Ashwell Mercer Interiors / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Ashwell Mercer Interiors · 23 Feb 2026 16:15
Check-in on 23 Feb 2026: five or six daily users against forty Growth licences, flat for a while. Craig Ashwell likes the brain but expects his board to question the cost. Marcus Bell offered a project manager session.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Check-in on 23 Feb 2026: five or six daily users against forty Growth licences, flat for a while. Craig Ashwell likes the brain but expects his board to question the cost. Marcus Bell offered a project manager session.
What happened: Marcus Bell, Customer Success Manager, ran a check-in with Craig Ashwell, Commercial Director, on 23 Feb 2026. Daily use is five or six people against forty licensed users on Growth, flat for a while.
Customer view: Craig says he likes the product and that it is brilliant when it works. He expects his board to ask what the forty-four thousand a year buys, and asked whether forty licences will ever be used.
Commercial: The term ran to 22 Aug 2026, with renewal on 23 Aug 2026. Priya, named on the call as account owner, owns terms; Marcus declined to discuss price. The call does not show the renewal outcome.
Watch: Questions come from a small group and Craig is a big share, so this is key-person risk. One invoice shows as overdue; Marcus wants billing to confirm it is not BG-Demo's mistake.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Low adoption, board value
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 holds a 30-minute project manager session on a Tuesday once Craig sends the names.
- Marcus checks the high priority ticket with the credit control user and the overdue invoice with billing.
- Craig has credit control write up the retail unit case for Marcus.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Five or six daily users against forty licensed Growth users gives Craig little to show his board before the 23 Aug 2026 renewal.
- Questions come from a small group with Craig a big share, so the value rests on few people.
- One invoice shows as overdue and BG-Demo billing has not yet confirmed it is correct.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A short session for project managers on their own live jobs could widen use within the forty Growth users.
- The Thames Valley retail unit case, where a missed variation was caught, can be written up as a value story for the board.
- Better call recorder coverage on project calls would give richer answers.
Transcript
Craig AshwellMarcus. Can you hear me? I'm in the car park, sorry, I've got about twenty minutes before I'm in front of a client.
Marcus BellYeah, loud and clear, Craig. Good afternoon. No problem at all, we'll be quick. I know it's a busy Monday.- Craig AshwellEvery day's a busy day at the moment. Right, before you share anything, can I start with the project that's keeping me up? It's the office floor for the landlord, the one in town. We've got three variations sitting there and the client hasn't signed any of them, and the team's already on site.
- Marcus BellRight. Okay. And that's the sort of thing you wanted the brain to flag, isn't it? Variations against what the client has actually signed.
- Craig AshwellExactly that. What has the client signed? That's my whole question. Where's the variation? And I'll be honest, I don't think I'm getting that answer out of it as often as I should.
- Marcus BellMm. That's fair, and it's partly why I wanted this call. Shall I share my screen and show you what I've pulled? I've got the usage numbers for the last few months and a couple of things I want to ask you about.
- Craig AshwellGo on then.
- Marcus BellOkay, you should see it now. This is the usage view for Ashwell Mercer. So you're licensed for forty users on Growth, and what I'm seeing is that on a typical day it's only five or six people actually asking questions or opening pages.
- Craig AshwellFive or six. Out of forty.
- Marcus BellYeah. And I'll say it straight, it's been about flat for a while now. It hasn't dropped off a cliff, but it hasn't grown either. I'd expected it to grow after the first few months.
- Craig AshwellRight. No, that's about what I'd have guessed, if I'm honest. It's me, it's the credit control lot, and a couple of the commercial managers. The project managers are not in there.
- Marcus BellThat's what the numbers say too. Most of the questions are coming from a small group, and you're a big share of them.
- Craig AshwellAm I? Well. That's not great, is it. If I'm hit by a bus the whole thing goes quiet.
- Marcus BellI wouldn't put it quite like that, but yeah, it's something I'd want to fix. It's better for you if the project managers are asking the questions about their own jobs, not just you asking about all of them.
