Brackwell Freight Ltd / BB-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Brackwell Freight Ltd · 2026-05-05 12:30
Marcus Bell's 5 May 2026 check-in with Liam Doherty found about seven daily users out of forty seats and questions flat, though connectors are healthy. Liam is a large share of the questions. Depot sessions agreed ahead of the renewal.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Marcus Bell's 5 May 2026 check-in with Liam Doherty found about seven daily users out of forty seats and questions flat, though connectors are healthy. Liam is a large share of the questions. Depot sessions agreed ahead of the renewal.
What happened: Marcus walked through usage, depots and connectors. Active users average about seven of forty seats, a little down on the quarter before, and a large share of questions comes from Liam.
Customer view: Liam says depot staff have logins but do not open the brain, partly because of old spreadsheets and a single rollout session. In his words, people value it but do not open it.
Commercial: The Growth term runs to the end of November and renews on the first of December. Marcus said plainly that seven users would make the renewal harder to justify.
Watch: Liam is the key-person risk. Finance connector interest is parked, which leaves headroom on four of eight Growth connectors.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Depot adoption and renewal
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Marcus Bell sends afternoon slots for a thirty minute Trafford Park depot session and a usage summary the following week.
- Liam Doherty speaks to depot staff this week and sends one name per depot as champion.
- Marcus Bell reviews who has moved after the end of the following week, then nudges quiet depots.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- About seven daily users out of forty Growth seats, with questions flat, makes the renewal harder to justify.
- A large share of questions comes from Liam Doherty alone, so usage depends on one person.
- Depot account managers have logins but do not open the brain, and no tickets mean little signal.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Depot-by-depot thirty minute sessions and named depot champions could widen use on the existing Growth seats.
- A finance connector is possible, with four of eight Growth connectors unused, once Liam has spoken to his finance team.
- The grocery delivery exception story gives a value case for Liam's leadership.
Transcript
Liam Doherty NoneMarcus, hello. Can you hear me alright? I've got the warehouse noise next door, they're moving pallets about.
Marcus Bell NoneAfternoon, Liam. Yeah, loud and clear. A bit of a clatter in the background but I can hear you fine.- Liam Doherty NoneGood. I'll go and sit in the little meeting room in a sec if it gets worse. How's your week been?
- Marcus Bell NoneBusy, but good busy. Bank holiday weekend just gone so everyone's been catching up. Did you get away at all?
- Liam Doherty NoneNot really. Did some jobs in the garden, rained on me, came inside. Peak Salford, honestly. Right, what have you got for me?
- Marcus Bell NoneOkay, so I'll share my screen and say what I want to cover, and you tell me if I've missed anything. Give me a second. Can you see that?
- Liam Doherty NoneYep, I can see the usage page. Slightly small but yes.
- Marcus Bell NoneI'll zoom in. Right. Three things really. One, I've pulled the numbers for the last quarter so we can see how Brackwell's using the brain. Two, how the depots are getting on with it. And three, anything you need from us before the summer. Happy to add to that.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's about it. I've got one extra, which is the delivery exception view, but it fits under the depots bit.
- Marcus Bell NonePerfect, we'll do it there. So, headline first. You're on Growth, forty licensed users, and the contract's at £44k a year. Order form and invoices match, nothing overdue on the finance side, and there's been no tickets raised in the last month, which is quiet.
- Liam Doherty NoneQuiet's good. Quiet means it's not broken.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's how I read it, mostly. Though I'll be honest, I don't want to just take quiet as a good sign without checking the usage, which is why I've pulled this.
- Liam Doherty NoneGo on. What's it say?
- Marcus Bell NoneSo active users, on a typical day over the last month, we're averaging about seven people. Out of forty seats. And that's down a little on the quarter before, a bit over a tenth, so not a cliff, but it's drifted.
- Liam Doherty NoneSeven. Mm. Yeah, that sounds about right, actually. It's me, it's the two analysts in the commercial team, a few of the account managers at Trafford Park.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat matches what I can see. And I can see who's asking the questions as well. A large share of the questions are coming from you, Liam. Which is lovely, but I mention it because it's, you know, a lot sitting on one person.
