Brimscombe Energy / BG-Demo – Renewal
Callcompleted
Brimscombe Energy · 15 Oct 2025 13:45
Renewal call on 15 Oct 2025. The order form shows £115k, matching invoices, while the CRM deal sits at £120k. Graham Tovey questioned paying for unused seats and wants paper well before the 19 Dec 2025 target.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Renewal call on 15 Oct 2025. The order form shows £115k, matching invoices, while the CRM deal sits at £120k. Graham Tovey questioned paying for unused seats and wants paper well before the 19 Dec 2025 target.
What happened: Renewal call on 15 Oct 2025 with Graham Tovey and Mandy Gasson. Daniel Okafor opened with the term ending 9 Jan 2026 and a working close target of 19 Dec 2025.
Customer view: Graham asked whether the company pays for one hundred and eighty seats and uses a quarter of them. Mandy values seeing disputes alongside bills and calls, and says the ledger wins if the two disagree.
Commercial: Tom Ashdown said the order form annual figure is £115k and matches invoices. The £120k CRM deal is the total deal value, not the annual subscription, and the gap was not explained on the call.
Watch: Graham and Mandy will not sign a number they cannot tie to a statement. The evidence does not show the outcome of the renewal.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Renewal pricing and seat use
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tom Ashdown confirms in writing what sits behind the £120,500 deal figure before anything goes out for signature.
- Daniel Okafor sends usage by team and the support ticket to Graham and Mandy by the end of the week.
- Tom Ashdown puts a follow-up call in the diary well ahead of 19 Dec 2025.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Graham questions paying for a full Enterprise seat count with only around fifty people active.
- The CRM deal figure of £120,500 differs from the £115,000 order form figure and is not yet explained.
- The 19 Dec 2025 close target sits close to the Christmas period, with the term ending 9 Jan 2026.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Mandy's team already uses the brain to see sites, bills and disputes together, a case other teams can copy.
- A session for quiet teams on their own customer data could lift adoption before renewal.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforAfternoon, Graham, afternoon Mandy. Thank you both for making the time. I think Tom's joining as well. Tom, are you with us?
Tom AshdownHere, here. Sorry, just wrestling with the headphones. Afternoon all. How's your week been, Graham? Mandy? Anything fun?
Graham ToveyBusy, Tom, but fine. Can you hear me alright? The room's a bit echoey.- Tom AshdownLoud and clear. No drama.
Mandy GassonAfternoon. Bit of a day, to be honest. I've got a large account in dispute that I'm not happy with, so if I go quiet for a minute, that's why.- Daniel OkaforUnderstood, Mandy, no problem at all. We've got just over half an hour, so we'll keep it tidy. Graham, I know you like the headline first.
- Graham ToveyI do. What's the headline?
- Daniel OkaforThe headline is that the subscription runs to 9 Jan 2026, with the renewal date falling on 10 Jan 2026, and we wanted to talk about it early rather than late. Usage is healthy, you've had no overdue invoices, and there's nothing in the support queue that worries me. So really this call is about agreeing what a renewal looks like for you, and whether anything should change.
- Graham ToveyGood. Tell me early, not late. That's all I ask of suppliers. So nothing is on fire.
- Daniel OkaforNothing is on fire. Just to close the loop on the last few months: you went live on 10 Jan 2025, and since then the pattern has been steady growth. Over the last quarter the number of people using the brain in a typical month is up a good bit on the quarter before.
- Mandy GassonUp from what, though? I never know what that means. Up from a small number is still a small number.
- Daniel OkaforFair challenge. On a typical day it's around fifty people active, against a hundred and eighty licensed seats. So it's a rising number, but you're a long way from using every seat.
- Graham ToveyWhich makes me ask the obvious question. Am I paying for a hundred and eighty seats and using a quarter of them?
- Tom AshdownCan I jump in on that one, Daniel? Because it's a fair question and I'd rather we took it head on.
- Daniel OkaforPlease, Tom.
- Tom AshdownSo, yes, that's roughly the picture. You bought Enterprise so the key-account team, collections and complaints could all look at the same customer in one place. Those teams came on at different speeds. Collections took to it fastest, I think Mandy's lot especially. The rest of the seats are headroom, really, and we'd much rather see you use them than shave them off. But I'm not going to pretend the number isn't there.
- Graham ToveyI appreciate you saying it plainly. What does the customer see, though? If I put another fifty people on this, what changes for a business customer ringing us up?
- Daniel OkaforI think it's best answered by what Mandy's team already does. Mandy, would you mind? You're the heaviest user, and I'd rather it came from you than from me.
- Mandy GassonShort version. Before, if a customer rang about a bill, the agent had to open the billing system, then the call notes, then find out whether there was a complaint open. Three places. Now they ask one question and see the sites, the bills, the last calls and whether the site is in dispute.
- Mandy GassonAnd that last bit matters most. I never want us chasing a debt that's in complaint. That's what the regulator will look at first.
- Graham ToveyHow does that hold up with Ofgem? If they ask how we know a site was in dispute on a given day.
- Daniel OkaforIt's a good question and it's one to be careful about. The brain runs inside your own Snowflake account, so the data stays with you and you control it. What it shows is what's in your source systems at the last nightly refresh. So the answer to Ofgem is always the source record. The brain helps people find it faster, it doesn't replace it.
- Mandy GassonWhich is how I'd want it. I'll believe it when it reconciles. The ledger says otherwise, I go with the ledger, every time.
- Daniel OkaforAnd I'd say the same, Mandy. If the two ever disagree, the ledger wins and we'd want to hear about it the same day.