- Craig AshwellTotally. Look, the project managers are on site half the week. They're on their phones, they're not sat at a desk wanting to open a dashboard. They want an answer in a sentence.
- Marcus BellWhich is what the chat is meant for. So I'm wondering if it's not that they don't want it, it's that nobody's shown them the three or four questions that matter to them. Like, what's been instructed on this job that isn't in the contract sum, or which valuations are still waiting.
- Craig AshwellHang on. Say that again. Instructed but not in the contract sum.
- Marcus BellYeah. So the brain can read the emails and the call notes on a project and the order and variation records, and put them side by side. If a client emailed an instruction on a Tuesday and there's no variation raised, that's a question you can ask it.
- Craig AshwellThat's the one. That's exactly the one. Why am I not doing that already?
- Marcus BellWell, I think that's partly on us. We did the training with the commercial and credit teams back at the start and the project managers only had a short session. I've looked and I don't see that we've been back to them since.
- Craig AshwellNo. You haven't. And I haven't pushed it either, to be fair. I've been flat out.
- Marcus BellNo, no, I'm not pointing fingers. I just think there's an easy win here.
- Craig AshwellGo on.
- Marcus BellWhat if I run a short session just for the project managers? Thirty minutes, on their own live jobs, no slides. I'd bring the questions, they'd see the answers on their own projects. Happy to jump on a call whenever suits them.
- Craig AshwellThirty minutes I can sell. An hour they'll never give me. When?
- Marcus BellYou tell me. I'd have thought end of this week or early next, before the month closes out.
- Craig AshwellEarly next week. Tuesday, maybe, they tend to be in the office first thing on a Tuesday. I'll get you a list of who to invite.
- Marcus BellPerfect. I'll hold a Tuesday and you send me the names. I'll make a note of it now.
- Craig AshwellRight. What else have you got on there? You said a couple of things.
- Marcus BellYeah. Tickets. There've been two in the last month, and one of those was marked high priority. I wanted to check it's actually sorted from your side, because from ours it's showing as picked up.
- Craig AshwellWhich one was that? Was that the one about the numbers on the project list not matching?
- Marcus BellI don't want to guess in case I'm putting words in your mouth. What I can see is that someone on your team raised it, support responded and it's been worked on. What I can't see is whether you're happy with where it landed.
- Craig AshwellMm. I think it's okay. Honestly I'd have to ask. It's one of the credit control team who raised it and she's not said anything since, which in this place usually means it's fine. Or she's given up.
- Marcus BellHa, yeah, I know that one. Can I ask her directly? I'd rather hear it from the person who hit it.
- Craig AshwellYeah, go for it. I'll let her know you'll be in touch. Don't make it a big thing.
- Marcus BellWon't. Just a quick note to check it's right now. And I'll be careful not to promise anything on the engineering side, that's not mine to promise, but I'll make sure it's chased properly.
- Craig AshwellFine. That's all I'm after.
- Marcus BellOkay. And the other thing, and I'm a bit reluctant to raise it because I know it's not your area. There's one invoice showing as overdue on our side.
- Craig AshwellRight. Yeah. Well, I'm going to stop you there, Marcus, because I don't talk about cash without our finance team in the room. That's a rule of the house, and it's a good one. If it's overdue they'll know about it.
- Marcus BellTotally fair. I'm not asking you to sort it. I just want you to know it's there so it's not a surprise. And before anyone gets excited, I'd like to check with our billing team that it's right from our end. Sometimes these are our mistake, not the customer's.
- Craig AshwellGood. Check that. And if it's yours, say so. If it's ours, I'll make sure someone gets onto it. I'll mention it to finance tomorrow, so nobody's blindsided.
- Marcus BellThat'd be great. I'll come back to you once I've heard from our side.
- Craig AshwellGood. Next.
