Strensall Merchants / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Strensall Merchants · 4 Aug 2025 11:45
Neil Craven reports key account managers now use B-Viz daily and active use has more than doubled. He wants evidence of what it has delivered for the board and keeps finance involved in any paid expansion. Purchasing is curious.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Neil Craven reports key account managers now use B-Viz daily and active use has more than doubled. He wants evidence of what it has delivered for the board and keeps finance involved in any paid expansion. Purchasing is curious.
What happened: Daniel Okafor held a check-in on 4 Aug 2025 with Neil alone. Daniel said active people had more than doubled on the previous quarter and that the two recent tickets were same-day how-to answers.
Customer view: Neil says managers love it, some counter staff are not bothered, and the Midlands branches are keenest. He puts the shared sales and credit view of big housebuilders at about halfway.
Commercial: Daniel flagged that the contract runs to 27 Feb 2026 with renewal on 28 Feb 2026. Neil wants proof of delivered value for his board, and said any paying for more users needs finance in the room.
Watch: Purchasing asked for the same view of suppliers, which is a possible new team. The phone access request is unanswered until Daniel replies.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Adoption growth, renewal groundwork
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to run a practical training session for counter staff using real customer cases.
- Daniel to answer the mobile access question by the end of the following week.
- Daniel to prepare a plain-language value summary for Neil's board before the winter.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Some counter staff are not bothered and may not adopt B-Viz without practical training.
- Neil expects a board-ready account of delivered value before the February renewal, and any request to pay for more users needs finance involved.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The purchasing team wants the same supplier view that credit has, which could be a new team on the subscription.
- Growing use against a hundred and sixty licensed seats may lead to a later conversation about extra users.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Neil, can you hear me all right? I think I've just come through on your side.
Neil CravenAye, loud and clear. Hang on, let me shut the door. Right. That's better, I've had branches in and out of here all morning.- Daniel OkaforThank you for making the time. I know Mondays are never quiet for you. It's just the two of us today, I think, is that right? Nobody else from your side joining?
- Neil CravenJust me. I did think about dragging someone from credit along, but I wanted a straight chat first. We can bring them in next time.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fine, honestly. How has the morning been? You sound like you've already had a few calls.
- Neil CravenI have. First one was a housebuilder account at half past seven, site manager ringing about a drop that had gone to the wrong gate. Which branch, which account, that's what I asked. And before B-Viz I'd have been ringing round three people to find out.
- Daniel OkaforMm. And this time?
- Neil CravenThis time I asked it. Pulled up the account, saw the last few orders, the delivery notes, the call the branch had logged on Friday. Took me about two minutes. I rang the site manager back before he'd finished his tea.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear. That is exactly the thing we hoped it would do for you when we first spoke about it. Just to close the loop on something from the last call, you were going to try it with the key account managers rather than only the trade credit team. Did that happen?
- Neil CravenIt did, yeah. That's the big change really. At the start it was me and a handful of the credit team poking about. Now the key account people are in every day. They've worked out they can ask it what a builder's seeing, you know, what's the builder actually seeing, and get the orders and the deliveries and the credit position all in one go.
- Daniel OkaforI was looking at the usage before this call, and I wanted to say it out loud because it's quite striking. The number of people active in a typical month has more than doubled compared with the previous quarter. It's the sharpest rise I've seen on any of the accounts I look after this year.
- Neil CravenDoesn't surprise me. Word gets round. One branch manager tells the next one at the Thursday call, and then I've got someone ringing me asking how to get on.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is the best way for it to spread, to be honest. Better than anything we could send out from our side. How is the team finding it, though, the people who aren't in head office? The branch staff.
- Neil CravenMixed, and I'll be straight with you. The managers love it. The counter staff, some of them, they're not bothered. They've done it one way for twenty years. If it doesn't help them serve the lad at the counter quicker, they'll not use it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fair, and it's useful for me to know. Do you have a sense of which branches are the keenest?
- Neil CravenThe Midlands ones, funnily enough. I'd have said the northern lot would take to it first, because that's where I've spent most of my time. But the Midlands branches have a couple of very sharp managers who've told everyone.
- Daniel OkaforI'll make a note of that. And that's a good place to put some training time, if you'd like it. We could do a short session, an hour or so, aimed at counter and sales staff rather than managers, showing them the three or four questions that save them the most time.
- Neil CravenLet's sort it, not talk about it. Yes. Do that. But make it practical. Don't show them dashboards, show them a real customer and a real problem.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Practical, real customers, and short. I'll draft something and send it to you to pick holes in before it goes anywhere near a branch.
- Neil CravenGood.
- Daniel OkaforCan I ask about the support side? I can see you've raised a couple of tickets in the last month, nothing urgent, and nothing flagged high priority. Did those get sorted to your satisfaction?