- Liam Doherty NoneHa. Yeah. I know. I'm the one who keeps poking it. Honestly I like it, I ask it things in the morning before the exec stand-up, what's going on with our biggest retail accounts, where have exceptions piled up. One view, that's the point.
- Marcus Bell NoneAnd that's exactly how it should be used. I'm not saying stop. I'm saying it'd be nice if a few more people were doing what you do.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight. Which is the depots thing.
- Marcus Bell NoneWhich is the depots thing. So let me show you. This is the breakdown by site. Trafford Park is the bulk of it. Then you've got a trickle from a couple of the others, and a couple of the depots, nothing at all in the last month.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. That's the bit that annoys me. Can we get the depots on it? Because the whole reason we bought it was so the depot account managers could see their retailers, the calls, the tickets, the delivery exceptions, in one go, without ringing me.
- Marcus Bell NoneTotally. And they've all got logins, that's not the problem. I checked. They've got seats, they've been invited. They just don't seem to be opening it.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight. So it's a habit thing, not an access thing.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's my read. Can I ask, from your side, what do you think is stopping them? You're closer to them than I am.
- Liam Doherty NoneHonestly? A few things. One, they're out on the floor, they're not at desks. Two, they've got their own spreadsheets they've used for years and they trust them. Three, and this one's on me, when I rolled it out I did one session, one big call with everybody, and then I got pulled onto the budget stuff and didn't follow up properly.
- Marcus Bell NoneOkay. That's really useful, thank you. And it's very normal, by the way. One session and then nothing is what happens most places.
- Liam Doherty NoneDoesn't make me feel better but I'll take it.
- Marcus Bell NoneHa. Fair. So what would help? I can think of a couple of things and you tell me which are sensible. One is smaller sessions, a depot at a time, thirty minutes or so, on their own accounts. Not a general tour, just here's your biggest retailer, here's what's open, here's what you'd ask.
- Liam Doherty NoneLove that. That's what I should have done in the first place. Their own accounts, yes. If they see their own numbers they'll care.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. And the second thing is, and this is optional, we could pick one person per depot as the go-to. Someone who gets it a bit more than the others and who the rest can lean on.
- Liam Doherty NoneA depot champion. Yes. Yeah. I've got a couple in mind already. There's a woman at one of the northern sites who's brilliant with data, she's basically running her own reports anyway. And at Trafford Park there's a lad who's always asking me for extracts.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's exactly the sort of person. Do me a favour and don't tell me names now, just jot them down, and send them over when you've had a think. I'd rather you'd talked to them first.
- Liam Doherty NoneSure. I'll have a word this week. Probably better they hear it from me than from a calendar invite out of nowhere.
- Marcus Bell NoneDefinitely. Okay, let me move on a bit, because there's more on this page. Questions asked. So this is the number of questions put to the brain, month by month. It's flat. Not falling, not climbing. Roughly the same as the start of the year.
- Liam Doherty NoneFlat. Hmm. Is that bad?
- Marcus Bell NoneNot bad. It's steady, and steady with fewer people means the people who are on it are asking a bit more each. But I'd like to see it growing, because questions are the best sign that it's earning its keep.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. No, fair. And it does earn it. Can I tell you the one that sold it to my boss? Last month one of our big grocery contracts, the delivery exceptions had been building up for about two weeks and nobody in the depot had flagged it. I saw it in the brain on a Monday, rang the account manager, and we got ahead of it before the retailer's people rang us.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's the use case. That's the whole thing. Did that get written down anywhere? Because that's a story I'd love your leadership to have in front of them when value comes up.
- Liam Doherty NoneNot written down as such. I mentioned it in the commercial meeting. I can put a note together, it's not hard.
- Marcus Bell NoneIf you do, great, and if you want a hand shaping it I'm happy to jump on a call. Sometimes it's easier to have somebody else ask you what happened and then tidy it up.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, maybe. Let me try first and I'll shout if it's rubbish.
- Marcus Bell NoneDeal. Okay, so connectors. Let me flip to that tab. Give me a second, it's being slow. There we go.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo you've got the CRM connected, the helpdesk, the call recorder, and the mailboxes via Microsoft 365. All four loading fine. Records indexed have been going up steadily, nothing stuck, no failed syncs that I can see.
