Brimscombe Energy / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Brimscombe Energy · 2 Jul 2025 10:30
Brimscombe Energy reported active use up by about three quarters on the quarter. One billing load ran past 07:00. Graham Tovey will not sign the January renewal without Siân Pritchard's view.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Brimscombe Energy reported active use up by about three quarters on the quarter. One billing load ran past 07:00. Graham Tovey will not sign the January renewal without Siân Pritchard's view.
What happened: Daniel Okafor led the 2 Jul 2025 QBR. Active use rose by about three quarters, spread from key accounts to complaints and collections.
Customer view: Siân Pritchard described one view of sites, contracts, calls and bills, and refused to quote time saved until it is measured. Graham Tovey agreed.
Service: One nightly billing load finished after 07:00 after an upstream schema change. Nikhil Rao will seek change notice and an early alert. Daniel noted that freshness is covered for an Enterprise customer.
Commercial: Tom Ashdown confirmed £115k a year on the order form, matching invoices. The term ends on 9 Jan 2026, and field operations and onboarding are candidate teams for a pilot.
Watch: Renewal depends on Siân's sampling evidence being ready.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
QBR adoption and renewal
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send the question history export and offer slots for a recorded collections session.
- Tom Ashdown to arrange a scoping conversation for field operations and onboarding after the summer.
- Daniel Okafor to bring usage, the value work and terms to Graham Tovey and Siân Pritchard before the autumn notice point.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A billing load stalled after an upstream schema change and finished after 07:00, which matters because freshness is covered for Enterprise.
- Graham Tovey will not sign the renewal without Siân Pritchard's view, and her value sampling is not yet done.
- Newer collections starters ask very short questions and get general answers.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Field operations and onboarding teams could join through a small pilot, with licensed users well above those active.
- A measured before and after complaint-handling result could become the value case for the renewal.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforMorning, everyone, and thank you for making the time. Let me just check who has joined. Siân, yes, Graham, good, and Nikhil, I can see you. Tom's with me on our side.
Tom AshdownMorning all. How's your week been, Siân? Still raining in Gloucester or has it given up?
Siân PritchardIt's given up for today, thank you, Tom. Busy week, but a good busy. On Monday the complaints team asked the brain about repeat contacts across a customer's sites, and the answer came back faster than anyone expected.
Nikhil RaoCan you hear me all right? I'll keep my camera off, the connection's a bit thin this morning.- Daniel OkaforWe can hear you fine, Nikhil. Thanks. Graham, I know you like the headline first, so shall I start there?
Graham ToveyPlease. The headline, and then what the customer sees.- Daniel OkaforRight. The headline is that this has been a strong quarter. Active use is up by about three quarters on the quarter before. On average you've got a mid-forties number of people active in a given month, out of the one hundred and eighty licensed users, and that's the best trajectory I've seen on the account since go-live.
- Graham ToveyThree quarters. That's well above what I expected when we signed.
- Daniel OkaforIt is, and it's not a spike. It's been building month on month. The other part of the headline is support: six tickets in the last month, one of them high priority, and Nikhil can speak to that in a moment. Nothing is sitting open that you should be worrying about.
- Graham ToveyGood. Siân, what does the customer see from this? I don't want to hear that people are logging in. I want to hear what changed.
- Siân PritchardFair. So, evidence first. Before the brain, a complaint handler picking up a case from a business customer had to open the billing system, the contract store, the call recordings and the account notes, one after another, and stitch it together. Now they ask one question and see the sites, the contracts, the calls and the bills together. One customer, one view.
- Graham ToveyAnd how does that hold up with Ofgem?
- Siân PritchardThat's the point I care most about, Graham. The answers the complaints team send out are now built from the same record the key accounts team and collections are looking at. So if the regulator asks what we knew and when, we can show it. What I won't do is put a number on time saved until we've measured it properly. Let's measure it before we claim it.
- Graham ToveyAgreed. I would rather have a smaller claim that stands up.
- Siân PritchardWe're sampling complaint cases this quarter, before and after, same handlers. I'll have something you can put in front of the board by the autumn, and I'll be clear about what it doesn't show.
- Daniel OkaforThat would be really valuable, and if it helps, we can pull the question history for those handlers so you're not counting by hand. Just to close the loop on that one, I'll set up the export after this call.
- Siân PritchardPlease. That'd save me a morning.
- Tom AshdownCan I just come in, sorry. When you say the key accounts team, Siân, is that the same people who were asking questions at the start, or has it spread?
- Siân PritchardIt's spread. Key accounts were first, then complaints, and collections have really picked it up in the last couple of months. They use it before they ring a customer about an overdue balance, to see whether there's an open complaint or a dispute on the site. That has stopped a couple of awkward calls.
- Tom AshdownBrilliant, that's the sort of thing that never shows up on a dashboard but everyone remembers. No drama, I'm just keen to understand where the growth's coming from.
- Daniel OkaforIt matches what we see. The questions are coming from a wider set of people, not just two or three heavy users, which is the healthy pattern. How is the team finding it day to day, Siân? Any grumbles?
- Siân PritchardA few. The newer starters in collections sometimes don't know what to ask. They type something very short and get a very general answer. Once someone shows them how to phrase it with the customer and the site, they're away.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a training point rather than a product one, and an easy fix. I can run a short session for the collections team, half an hour on how to ask. I'll come back to you with a couple of slots.