- Neil CravenRemind me what they were. I've not been the one raising them.
- Daniel OkaforBoth were how-to questions, as far as I can tell. One was about how to save a search so a team can reuse it, and the other was about how to share a page with a colleague in another branch. Both were answered within the same day.
- Neil CravenAh, right. Yes, that'll be the credit team. They were chuffed with the answer on the saved searches, I heard that. No complaints from me. If anything I'd rather they ask than sit there stuck.
- Daniel OkaforCompletely agree. A few how-to tickets from a growing group of people is what I'd expect to see. It's the quiet ones that worry me, not the noisy ones.
- Neil CravenAye, same with branches. The one that doesn't ring is the one with the problem.
- Daniel OkaforExactly that. Now, the other thing I wanted to check is the data. Is the morning refresh landing in time for the early starts? I know branches open early and the managers want to see yesterday's orders before the first lorry goes out.
- Neil CravenI've not had anyone say it's late. And they would. Believe me, they would. The depot lads are at their desks at half six some days, and if the numbers were stale I'd hear about it before I'd had my first brew.
- Daniel OkaforGood. Our commitment is that it's complete by seven on working days, and it sounds like that's holding. If anyone does notice it behind, please send them straight to me, don't let it sit.
- Neil CravenWill do.
- Daniel OkaforLet's talk about the users for a moment, because you've got a good number of licences. You're licensed for a hundred and sixty people, so with the numbers rising I want to make sure you can see where you stand against that.
- Neil CravenGo on. I'd assumed we had loads of room.
- Daniel OkaforYou do, at the moment. Active people are well below the hundred and sixty. But if the growth carries on the way it has this quarter, and you roll it out to counter staff, then it's worth us looking at it together in a few months so there are no surprises.
- Neil CravenSo what, I might hit the ceiling?
- Daniel OkaforNot tomorrow, and not by accident. I'd simply rather we plan it than discover it. I'll keep an eye on it and tell you well before it becomes a conversation.
- Neil CravenRight. Because if it's a matter of paying for more, that's not a conversation I'd have without our finance side in the room. I'll say that now. I'm not being awkward, it's just how we do it.
- Daniel OkaforOf course, and that's completely sensible. I wouldn't expect you to talk about commercials without them. For now this is just a heads up, nothing more than that.
- Neil CravenGood. Now, can I ask you something about how it handles the credit side? Because I've had the credit controller on at me.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do.
- Neil CravenWhat she wants is for sales and credit to be looking at the same picture of a customer. At the moment she's got a view of what they owe, and the branch has a view of what they've ordered, and the two don't always agree. Is that something it can sort, or is that a systems problem on our end?
- Daniel OkaforIt's a bit of both, if I'm honest, and I'd rather give you the straight answer. B-Viz brings the data together, so the credit controller and the branch can see the same account in one place, in the same words. What it can't do is tell you which of two source systems is right if they disagree at source.
- Neil CravenFair enough. So it shows us where they don't agree.
- Daniel OkaforYes, that's a good way to put it. It makes the disagreement visible, which is half the battle. Then your people can decide what's right and fix it where the data is held.
- Neil CravenThat's what I'll tell her. She'll like that. She's had enough of people telling her it's all fine when it isn't.
- Daniel OkaforIf it would help, I could sit down with her for half an hour and show her how to ask the sort of question she's after. Customers over their limit with open orders, that sort of thing.
- Neil CravenYes please. I'll ask her when she's free and come back to you. Mind, she's off next week, so it'll be the week after.
- Daniel OkaforNo rush at all. I'll hold some time and you tell me what suits her.
- Neil CravenCheers. Right, let me think what else. We've got the big housebuilders. You know the ones I mean, the accounts that make or break a quarter for us.
- Daniel OkaforI do, you've mentioned how much they matter to you. Is there something specific there?
- Neil CravenAye. What I want is for any one of our branches to be able to ring up and say, this builder has had three deliveries from us this week across four sites, here's what's been promised, here's what's late. Every branch the same. I don't want a builder getting a different story depending on who picks up.
- Daniel OkaforAnd is that happening yet, or is that the aim?
- Neil CravenHalf and half. The key account lot are there. Branches are getting there. I'd say we're about halfway, if I'm honest.
- Daniel OkaforThat's honest, and I appreciate it. It's a good place to be this early. We're not even a year in with you, since the end of February, so being halfway on something that ambitious feels strong to me.
- Neil CravenIt's gone quick. I remember signing it and thinking, God, will anyone use this? And now I can't get them off it.
- Daniel OkaforHa. Well, that's the right problem to have. Can I ask who, among your people, asks the most questions? I like to know it isn't resting on one person.
