Marlcliff Security Services / BG-Demo – Escalation
Callcompleted
Marlcliff Security Services · 10 Oct 2025 15:30
Sharon Tilley escalated after a client learned of an alarm event before the account manager could see it in B-Viz. Four high priority tickets, a likely loader fault, a named owner and a 17:00 update. Renewal confidence now depends on the fix.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Sharon Tilley escalated after a client learned of an alarm event before the account manager could see it in B-Viz. Four high priority tickets, a likely loader fault, a named owner and a 17:00 update. Renewal confidence now depends on the fix.
What happened: A night alarm event and its keyholder call were missing from B-Viz on a client page, well after the morning refresh should have finished. Jake Fennell found the alarm and incident loads reporting success while bringing in little or nothing.
Customer view: Sharon says it was a control room category change that she signed off, and nobody told her it would touch B-Viz. She backs the product, but the board will ask why a tool she recommended let a client down.
Commercial: Growth contract, with Sharon putting it at around £40k a year. Daniel Okafor deliberately kept commercials off the call, and Sharon said budget is not hers to commit.
Watch: Cause is unconfirmed, and response times on the four tickets were not yet checked. Thinner call summaries may be a separate problem. Freshness is not credited on Growth, only availability.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Missing data escalation
Importance
complaint
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Dominic Hale sends a written update by 17:00 on 10 Oct 2025, including response times on the four tickets.
- Jake Fennell compares the old and new category lists, confirms the gap window and cause, then tests a re-run early the following week.
- Daniel Okafor drafts a half-page plain note for Sharon's board and confirms the two alert names and the check design.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Alarm and incident data is incomplete for recent weeks, and the control room no longer trusts B-Viz for recent incidents.
- Sharon must justify the tool to her board, so a slow or partial fix puts the Growth renewal under pressure.
- A load job that reports success while loading nothing raises no alert, so the same fault could recur unseen.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A nightly check that alerts BG-Demo and two named Marlcliff people could turn the incident into a trust gain.
- User numbers have more than doubled since the summer, with control room, credit control and account managers all using it.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforAfternoon, Sharon. Thank you for making the time on a Friday, I know it's a busy one for you. I can see Dominic has joined from our side, and Jake is just coming in now. Can you hear us all right?
Sharon TilleyYes, loud and clear. Afternoon, all. Sorry, I'm in the control room office, so if someone knocks on the glass I'll have to turn round.
Jake FennellHi, everyone. Sorry, was stuck on mute. Can you hear me? Right, good.- Daniel OkaforLovely. So, just to close the loop on why we're here. Sharon, you wrote to me on Wednesday, and Dominic has been looking at the tickets since then. I thought it was better to talk it through properly than keep trading emails. Would you like to start, or shall Dominic?
- Sharon TilleyI'll start, because I'd rather you heard it from me. Incident of the week: a client rang us on Tuesday asking about an alarm event at one of their sites, and the account manager looked at B-Viz and it wasn't there. Not the event, not the follow-up call. So the client heard from us that we'd get back to them. Which is exactly what I bought this to stop.
Dominic HaleThanks, Sharon. That's useful, and I'm sorry that happened. Can I say what's confirmed and what isn't, before we go on?- Sharon TilleyPlease. Go on.
- Dominic HaleConfirmed: there are four tickets from your team in the last thirty days, and all four are marked high priority. I've read every one. I've taken ownership of this from today, so you have one name on it, and that's mine. Not confirmed: the single cause. I don't want to guess in front of you, and Jake is here to tell us what he's actually found rather than what we suspect.
- Sharon TilleyFine. I'd rather have a straight answer in an hour than a clever one now. But four is a lot, Dominic. We don't raise tickets for fun. My people get on with things.
- Dominic HaleUnderstood, and I'd read it the same way. Four in a month from a team that doesn't complain tells me something is genuinely not right.
- Daniel OkaforIf I can add one thing, Sharon. Part of what I've noticed is that the number of people using B-Viz at Marlcliff has gone up a great deal since the summer. More than doubled, from what I can see. So I wonder if more people are noticing gaps that were always there, or whether something has changed. How is the team finding it, day to day?
- Sharon TilleyHonestly? Both things are true. When we started, it was me and a couple of account managers poking around. Now the control room use it on shift, credit control are in it for the invoices, and the account managers open it before every client call. So when it lets them down, a lot more people are let down at once.
- Daniel OkaforThat makes sense. And it's rather what we hoped for, though not like this.
- Sharon TilleyNo. Not like this.
- Dominic HaleSharon, can I ask you to walk me through the Tuesday one, as the account manager saw it? Which site, which shift, if you have it. I'll write it up and it goes on the incident record.
- Sharon TilleyI won't name the client on a recording, but it was a night alarm event at a retail unit, picked up by the monitoring team overnight, and the keyholder was called. All of that was logged on our side. By the afternoon the account manager opened the client page in B-Viz to prepare for the call, and the event wasn't on the timeline, and the keyholder call wasn't either. She thought she'd got the wrong client. She hadn't.
- Jake FennellCan I ask a question on that? When she looked, roughly what time in the afternoon? Was it before or after the morning refresh would have finished?