- Liam Doherty NoneGood. That I do trust. Nightly refresh is landing before we start, I check it sometimes at about seven and it's always there.
- Marcus Bell NoneGood, that's what I see too. Now, Growth gives you eight connectors and you're using four. So there's headroom. Is there anything else you'd want to bring in? Finance, say, or shared drives, or the like?
- Liam Doherty NoneHmm. Finance, probably. Eventually. I'd love to see margin by contract next to the exceptions, because some of the retail contracts look busy but I suspect they're not making us much. But that's a conversation I'd need to have with our finance team first. They're a bit protective.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's fair. And I'm not pushing. It's just there if you want it, and the accounting system is one we connect to commonly. If you want me to talk your finance people through what it would and wouldn't see, I can do that. Plain explanation, no sales pitch.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat might actually help. They worry about who sees what. Park that, I'll come back to you after the depots are sorted. One thing at a time.
- Marcus Bell NonePerfect. Parked.
- Liam Doherty NoneCan I ask about the exception view? That's my extra one.
- Marcus Bell NoneYes, go on.
- Liam Doherty NoneSo at the moment, when I ask about delivery exceptions it gives me a good answer, but it's by account. What I'd like is by depot as well. Like, show me the exceptions that are open for Trafford Park versus the others, by retailer. Can it do that, or am I asking it wrong?
- Marcus Bell NoneLet me have a go live. Hang on. I'll type it as you'd say it. Open delivery exception tickets by depot, grouped by retailer, last thirty days.
- Liam Doherty NoneOkay, it's thinking.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight, so it's come back with a table. You can see it's got the depot on the left, the retailer across the top. So yes, it can. I think what's happening for you is the question isn't naming the depot, so it defaults to the account view.
- Liam Doherty NoneOh. Oh, that's easy then. So I just have to say depot.
- Marcus Bell NonePretty much. And if you save that as a page, you can pin it, and the depot managers can open the same page each morning without having to ask anything at all. Which might actually be a gentler way in for the ones who don't love typing questions.
- Liam Doherty NoneOoh. Yes. A page they just open. That I like a lot. It's a lot less scary than a chat box.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. So I could build that with you in the first depot session. You'd have a page per depot, say, and then each person only really needs to learn one thing.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. Do that. Start with Trafford Park because that's the biggest and the lad there will be keen.
- Marcus Bell NoneOkay. I'll put a thirty minute slot in with you and him, and we'll do that first. Then we'll roll the others once we've seen how it lands. Does that work for you in terms of time? I know you're stretched.
- Liam Doherty NoneI am stretched but this is the thing I'd rather be doing than the budget. Next week, if you can. Afternoons are better, I'm in the depot mornings.
- Marcus Bell NoneAfternoons next week, got it. I'll send you a few options after this call and you pick one.
- Liam Doherty NoneBrilliant.
- Marcus Bell NoneOkay. Let me ask something else, and stop me if it's not useful. Is there anything that's frustrating you about the brain at the moment? Anything you've been putting up with? Because with no tickets I can't tell if that's because everything's fine or because people have stopped bothering.
- Liam Doherty NoneHa, honest answer, I think it's fine. I'm the one who'd raise a ticket, and I don't let things sit, you know that. If something broke I'd chase it. There's the odd answer that's a bit wordy, that's all.
- Marcus Bell NoneWordy answers, okay. That's a how-you-ask-it thing mostly, and I can show you a couple of ways to tighten the questions. Short ones, name the thing you want, name the time period.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah, go on, show me one.
- Marcus Bell NoneSo instead of what's going on with our grocery customers, you'd say, list the open exceptions for the grocery accounts since the first of the month, oldest first. And it gives you a short list rather than a paragraph.
- Liam Doherty NoneRight, right. Oldest first, that's a good one. Because the oldest is the one that'll bite.
- Marcus Bell NoneExactly. I'll put a few of those in the note I send you, so you've got them to pass on to the depot people.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat'd be perfect. Genuinely. Something I can forward without having to rewrite.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight, good. Last bit from me, and it's the boring bit, so bear with me. Your term runs to the thirtieth of November, so renewal's on the first of December this year. That's a while off, and we'll talk about it properly nearer the time, I'll send the notice at the right point. I just don't want it to be a surprise to anyone.
