Harcastle Environmental / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 22 Apr 2026 16:30
Growth check-in with Nicola Brearley. Usage is up and connectors are healthy, but forty seats against seven or eight daily users is being questioned internally. She needs stories and a one-page summary for the people who sign.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Growth check-in with Nicola Brearley. Usage is up and connectors are healthy, but forty seats against seven or eight daily users is being questioned internally. She needs stories and a one-page summary for the people who sign.
What happened: Marcus Bell showed usage and connector health to Nicola Brearley. Daily users are up, questions asked are climbing, all sources are loading and there are no tickets.
Customer view: Nicola says the value is obvious to her, but someone internally asked why they pay for forty seats with seven or eight in use. She is not the signatory.
Commercial: Growth at £44k a year, with the order form and invoices agreeing, contract to 10 Apr 2027. Marcus is not raising the renewal, and Lewis Kerr owns any commercial conversation.
Watch: Seat utilisation is the value question to answer before the renewal. Team sessions and a depot dashboard are the route to wider use.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Seat utilisation and 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- Marcus Bell to send Nicola a one-page summary of usage trend, questions asked, who is asking and connectors.
- Marcus Bell to test the depot dashboard with Nicola first, then book a 30-minute Yorkshire team session.
- Nicola to send examples of mixed-up customer names and warn Marcus of any route planning or driver notes change.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Internal questioning of forty paid seats against seven or eight daily users could become a value objection at renewal.
- Nicola does not sign and must make the case to budget holders who were not on the call.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Team sessions starting with the Yorkshire team could bring more account managers onto the existing seats.
- A depot-level missed collections dashboard would put the unused dashboards builder to work.
Transcript
Marcus BellHello Nicola, good afternoon. Can you hear me alright?
Nicola BrearleyLoud and clear, Marcus. Afternoon. Sorry, I'm only just in, I've come straight from another call.- Marcus BellNo problem at all, I was only just sitting down myself. How's the week been?
- Nicola BrearleyBusy. Well, let me tell you the worst one first, because it's actually a good story for you. We had a customer on Monday, a restaurant group, three sites, and one of the sites had its bins missed two collections in a row.
- Marcus BellOh, not great.
- Nicola BrearleyNot great, no. But here's the thing. The account manager had it open in the brain before the customer rang. She could see the missed-collection ticket, the earlier call, and the last invoice, all in one place. She rang them first. Said sorry, said what the fix was and who owned it, and booked a catch-up collection.
- Marcus BellThat's exactly what you bought it for, isn't it.
- Nicola BrearleyIt is. A year ago that would have been three people looking at three systems and the customer finding out we'd lost track. Anyway. Which is why I let it sit for no time at all. I don't like a complaint sitting overnight.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. Right, let me share my screen, and I'll say what I wanted to cover. Can you see that?
- Nicola BrearleyYes, I can see the usage page.
- Marcus BellGood. So I've pulled the numbers. Three things really. How the team is using it, whether any of the connectors have given you any trouble, and then anything you'd like from us over the next few months. Happy to go wherever you want, though. It's your thirty-five minutes.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's fine. Go on, usage first.
- Marcus BellSo, looking at the last thirty days, you've got on average seven or eight people active on a given day. That's up on the previous quarter by about a fifth, which is a proper step up. Questions asked are climbing as well, and it's not just one person doing them, which is the bit I like.
- Nicola BrearleyMm. That tracks. It was me and a couple of the account managers for a long time. Now there's a few more of them in there every morning before their rounds of calls.
- Marcus BellRight, and that's what I'd hoped. What are they mostly asking it?
- Nicola BrearleyMostly customer history. Which depot, which round, what's gone wrong in the last few weeks, what's been invoiced. Lists of three, they ask me for lists of three. Last three collections, last three tickets, last three calls. And it just gives them that.
- Marcus BellYeah, the chat does that well. And the search, are they using search, or mainly chat?
- Nicola BrearleyMainly chat. Search a bit, for finding a particular email or a contract. Pages, hardly anyone. I think they don't realise what's in there.