- Sharon TilleyAfter. Well after. It was gone two. So it wasn't just that she looked too early.
- Jake FennellRight. That matters, thank you. Because the nightly refresh should be done by seven in the morning on a business day, so by the afternoon that event should have been sitting there.
- Sharon TilleyWell, it wasn't. And what did the client hear from us? That we'd call back. I hate that.
- Daniel OkaforI'm sorry, Sharon. I mean that. I know how much weight you put on the client hearing it from you first.
- Sharon TilleyIt's the whole point of the thing. Right. Go on, Jake, what have you got?
- Jake FennellSo, I'll be careful to say what I know. I've been through the load logs for your environment this week. The call and email sources are loading as normal. The alarm event data and the incident log are the two that look wrong. They've been loading, in the sense that the jobs run and report success, but the amount coming through is lower than I'd expect, and on a couple of nights it looks like nothing new came in at all.
- Sharon TilleySo it says success and it's brought in nothing.
- Jake FennellYes, for some runs. Which is not great, and I'm not going to dress it up. A job that says it worked when it didn't is worse than one that fails loudly, because nobody gets alerted.
- Dominic HaleAnd that is consistent with what's in the tickets. The first one was reported as missing incidents, the next as data looking old, and the later two came in as urgent because of the client contact. I'd grouped them as freshness and sync, but I'd not realised until Jake's note this morning that they might be one problem.
- Sharon TilleyMight be.
- Dominic HaleMight be. I'm not going to say it is until Jake can show it.
- Sharon TilleyFair. So what changed? Because it worked. For months it worked. Something moved.
- Jake FennellThat's the question I'd like to ask you, actually. Has anything changed on your side with the monitoring system or the incident log? An upgrade, a new field, a change to how the control room records things? Sometimes a small change in a source quietly breaks the way we read it.
- Sharon TilleyHm. Let me think. There was a change to how the control room categorise events, a few weeks ago. We tidied up the types, merged some of them. I signed that off, so I can't blame anyone else. But nobody told me it would touch B-Viz.
- Jake FennellThat could well be it. If a category we filter on was renamed or merged, some records could fall outside what we pick up, and the job would still call itself successful. I can't say yet. I'd want to compare the old and new category lists against what we load.
- Daniel OkaforAnd that's on us as much as on you, Sharon. When a customer changes a system we should have a way of hearing about it, or of noticing. I'll come back to you on how we do that better. I don't want you to sign off a tidy-up and then find out on a Tuesday.
- Sharon TilleyAppreciated. But let's not drift into process yet. What happens to the stuff that's missing? Is it gone?
- Jake FennellI don't believe it's gone. The source still has it. What I expect is that once the loader is corrected we can re-run for the gap and pull it all in. I'd want to test that on a small window first, so I don't make things worse. But no, I don't think you've lost anything.
- Sharon TilleyThat is the first good thing I've heard all week.
- Dominic HaleHere's what we know, then, so we're all level. One: data from the alarm and incident sources is incomplete for a stretch of recent weeks. Two: the likely area is how those records are being selected. Three: the source data is believed to be intact. Anything beyond that is still to be proved.
- Sharon TilleyAnd the weeks. How many weeks are we talking about?
- Jake FennellI'd rather not give you a number I'd have to take back. From the logs it looks like it began around when you changed the categories, but I need to line up the dates properly. I'll have an exact window for you, not a rough one.
- Sharon TilleyOkay. Tell me when.
- Jake FennellI can have the window and a first view of the cause by the end of today. The fix and the re-run I'd want to do carefully, so I'd say early next week, but Dominic owns the timing, so I'll let him say.
- Dominic HaleThanks, Jake. So, Sharon, I'll commit to this. Next update from me by 17:00 today, in writing, to you and to Daniel. It will say what Jake has found, whether the category change is confirmed, and what the plan is for the fix. If the answer is that we don't know yet, it will say that.
- Sharon TilleyFive o'clock. Good. I'll hold you to that, nicely.
- Dominic HalePlease do.
- Sharon TilleyMeanwhile I've got a control room that doesn't trust it. What do I tell them for the weekend? Because weekends are when this gets used for real.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a fair thing to ask. Dominic, Jake, what would you suggest she says?
- Dominic HaleI'd be plain with them. For recent incidents, treat your own logging system as the record, and treat B-Viz as unreliable for anything from the last few weeks until we confirm the fix. For older history it should be fine, but Jake can check that.
- Jake FennellYes, older history looks fine from what I've seen. I can confirm by the end of the day as well, so you can tell them which period to trust.
- Sharon TilleyRight. That I can do. It's not what I wanted to say to them, but it's honest. I'd rather they check the source than rely on something wrong.
- Daniel OkaforAbsolutely. And Sharon, I want to say something about the bigger picture, if that's all right, because I don't want this to feel like we're only fixing a loader and moving on.
- Sharon TilleyGo on.
- Daniel OkaforYou've got forty licensed users on Growth, and the way your teams have taken to it is better than most. I don't want a bad few weeks to cost you the confidence you've built up. So alongside the fix I'd like to look at whether there's a check we can put in place so that a job reporting success but loading nothing gets caught and flagged, to us and to you.