- Neil CravenThat's a good point. It was me, to start with. Now it's spread. There's a couple of key account managers who live in it, and one lass in credit. But I'd say it's more than a handful now.
- Daniel OkaforThat's reassuring. When the usage is spread across a lot of people, it doesn't suffer when someone's on holiday or moves on. When it's one person, that's when I start to worry.
- Neil CravenSensible. I'll make sure it stays spread. I'll get a couple of the Midlands managers to show the others. Make them the champions, like you said at the start.
- Daniel OkaforThat would be brilliant. If you can give me a short list of names, I'll make sure they've got what they need from us, and I can include them in the training session.
- Neil CravenRight. I'll have that for you by the end of the week.
- Daniel OkaforThank you. Now, one thing I do want to flag, just so it's on your radar and not a surprise. Your contract runs through to 27 Feb 2026, and the renewal date is 28 Feb 2026. That's a good way off, so please don't worry about it today.
- Neil CravenRight. That's next year, February. Yeah, I'd lost track.
- Daniel OkaforIt's my job to keep track, that's what I'm here for. What I'll do is come back to you well before then with a proper look at how it's gone, what the usage shows, what's worked for the branches, and what you'd like more of. That way when we do talk about the renewal, it's grounded in what you've actually got out of it.
- Neil CravenI like that. Show me what it's done, not what it could do. If I can say to our board, here's what we got, that makes my life easier.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly the plan. I'll put together something you can take to your board, in plain language, with real examples from your branches. The housebuilder drop this morning would be a perfect one, actually.
- Neil CravenHa, I'll tell you how it ends. He was a happy man.
- Daniel OkaforEven better. Is there anything on the product that's frustrating your people at the moment? Anything they keep asking for that isn't there?
- Neil CravenNot frustrating exactly. They keep asking if they can get it on their phones when they're out on the yard. I don't know if that's a daft question.
- Daniel OkaforIt's not daft at all, and I wouldn't want to guess at what we can do there, because I don't own the product plan. What I'll do is ask the right people and come back to you by the end of next week with a proper answer rather than a hopeful one.
- Neil CravenThat'll do. I'd rather a no than a maybe.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. You'll get a clear answer either way.
- Neil CravenGood. Anything on your side you want from me?
- Daniel OkaforTwo small things. One is the list of branch champions, which you've covered. The other is, if there are any other teams you think would benefit, anyone who's asked about it or sounds curious, tell me, and I'll have a conversation with them. I don't want to push it where it isn't wanted.
- Neil CravenThere's the purchasing lot. They've been nosing. They've seen what credit can do and they're asking why they can't have the same for suppliers.
- Daniel OkaforInteresting. That's a different side of the business from the trade customers, isn't it? Let me think about that properly, and I'll bring Lewis in, since he looks after the commercial side of your account with us, if it turns out to be more than a quick conversation.
- Neil CravenAye, do that. But as I say, no price talk without our finance side.
- Daniel OkaforAbsolutely understood. This would be just exploring what they'd want, nothing more.
- Neil CravenRight. Let me go through what I've got down. Training session for counter staff, practical. You sit down with credit for half an hour, week after next. I send you branch champions by Friday. You come back on the phone question by the end of next week. And you'll send me something for the board before the winter.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly right. I'd add that I'll keep watching the user numbers against your licences and let you know in good time if it needs a conversation.
- Neil CravenAye, good. Nothing I'm worried about.
- Daniel OkaforNor me, to be honest. It's one of the healthiest accounts I've got. Can I just check there's nothing you wanted to raise that we haven't touched on? I don't want to rush you off.
- Neil CravenNo, I'm all right. Actually, one thing. It's more a thank you than anything. When we started, I'd a few of my lot saying it'd be another system nobody uses. You and your team were patient with us when we were slow. I've not forgotten.
- Daniel OkaforThat's kind of you, Neil, thank you. It's been a pleasure, and you've made it easy by being so clear about what you wanted. How is the new grandchild, by the way? I think you said one was due around now.
- Neil CravenHa, you remember everything. Not yet, a few weeks to go. My daughter's fed up of being asked. Don't you start.
- Daniel OkaforI'll say nothing more. Best of luck to her, though.
- Neil CravenI'll pass it on. Right, I'd better go, I've a branch manager waiting and he'll have been looking at his watch.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Just to close the loop, I'll send a short note this afternoon with everything we agreed, so you've got it in writing. And I'll come back to you on the other points as we said.
- Neil CravenPerfect. Cheers, Daniel. Speak soon.
- Daniel OkaforThank you again for your time, Neil. Best wishes to the branches, and enjoy the rest of your Monday.
- Neil CravenYou too. Bye now.
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