- Marcus BellThat's useful to know. I can show people the pages in a session if you like. I'll come back to that.
- Nicola BrearleyPlease.
- Marcus BellSo the other number on this screen is licences. You've got forty on Growth, and as you can see, you're using a fraction of that on a normal day.
- Nicola BrearleyYes. I've been meaning to talk about that, actually. I know we're not using all forty. It's a bit of a sore point internally, if I'm honest. Someone asked me last month why we pay for forty and have seven or eight on it.
- Marcus BellFair question. I wouldn't read it as a problem, to be honest, I'd read it as room. You've got the seats, nobody's hit a limit, and the people who are on it are using it more each month. The job is getting the rest of the account managers on.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's how I'd want to put it to them. So what's the best way? I don't want to send an email saying please log in. Nobody reads those.
- Marcus BellNo. What tends to work is small sessions, by team, using their own customers. Thirty minutes. Pick an account manager, pull up one of their real accounts, ask the brain the questions they'd normally spend twenty minutes chasing. Then they get it.
- Nicola BrearleyLet's see it from the customer's side, yes. So they see their own bad customer, not a demo.
- Marcus BellExactly that. I'm happy to jump on a call with each group. Shall we book thirty minutes, say, for the first one, and see how it goes?
- Nicola BrearleyYes. Let's. I'd say start with the Yorkshire team, they're the ones who have the most missed-collection tickets, so they've got the most to gain. The North East ones can follow.
- Marcus BellPerfect. I'll do that. Do you want to be on the first one, or would you rather it was just them?
- Nicola BrearleyI'll be on the first, say a few words at the start, then leave you to it. Then they know I'm behind it.
- Marcus BellGood. That helps a lot, honestly. People use it when their boss does.
- Nicola BrearleyHa, yes. Well, that's the plan. So that's usage. What about the connectors?
- Marcus BellSo, scrolling down. All the sources you've connected are loading, records indexed are moving the way they should week to week, and there's nothing flat that ought not to be. No tickets from you in the last month at all, which, you know, I'm never going to complain about.
- Nicola BrearleyNo, it's been quiet. I'd say no news is good news there. The data's there when they sit down in the morning, I'd have heard otherwise. They'd tell me very quickly.
- Marcus BellI'm sure they would. And the overnight refresh, that's finishing before seven, so it's there before they start.
- Nicola BrearleyRight. Because that was the thing. If an account manager opens it at half seven and it's yesterday's picture, they'll never go back. That's what I worried about at the start.
- Marcus BellYeah, and it's been fine. Any systems changing on your side that I should know about? A new ticketing tool, a change to the way routes are held, anything like that? Because that's usually what breaks a connector, someone upgrades something and nobody tells us.
- Nicola BrearleyHmm. Not that I know of. Route planning is staying as it is for now. There was talk of changing how we log driver notes, but that's a long way off. If it moves I'll tell you.
- Marcus BellThat'd be great. Just a heads up is all I need, and we'll look at it before it bites.
- Nicola BrearleyWill do.
- Marcus BellOkay. So that's the health side, and honestly it's all pointing the right way. Is there anything you'd like that you're not getting at the moment? Anything frustrating, anything you've worked around?
- Nicola BrearleyThere is one thing, actually. Dashboards. We've got the dashboards builder on Growth and I've hardly touched it. What I'd love is one view by depot. Missed collections this week, by round, with the customers who've called in, and the ones who haven't, but we know have been missed.
- Marcus BellRight, the ones you know about before they ring.
- Nicola BrearleyExactly. That's the gold. If I can see which depot, which round, on a Monday morning, I can fix a pattern rather than apologise a hundred times.
- Marcus BellThat's a good use of it. I think the builder will do a fair amount of that already, depending on how the ticket categories come through. I'd want to sit with it for half an hour before I promise you the exact shape.
- Nicola BrearleySure. Whatever you can do. What's the fix and who owns it, that's my question, it's always my question. If it needs something from my team, I'd rather know.