- Liam Doherty NoneNo, fine. That's well flagged. Is there anything I should be doing on that now?
- Marcus Bell NoneHonestly, not really. The most useful thing you can do is what we've just been talking about. If more people are using it by the autumn, the conversation's easy. If it's still seven people, then it's a harder one for anybody to justify, and I'd rather be straight with you about that.
- Liam Doherty NoneYeah. No, I appreciate that. It's not a mystery to me. I know what I need to do. It's not that people don't value it, it's that they don't open it.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. And any pricing questions, you'd go through Tom, he's your account owner, I'd just be passing it on. But there's nothing on the table, I'm only mentioning the date.
- Liam Doherty NoneUnderstood. Tom's fine. I haven't spoken to him in a bit actually. Is he still the one who does the, whatever it is, the commercial side?
- Marcus Bell NoneHe is. Tom Ashdown, still your account owner. I can say you were asking and he'll probably drop you a line.
- Liam Doherty NoneDo that, yeah. Nothing urgent, just so we're in touch.
- Marcus Bell NoneWill do. Okay, anything else from your side before we pull together next steps? I've been talking a lot.
- Liam Doherty NoneHmm. One thing. The exec team. My boss is going to ask me, probably in the next month or so, what are we getting out of this. Is there a thing, a one pager, a chart, something simple I can show him?
- Marcus Bell NoneYes. I can put together a short usage summary. Questions asked over time, who's using it, which connectors, and the headroom. Nothing fancy. And if you pair that with your grocery story, I think that's a decent case on one page.
- Liam Doherty NoneThat's exactly it. And be straight in it, don't make it look better than it is. If it says seven people, say seven people. I'd rather he heard it from me with a plan.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's how I'd do it. Seven or so people, a plan for the depots, and a clear idea of what we want to see by the summer. Honest and short.
- Liam Doherty NoneLove that. Okay. So what's the list? I want to make sure I've got it right.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight. From me: one, I send you a few afternoon slots next week for a thirty minute session with you and the Trafford Park lad, and we build the depot page there. Two, I send you the usage summary, short, honest, something you can show your boss. Three, I put a few tighter question examples in the same email so you can pass them on.
- Liam Doherty NoneGood. And from me, I talk to the depot people this week and send you names, one per depot. And I write up the grocery story, rough, and you can look at it if I need a hand.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's it. And the finance connector, parked until you've talked to your people. If you want me on a call with them, say the word.
- Liam Doherty NoneYep, parked. I'll shout.
- Marcus Bell NoneOne more thing, and it's small. Do you want me to chase the quieter depots directly, or would you rather it came from you first? I don't want to step on your toes.
- Liam Doherty NoneFrom me first. Give me till the end of next week, then if somebody's gone quiet, you can nudge. They'll take it better that way round.
- Marcus Bell NoneUnderstood. End of next week, then I'll have a look at the numbers again and see who's moved.
- Liam Doherty NoneGood. I think that's it then. Oh, actually, how many other customers do you do this with? Is it normal for the rollout to be a bit of a slog?
- Marcus Bell NoneIt's really normal. I've got a lot of accounts and the pattern's the same. The champion gets it, the first team gets it, and then it's about the second ring. The ones who do best are the ones who do exactly what you're about to do, small sessions, a named person at each site.
- Liam Doherty NoneOkay. That makes me feel slightly better. Slightly.
- Marcus Bell NoneHa, good, slightly's a start. Honestly though, the fact that you spotted that grocery contract is the sort of thing most places never get to. You've got the hard part.
- Liam Doherty NoneCheers. That's kind. Right, I should get on. I've got a stand-up in a few minutes and I need to find my laptop charger.
- Marcus Bell NoneNo problem at all. I'll get that email to you this afternoon, with the slots and the summary, and a couple of the question examples.
- Liam Doherty NoneBrilliant. Thanks, Marcus. Really useful, this.
- Marcus Bell NonePleasure. Thanks for your time, Liam. Speak soon, and enjoy what's left of the sunshine.
- Liam Doherty NoneWhat sunshine? Ha. Cheers, Liam. Sorry, cheers, Marcus. See you.
- Marcus Bell NoneBye, Liam. Take care.
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