- Siân PritchardYes please. Mm, and record it if you can, we've got people on shifts.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Nikhil, shall we go to the ticket? I know you had the high priority one.
- Nikhil RaoYes. Short version. One morning the nightly load for the billing source finished after 07:00. I checked the load history, and the cause was a schema change upstream. Someone on the billing side added a column and renamed another. Our job didn't fail, it just stalled on the mismatch. I raised it as high priority because collections start early.
- Graham ToveyTell me early, not late. Was I told about this at the time?
- Nikhil RaoSiân was told the same morning. It was resolved before the teams had really started, so I didn't escalate beyond that. Fair point though, I'll copy you on anything that's past 07:00 in future.
- Graham ToveyThank you. I'd rather have the email and not need it.
- Daniel OkaforAnd just for the record from our side, the response on that ticket was inside the window for your tier, and Nikhil, you and our engineers were on it together. I'd like to make sure the schema change gets flagged before it lands next time rather than after. Is there a way we can be in the loop on that?
- Nikhil RaoThat's a schema change, and it's not mine to control. But I can ask the billing platform owners to give me notice before a release touches the tables we read. I'll put it in the change calendar and add you to it.
- Daniel OkaforThat would be perfect. And could you add a check on your side so a stalled load raises a flag before 07:00, not after?
- Nikhil RaoWhich role has access to the alerting on our side? That's what I need to settle first. I don't grant it by email. I'll check, test it on a Tuesday, not a Friday, and tell you when it's live.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood, and Tuesday is sensible. Thank you.
- Siân PritchardWhile we're on sources, the freshness matters a lot for us. Collections can't work from yesterday's balances. Is there anything else on the list of connectors that's likely to cause the same thing?
- Nikhil RaoI went through all of them after this. The twenty-odd sources are loading cleanly. Two are slower than I'd like, but they're finishing well before the cut-off. I'll keep an eye on those.
- Daniel OkaforAnd as an Enterprise customer, freshness is covered in your service levels, not just availability, so if it ever does slip past the line, tell us and we'll take it seriously. Just to be clear on that.
- Graham ToveyNoted. Now, Tom. You're on the call, so I assume there's something commercial.
- Tom AshdownHa, yes, fair, you've caught me. Nothing to worry about. Two things really. First, the contract. You're at £115,000 a year on the order form, and that matches what's been invoiced, so everything's lined up, nobody's chasing anybody. Cheers for the prompt payments, by the way, that doesn't go unnoticed.
- Graham ToveyThat's your finance team being efficient, not me. Go on.
- Tom AshdownSecond, the licensed users. You've got one hundred and eighty, and with the mid-forties active, there's loads of room before you'd need to think about more. So I'm not here to sell you anything on seats. What I'd like to understand is whether there are teams who aren't in yet who ought to be.
- Siân PritchardThere are. Field operations would be the obvious one, the people who deal with meter and site issues. They get the calls that the complaints team later inherit. And the onboarding team, for new business customers. They'd like to see what's already on file before they ring.
- Graham ToveyI'd want to know what the customer sees there too. If onboarding quote something wrong because the record's out of date, that's worse than no tool at all.
- Siân PritchardThat's why I'd start small. A pilot with a handful of people in each, same discipline as collections. What does the record say, and is it right? If it isn't, we fix the source first.
- Tom AshdownI like that. Let's get something in the diary for after the summer to scope it. I won't put numbers on anything today, I'll confirm whatever's needed in writing, but I don't think it's a big conversation given the headroom you've got.
- Daniel OkaforAnd from the adoption side I'd want to make sure any new teams come in with the same onboarding session collections will have, so we aren't repeating the short-question problem.
- Siân PritchardGood. Diolch, that makes sense to me.
- Graham ToveyBefore we close. The renewal. It's in January, I believe. I don't want it creeping up on us.
- Daniel OkaforYou're right, the term ends on 9 Jan 2026 and renews on 10 Jan 2026. It's some way off, but I'll come to you well before the notice point in the autumn with usage, the value work Siân's doing and the terms laid out. Nothing should be a surprise.
- Graham ToveyGood. And I'll say now, I won't sign anything without Siân's view on it. So she needs to be in those conversations from the start.
- Siân PritchardI'll be there, Graham. And I'll have the sampling done by then, which is the right evidence to take into it.
- Tom AshdownLeave that with me on the paperwork side. I'll make sure the renewal documents are ready early this time, rather than me being the bottleneck.
- Graham ToveyThen I'm content. Anything else before we finish?
- Nikhil RaoOne thing. I'll write up the schema change and the load history for the ticket, so there's something an auditor can follow. I'll send it to Daniel and Siân today.
- Daniel OkaforLovely, thank you. So just to close the loop on actions. Nikhil, the write-up, the change calendar and the early alert. Siân, the complaint sampling, and I'll send the question history export to help. I'll offer slots for the collections session. Tom, a scoping conversation for field operations and onboarding after the summer. And I'll come back to Graham and Siân on the renewal in the autumn.
- Siân PritchardThat's everything I have.
- Graham ToveyThank you all. Good quarter.
- Tom AshdownCheers, everyone. Enjoy the sunshine, Siân.
- Daniel OkaforThank you again for your time. Best wishes, all.
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