- Marcus BellYes. I'll have a go, and I'll tell you honestly what it can and can't do. If something's missing from the data, I'll say so. I won't promise anything on the product side that I can't back up.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's all I ask.
- Marcus BellAnd do you want me to do that in the same session with the Yorkshire team? Or separately, with you?
- Nicola BrearleySeparately, with me first. If it's not right I don't want to waste their time. Then once it's working we show them.
- Marcus BellMakes sense. So I'll do the dashboard thing with you first, and then the team session.
- Nicola BrearleyGood.
- Marcus BellOne more thing, and it's more housekeeping than anything. Just so you've got it in front of you. You're on Growth, forty-four thousand a year, order form and invoices both say the same, so there's nothing to reconcile there. And the contract runs to 10 Apr 2027.
- Nicola BrearleyYes. April next year. Which feels a long way off but it's not, is it.
- Marcus BellIt never is. I'm not raising anything today, it's just that I'll come back to you in good time, with a proper look at what you've got out of it, before we get anywhere near it. And any commercial conversation would go through Lewis, he's your account owner, not me.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. Look, I'll be straight with you. For me the value's obvious. It's the one view. But I'm not the one who signs, and I can't commit budget myself, so at some point I'll have to show it to the people who do.
- Marcus BellOf course. And that's really helpful for me to know. What would help you make that case? What would they want to see?
- Nicola BrearleyHonestly? Examples. Not graphs. Stories like the restaurant group on Monday. Here's a customer we'd have lost, here's what we did. And a sense of how many people use it. Which is why the licences thing matters.
- Marcus BellYes, I can see that. So what I'll do is put together a short summary for you. Usage trend, questions asked, who's asking them, and the connectors, all on one page. You can pair it with your own stories.
- Nicola BrearleyThat'd be brilliant. One page. Please. They won't read more.
- Marcus BellOne page. I'll keep it plain.
- Nicola BrearleyOh, and one more thing, since you've asked what's frustrating. It's small. When people ask the chat about a customer with a similar name to another, it sometimes mixes them up. Two businesses on the same trading estate, for instance.
- Marcus BellHm. That's useful. Do you have an example I can look at? Names, if you can, and roughly when.
- Nicola BrearleyI'll find a couple and send them over. I don't want to guess from memory, I'd get the wrong ones.
- Marcus BellPerfect. If I've got actual examples I can see whether it's how the records are matched on your side or something we can tune. I can't say which until I see it.
- Nicola BrearleyFine. That's fair.
- Marcus BellAnything else on your list? Otherwise I think we've covered what I came with.
- Nicola BrearleyNo, I think that's it. Actually, no, wait. Are there other businesses like us on it? Waste, or logistics, anything with rounds?
- Marcus BellFair question. I'd rather not name anyone, that's their business, but there are a few with similar shapes, lots of customers, lots of field operations, and they tend to find the same things useful. Ticket history and invoices together. I can ask Lewis whether anyone would be happy to chat, if that'd help you.
- Nicola BrearleyIt might. Not urgent. Let's see how the team sessions go first.
- Marcus BellOkay. Let me recap, then. I'll send you the one-page summary. I'll look at the depot dashboard and come back to you with a time to go through it. I'll get thirty minutes in the diary for the Yorkshire team, with you saying a few words at the start. You're going to send me a couple of examples where the names got mixed up, and a heads up if anything changes with route planning or the driver notes.
- Nicola BrearleyThat's all of it. And I'll send you a list of the account managers, Yorkshire first, so you know who's coming.
- Marcus BellGreat. Then I think we're done, and we've actually finished with a bit of time to spare.
- Nicola BrearleyHa, brilliant, I'll take that. Don't tell anyone, they'll think I've got nothing to do.
- Marcus BellYour secret's safe. Thanks, Nicola. Speak soon.
- Nicola BrearleyThanks, Marcus. Speak soon. Bye.
Callsmade from