty-nine thousand six hundred pounds a year at the moment, and we'd have the proper conversation closer to the time, with the right people.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. Thanks for flagging it. That's the thirty-nine six, yes? I'd need to take anything like that upstairs anyway, I don't commit budget on my own.
- Marcus BellOf course. And I'd keep the price side with the account owner when we get there, but what I can do before then is put together a short summary of how you've used it, so you've got something to show them. What you've asked, what it's saved, that kind of thing.
- Nicola BrearleyThat would be really useful, actually. I'd rather walk in with a page than try and remember.
- Marcus BellHappy to. I'll start pulling it together over the next few weeks, and we can add the wider rollout once you've decided how far you want to take it.
- Nicola BrearleyGood. Is there anything on your side I should be worried about? Anything going stale, anything not loading?
- Marcus BellFair question, and no, nothing I can see. The records are coming in as they should, the connectors are all loading, and the nightly refresh has been landing on time. If anything went flat I'd be on the phone to you before you noticed.
- Nicola BrearleyGood. Because the worst thing is somebody quoting yesterday's data to a customer. We'd look daft.
- Marcus BellAgreed. And it's why I check it. Right, I think that's everything from me. Is there anything else on your list?
- Nicola BrearleyJust the routing thing, and the training, and I'll tell the finance lady she can ask the helpdesk anything. That's my three.
- Marcus BellHa, there we go, a list of three. So, to recap. I'll send you slots for a call on Thursday afternoon to plan the training. You'll introduce me to your colleague in IT about the routing system. And I'll start on the usage summary ahead of renewal. Does that sound right?
- Nicola BrearleyThat's it. I'll email you the introduction this evening, before I forget.
- Marcus BellBrilliant. Thanks for your time, Nicola, and I hope the cafe chain calms down.
- Nicola BrearleySo do I. Thanks, Marcus. Speak soon.
- Marcus BellCheers, bye for now.
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