- Mandy GassonHas that happened lately?
- Daniel OkaforNot that I'm aware of. There's been one ticket in the last month, and it wasn't high priority. If that's one of yours, I think it was minor, but I can send it over so you've got it in front of you.
- Mandy GassonIf it's mine, it was a how-do-I. Yes, send it. I like to see them written down.
- Daniel OkaforWill do. Just to close the loop on support, then: one ticket, nothing urgent, and nothing waiting on us.
- Graham ToveyRight. Let's talk money, then, because that's where I'll be asked. What are we paying now and what would we be paying?
- Tom AshdownYeah, so. The contracted annual figure on the order form is £115,000, and that matches what's been invoiced. I'd want to confirm all this in writing before anyone relies on it, because I don't like quoting from memory, but that's the number I have in front of me.
- Mandy GassonThat matches what we've paid. A hundred and fifteen. Paid on time, as far as I'm aware.
- Tom AshdownEvery invoice, as far as I can see. Nothing overdue. Which, honestly, makes my life easier.
- Mandy GassonThen why have I seen a different number in the paperwork? Somebody forwarded me something with a higher figure on it.
- Tom AshdownRight, that'll be the renewal deal as it sits in our system. It's showing at £120,500. And I want to be clear, that's the total value of the deal as it's recorded, it's not the annual subscription, and I'd be wrong to call it that. The annual is the £115,000 on the order form.
- Mandy GassonSo what's the difference? The five and a half.
- Tom AshdownHonestly, Mandy, I don't want to guess at it on a call. Leave that with me. I'll go back through it and come back to you with exactly what's in the figure before anything goes out for signature. I'd rather you had it right than quickly.
- Mandy GassonGood. Because I won't sign off a number I can't tie to a statement. A dashboard isn't a statement.
- Graham ToveyNor will I. And I won't sign a renewal without my own team's view of it, so I need the paper in good time. Not the week it expires.
- Daniel OkaforCompletely understood. Our working target on our side is 19 Dec 2025 for the renewal to be closed, which gives you a comfortable gap before 9 Jan 2026. Does that feel about right, or is it too tight with the Christmas period?
- Graham ToveyIt's tight but workable, provided I see the paper well before then. The last fortnight of December, nobody's here.
- Tom AshdownLet's get something in the diary for November, then, so we're not trying to do it all in December. I'll sort that after the call.
- Graham ToveyPlease do.
- Mandy GassonCan I ask something about the seats? Because if we're going to use more of them, I need to know what that costs. I don't want a surprise in the middle of the year.
- Daniel OkaforI think that's the right way round to think about it, Mandy. The hundred and eighty seats are already included, so using more of them doesn't change what you pay. What we'd want to look at together is whether the rest of the business, the complaints team and key accounts, are getting the same benefit your team is.
- Graham ToveyWhich is the question I'd put to the other two directors, honestly. Who isn't using it, and why? Do you have that by team?
- Daniel OkaforI can pull that together. Who's active by team, who's asking questions, and where there's quiet. I'll be careful to present it fairly, because a quiet team isn't always a team that doesn't value it. Sometimes they just haven't been shown properly.
- Graham ToveyFine. Send it to me and Mandy both.
- Daniel OkaforI'll come back to you with that by the end of this week.
- Tom AshdownAnd Daniel, maybe it's worth saying we could run a session for the quiet teams. Show them on their own data, not a demo, you know, their own customers.
- Daniel OkaforYes, that's a good idea. How is the team finding it, Graham, in your own area? I know customer service was a bit cautious at the start.
- Graham ToveyCautious is fair. They liked it once they'd tried it. But I don't hear much from them unless something's wrong, which is probably a good sign, or possibly a bad one. I'm never sure.
- Daniel OkaforHa, I know that feeling. Quiet can be either. That's partly why I want to put the usage by team in front of you, so we're not reading tea leaves.
- Mandy GassonIs there anything we should be doing on our side? Admin, connectors, anything like that? I don't want to get to January and find out something's been stale.
- Daniel OkaforGood question, and nothing is stale at the moment. Records are being indexed and the nightly refresh has been landing as it should. If you change a system, a billing system or a CRM setup, tell us before, not after, because that's what usually breaks a connector.
- Mandy GassonTell you early. Like Graham says.
- Graham ToveyLike I say.
- Tom AshdownIt's the same for us, mind. If we're changing anything that touches you, you'll hear first. That's the deal.
- Graham ToveyGood. Right. What do I need to do, and by when?
- Daniel OkaforLet me read it back, and stop me if I've got it wrong. I'll send the usage by team and the ticket to you and Mandy by the end of the week. Tom confirms in writing what the renewal paperwork contains, including what sits behind the £120,500 deal figure, before anything goes out for signature.
- Tom AshdownYep. And I'll put the November call in the diary and get you a draft with plenty of time. Cheers.
- Mandy GassonAnd I'll tell you if finance has a view on invoicing, so it's not a last-minute thing. Quarterly, annual, whatever suits. I'll check what we prefer.
- Daniel OkaforThat's helpful, thank you, Mandy. And Graham, you'll take it to your own team for their view.
- Graham ToveyI will. And the target is 19 Dec 2025, with the contract ending on 9 Jan 2026. Is that right?
- Daniel OkaforThat's right. And the renewal date itself is 10 Jan 2026.
- Graham ToveyGood. Thank you all. That was useful, and short.
- Mandy GassonThanks. I'd better get back to my dispute.
- Tom AshdownGood luck with that, Mandy. Speak soon, both.
- Daniel OkaforThank you for your time, everyone. Best wishes, and I'll be in touch by Friday.
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