Harcastle Environmental / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Harcastle Environmental · 14 Sep 2026 09:15
Check-in on 14 Sep 2026: about ten of sixty licensed users are active and depot supervisors never came on. Nicola Brearley asked if that is a renewal worry and needs finance sign-off before any change.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Check-in on 14 Sep 2026: about ten of sixty licensed users are active and depot supervisors never came on. Nicola Brearley asked if that is a renewal worry and needs finance sign-off before any change.
What happened: Nicola Brearley opened with a missed collection that the account manager only heard about from the customer. Marcus Bell then walked through usage, tickets and next steps.
Customer view: Around ten of sixty licensed users are active, mostly account managers and commercial operations. Depot supervisors never got properly logged in.
Commercial: Nicola asked whether paying for sixty and using about ten is a renewal worry. Marcus deferred pricing to Lewis Kerr, and Nicola said she would need finance sign-off before committing to anything.
Watch: A high priority data freshness ticket was closed, but Nicola wants the cause explained. A depot session with a first dashboard is planned for the week after next.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Low usage before renewal
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 a plain-words note on the freshness ticket, check the connected sources and propose a session agenda by the end of the week.
- Nicola Brearley to send the depots in priority order and a go-to name for each.
- Marcus Bell to book a catch-up after the depot session to see how it landed.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Only about ten of sixty licensed users are active and the number is slightly down on the previous quarter.
- Depot supervisors are not using the brain, so missed collections went unseen until the customer rang.
- Nicola raised the licence gap herself and will need finance sign-off before committing at renewal.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A depot manager session on their own round data could bring a second team into the brain.
- A first dashboard of missed collections by round is included in Growth and can be built in the session.
Transcript
Marcus BellMorning Nicola, can you hear me all right?
Nicola BrearleyLoud and clear, morning Marcus. Sorry, I'm a minute behind, it's been one of those Mondays already.- Marcus BellNo problem at all. Go on, what's happened?
- Nicola BrearleyWorst one first. A restaurant customer had a missed collection on Friday and the account manager didn't know until the customer rang on Saturday. Which depot, which round, I asked, and it took half the morning to get a straight answer. That's exactly what we bought this for, so it stings.
- Marcus BellYeah, I can imagine. Did the collections view help at all once you went looking, or was it too late by then?
- Nicola BrearleyIt helped on Monday morning. She could see the missed collection, the two calls and the open ticket in one place, so she rang the customer back with the whole story. But on Friday itself? Nobody was looking, because nobody was in it. That's my worry, if I'm honest.
- Marcus BellThat's a fair worry, and it's partly what I wanted to talk about today. Let me share my screen and say what I want to cover. Three things: usage, the tickets you've raised with us, and what you want from the next few months. Happy to go in whatever order suits.
- Nicola BrearleyUsage first. I know it's not great, I can feel it.
- Marcus BellLet me pull it up. Give me a second, it's loading. Right, can you see that?
- Nicola BrearleyYes, I can see it. Bit small, but yes.
- Marcus BellI'll zoom in. So, I've pulled the numbers. You've got sixty licensed users on Growth, and over the last month the average number of people actually active is around ten. That's a little lower than the previous quarter, down a touch rather than a cliff.
- Nicola BrearleyTen. Out of sixty.
- Marcus BellYeah. I don't want to make a big thing of it, summer's in there, holidays and so on. But it's worth us looking at who those ten are.
- Nicola BrearleyGo on, who are they?
- Marcus BellMostly your account managers and a couple of people in commercial operations, which is you and one of your team. The depot side barely shows up. Questions asked are healthy from the people who use it, but it's a small group asking most of them.
- Nicola BrearleyRight. So the depot supervisors never got logged in properly. We talked about it back when we started, if I remember, and then the busy season hit and it dropped off everyone's list.
- Marcus BellThat's pretty common, honestly. People get it set up, the first team takes to it, and the second team waits for a nudge that doesn't come. I'd rather it wasn't a nudge from me, I'd rather it came from someone who runs the rounds.
- Nicola BrearleyWhich is me, or my depot managers. Okay. Let's see it from the depot's side. What would a supervisor actually do in there on a normal morning?
- Marcus BellHonestly, one question really. What's been missed on my rounds since yesterday, and what's open against those customers? They get the answer without ringing the office. And then they can ask who the customer last spoke to.
- Nicola BrearleyThat alone would save us a lot of phone calls. Right, noted. What's the next thing?
- Marcus BellTickets. You've raised two with us in the last month, one marked high priority. The high priority one was a data freshness question, it was picked up quickly and closed. The other was a how-to about saving a view.
- Nicola BrearleyYes, I remember. We had a morning where the numbers looked like yesterday's. Is that going to happen again? What's the fix and who owns it?