- Marcus BellNext is the one I always have to mention. Your contract runs to 22 Aug 2026, with the renewal falling on 23 Aug 2026. So we're a good few months out, and I'm not here to start a negotiation. That's Priya's side, she's your account owner and she'll come to you on terms.
- Craig AshwellPriya. Yes. I remember. Is this where you tell me it's going up?
- Marcus BellThat's not my conversation, Craig, honestly. I don't do price, I'd only get it wrong. What I do is make sure that when you sit down with Priya, you've got a clear picture of what the brain has done for you. That's my job between now and then.
- Craig AshwellHm. Right. Well, let me tell you where I am. I like the thing. I do. I brought it in because I wanted the projects, the variations, the calls and the invoices all in one place, and when it works it's brilliant. But I've got a board that'll ask what we're paying forty-four thousand a year for, and right now the honest answer is that five or six people use it.
- Marcus BellYeah. I think that's the right worry, and I'd rather we talked about it now than in July.
- Craig AshwellSo what do I show them? Give me something I can put in front of the board that's not just a graph going sideways.
- Marcus BellOkay, so, here's what I'd suggest. Two things. One, the project manager session gets more people asking questions, and we'd see that in the numbers within a few weeks. Two, I'd like to find a couple of real cases where the brain caught something. A variation that would've gone unrecorded, or an invoice that was chased sooner because someone asked.
- Craig AshwellI've got one. I'll tell you now. The fit-out in the Thames Valley, the retail unit. Credit control saw a client instruction in the emails that never made it into a variation. They caught it before we did the work. That's real money.
- Marcus BellThat's exactly the kind of thing. Can I ask you to get the credit control team to write that down? Just a few lines, who asked what, what they found. I won't make it fancy.
- Craig AshwellYeah, I can do that. Let's get paid for what we've built, that's my whole philosophy. If it helps us do that, I want the board to hear it.
- Marcus BellRight. And I'll pull together the questions asked by team, so you can see who's using it and who isn't. I'll do that before the Tuesday session so we know where we're starting from.
- Craig AshwellGood. Can I ask something a bit awkward?
- Marcus BellOf course.
- Craig AshwellForty licences. We're not going to use forty. Realistically, are we ever going to use forty? Because if not, I need to know whether I'm paying for something I don't need.
- Marcus BellYeah. That's a reasonable question, and I'd be wary of saying yes just to make the number look good. What I'd say is, you bought Growth because you wanted several teams in it, project, commercial and credit. If the project managers come on board, you're well past a dozen straight away, and then there are the estimators and the site managers.
- Craig AshwellMm. So it's a question of whether I can get them on.
- Marcus BellRight. And the tier and the licence count are things Priya can talk through properly with you nearer the time. I just don't want to put a number in your head that I can't stand behind.
- Craig AshwellNo, fair. I respect that. Okay. So the plan is the project manager session next Tuesday, you check the ticket with the credit control lady, you look at that invoice, and we write up the retail unit story.
- Marcus BellThat's it. And one more, if you don't mind. When I look at the connectors, the CRM and the accounting system are loading fine, but I'd like to look at whether the call recorder is bringing in all your project calls. I think some teams might not be recording.
- Craig AshwellHa. Some of them definitely aren't. The site managers think recording is for the sales people. I'll have a word.
- Marcus BellBrilliant. Even a few more calls would make the answers richer. I'll send you a short list of what I'm seeing.
- Craig AshwellSend it to me and I'll forward it on. And Marcus, one thing. Don't send me anything long. A page, tops. I'll read a page.
- Marcus BellA page. Bullet points. That's my natural habitat anyway.
- Craig AshwellGood man. Right, I've got to go, the client's car's just pulled in.
- Marcus BellNo worries. So I'll send a summary tonight, the names for Tuesday come from you, and I'll come back on the invoice once I've heard from billing. Thanks, Craig.
- Craig AshwellCheers, Marcus. Speak soon.
- Marcus BellSpeak soon. Bye.
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