Harcastle Environmental - Onboarding Plan

Harcastle runs commercial waste collection and recycling for a large base of business customers across Yorkshire and the North East. The reason for buying the brain is simple: account managers should see each customer's collections, missed-collection tickets, calls and invoices together, instead of switching between systems to piece the story together.

3. What success looks like

• An account manager can open one customer and see collections, tickets, calls and invoices in a single answer.
• Missed-collection conversations start from the facts, not from a search across several tools.
• Account managers ask the brain routine questions before a customer call, as a habit.
• Dashboards built by Harcastle's own team show the collection and ticket picture by customer and by area.
• The brain's value can be stated plainly ahead of the renewal conversation.

4. Phases, owners and milestones

Phase one: connect the sources

The Growth connector allowance is enough for these four sources with room to add more. Any further source is agreed with Marcus Bell first, so that the allowance is not used up on something of little value.

Phase two: first use

• A small group of account managers works with the brain on real customer questions.
• Marcus Bell reviews what they ask and where the answers fall short.
• Gaps in the data, such as a field that is empty in the CRM, are logged and passed to the right owner at Harcastle.
• The nightly refresh is checked each morning during this phase, so that the team trusts what it sees.

Phase three: widen the team

• Remaining account managers and team leaders are invited, up to the licensed users.
• A short walkthrough is run for each team, using their own customers as the examples.
• Admins at Harcastle are confirmed, with at least two named so that the account does not rely on one person.

Phase four: build and embed

• Harcastle's team builds the first dashboards in the dashboards builder: collections by customer, open tickets by area, and invoice status beside each account.
• The brain is added to the regular account review routine.
• Quarterly business reviews are scheduled and attended by the Harcastle sponsor.

5. Roles

6. Current position

As of the date of this version:

• The account is healthy on the basics: no overdue invoices, no tickets raised in the last month and nothing high priority open.
• Active use is a small share of the licensed users. There is clear headroom, and the aim of the next phase is to bring more account managers in rather than to add licences.
• Active use has grown a little against the previous quarter, which is encouraging but not yet a habit across the whole team.
• A quiet helpdesk with modest usage can mean things are simply working, but it can also mean people have not started. We will check with the operations lead rather than assume.

7. Risks and how we handle them

8. Communication rhythm

• Marcus Bell shares a short usage summary with the operations lead each month.
• A quarterly business review covers usage, value, issues and the plan for the next quarter.
• Anything about price or terms goes through Lewis Kerr.
• Questions between reviews can be raised with Marcus Bell directly, and he is happy to jump on a call.

9. Next steps

1. Harcastle confirms the named admins and the list of account managers to invite.
2. Marcus Bell books the walkthroughs for each team.
3. Harcastle's operations lead nominates who builds the first dashboards.
4. Marcus Bell prepares the first quarterly review pack, ahead of the contract end on 10 Apr 2027 and well before renewal planning begins.

10. Approval

Thanks, Marcus