- Marcus BellI won't promise you a fix date on anything engineering owns, I'd be making it up. What I can tell you is it was looked at, the refresh ran and the data caught up. If it happens again, tell me the same day and I'll chase it straight away. I'll also check the ticket notes and send you what the cause was in plain words.
- Nicola BrearleyPlease do. I'd rather know.
- Marcus BellWill do. And if you can, tell me the minute it looks stale, with the time you noticed. It helps the engineers more than anything.
- Nicola BrearleyFine. Anything else on tickets?
- Marcus BellNot really, it's quiet. Quiet's good, though a small user base and a small number of tickets can also just mean people aren't using it much, so I look at both together.
- Nicola BrearleyHa, fair. Right, so what do you suggest?
- Marcus BellThree suggestions, and tell me if any are rubbish. One, a short session for the depot managers, half an hour, on their own round data, not a generic demo. Two, you nominate one person in each depot who'll be the go-to. Three, I send you a simple monthly note showing who's asking questions, so you can see it moving.
- Nicola BrearleyLists of three, I like it. Which depots first? Which rounds? I'd rather start where the complaints are worst.
- Marcus BellThat's your call, but I'd start where the complaints come in most. If you can send me the depots in order, I'll shape the session around them.
- Nicola BrearleyI can do that this week. Let me think about who'd be the go-to. One of them is brilliant, she's practically running her depot off spreadsheets already, so she'd love this. Another one, I'd have to persuade.
- Marcus BellPersuading's fine. The bit that wins people round is seeing their own customers in there. It stops being a tool someone else asked for.
- Nicola BrearleyTrue. Okay. Can I ask something about the licences? We're paying for sixty and using about ten. Should I be worried about that at renewal?
- Marcus BellFair question. I don't do pricing, that's Lewis on the commercial side, and I wouldn't want to guess for him. What I can say is the contract runs to next April, so there's plenty of time, and the best answer to the question is people using it. Let's get the depots in and then look again.
- Nicola BrearleyOkay. And I'd need sign-off from our finance side before I commit to anything either way, so I'm not asking for a change today. Just wanted it said out loud.
- Marcus BellUnderstood, and thanks for being straight about it.
- Nicola BrearleyAnother thing while you're there. The invoices view. Account managers like having invoices next to the complaints, because customers always bring up billing when they're annoyed about collections.
- Marcus BellThat's a nice use. Anything you'd want changed there?
- Nicola BrearleyNo, no, it's good. Is there anything we should be doing on our side with the connected systems, access, anything like that, before we get more people in?
- Marcus BellI haven't seen anything flagged on the connectors, but I'll double-check before the depot session so we're not showing anyone stale data.
- Nicola BrearleyGood. Do that. Nothing worse than a demo on stale data in front of a depot manager.
- Marcus BellAgreed. I'll check the sources the day before.
- Nicola BrearleyWhat about the dashboards? Somebody asked me about building one for missed collections by round.
- Marcus BellYes, that's included in Growth, so nothing extra. We could build the first one together in the depot session and leave it with them. Then it's theirs.
- Nicola BrearleyBrilliant. That's what I want, a weekly view by depot that I don't have to ask anyone for.
- Marcus BellWant me to show you how one gets built? It takes a minute.
- Nicola BrearleyGo on then.
- Marcus BellOkay, so you pick the records, filter by round, choose what to count and save it. Look, that's the whole thing. Nothing clever, it just takes someone to do it once.
- Nicola BrearleyHm. Simpler than I expected. I'll bring the account manager who asked about it to the session too.
- Marcus BellGood idea. I'd keep the first one simple, three measures: missed collections, open tickets, and customers who rang in more than once.
- Nicola BrearleyMissed, open, repeat callers. Yes. Right, who's doing what then?
- Marcus BellSo from me: the plain-words note on the freshness ticket, a check on your connected sources, and a proposed agenda for the depot session by the end of the week. From you: the list of depots in order, and a name per depot if you can.
- Nicola BrearleyAnd I'll ask whether the supervisors can have half an hour in the diary. Which week?
- Marcus BellWhichever suits the rounds. Not a Friday if you can help it.
- Nicola BrearleyHa, no. Fridays are chaos. Let's say the week after next, and I'll confirm.
- Marcus BellGreat. Shall we book half an hour for a quick catch-up after the session, to see how it landed?
- Nicola BrearleyYes, put it in. Same time works.
- Marcus BellI'll send an invite. Anything else for me?
- Nicola BrearleyNo, that's it. Thanks Marcus, this was useful, and I'll get you that list.
- Marcus BellBrilliant. I'll send a short note after the call with what we agreed, so we've both got it written down.
- Nicola BrearleyLovely. Is it raining over there as well?
- Marcus BellAlways. It's Manchester, it's practically the rule.
- Nicola BrearleySame here, grey as anything. Right, I'll let you go.
- Marcus BellSpeak soon, Nicola.
- Nicola BrearleyCheers, Marcus. Bye.
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