- Sharon TilleyThat would help. A lot. Because honestly, the thing that annoys me isn't that it broke. Things break. It's that I found out from a client.
- Dominic HaleThat's the part I take most seriously. The ticket times are one thing, and I'll go back and look at how fast we responded on each of the four, because I want to be sure that was right. But a customer learning about a fault from their own client is a failure of its own.
- Sharon TilleyDid you respond in time? On the tickets?
- Dominic HaleI believe the first responses were inside what Growth entitles you to, but I've not checked every timestamp, and I won't say yes until I have. It will be in the 17:00 note, either way.
- Sharon TilleyGood. I like that you didn't just say yes.
- Daniel OkaforThere's one other thing I'd like to raise, and you can tell me it's the wrong moment. The contract. I know it's in your mind with the term coming up next year, and I'd rather talk about it openly than have it sit in the background.
- Sharon TilleyIt's not the wrong moment, it's exactly the moment. I'll be straight. I believe in what this does for us. I put my name to it. But if I have to explain to our board why a tool I recommended let a client down, I want to be able to say we fixed it quickly and properly. That's what I'm watching.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fair, and it's what I'd want in your position. I'm not going to talk commercials on a call about an incident. I'd like us to do this well first.
- Sharon TilleyGood. And just so you know, I can't talk budget on a call like this anyway. That's not mine to commit. The contract is around thirty-nine thousand six hundred pounds a year, and I'm not about to open that conversation while I'm cross.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Thirty-nine thousand six hundred, on Growth, yes. We'll keep that for another day, and I'll come back to you when things are steady.
- Jake FennellSharon, can I ask one more technical thing while I have you? On the categories. Do you have the old and new list in a document somewhere? Even a spreadsheet would do.
- Sharon TilleyI think the control room supervisor has it. Let me message him now. Hang on. I'll do it while you talk.
- Daniel OkaforWhile Sharon does that, Dominic, can I check how you'd like to handle the four tickets? Merge them, or keep them separate?
- Dominic HaleI'd link them under one incident so there's a single owner and a single thread, and keep each one open until Sharon's team confirm their own issue is resolved. I don't want one to close just because a fix went live elsewhere.
- Sharon TilleyYes. Do that. I want each of my people to be told when theirs is fixed, not just me.
- Dominic HaleNoted. Each reporter gets a personal update.
- Sharon TilleyOkay, I've messaged him. He's on shift, so he may be a few minutes. Carry on.
- Jake FennellThanks. While we wait, one thing worth saying. Once I see the category list I should know quickly. If it's a naming mismatch it's a small change on our side. If it's something else, such as a field that's no longer populated, it's a bit bigger, and I'll tell you honestly.
- Sharon TilleyAnd if it's bigger, does that change when I get my data back?
- Jake FennellIt might push the fix by a day or two. It wouldn't stop the re-run. I'd tell you by 17:00 which of the two it looks like.
- Sharon TilleyThat's all I ask. Tell me which, and tell me early.
- Daniel OkaforSharon, while we have a moment, can I ask about your people? You said credit control and the control room are using it more. Is there anyone in particular who has been most affected, someone I should speak to directly?
- Sharon TilleyThe account managers, mostly, and the supervisor on the control room. Credit control less so, because invoices come through a different path and they've had no trouble. But the account managers are the ones in front of clients. I'll let them know you might call. Let's get the account manager who took Tuesday's call on it, she's sharp and she'll tell you exactly what she saw.
- Daniel OkaforI'd be glad to, and I'll be gentle. I'd like to hear it from her.
- Sharon TilleyShe'll be fine. She's not shy.
- Sharon TilleyRight, he's come back. The supervisor says the old list and the new one are in a shared sheet, and he's sent it to me. I'll forward it to Jake as soon as this call ends. Is Jake's address the one on the ticket?
- Jake FennellSend it to the ticket thread and Dominic can pass it on, then it's all in one place and nobody's waiting on my inbox.
- Dominic HaleAgreed. I'll make sure it lands with Jake the moment it arrives.
- Sharon TilleyDone, then. Now, I want to talk about the next time. If this happens again, and I hope it doesn't, how do I find out before a client does?
- Daniel OkaforThat's the right question. Dominic, would you like to take the monitoring side, and I can talk about how we stay in touch?
- Dominic HaleYes. What I'd propose is this. Jake builds a check that compares what arrives each night with what we'd expect from your source, and if it's well below, it raises an alert to us and to a named person at Marlcliff, which I'd suggest is you or someone you choose. That's a proposal, not a promise on timing, and Jake will tell me if it's harder than it sounds.
- Jake FennellIt's not impossible. The tricky part is deciding what normal looks like, because weekends and quiet nights vary. But I think a sensible rule is achievable, and we can tune it as we learn. I'd want your supervisor's view of what a quiet night looks like.
- Sharon TilleyHe'd love that. He has opinions on everything.
- Jake FennellPerfect. Opinions are what I need.
- Sharon TilleyWho gets the alert on my side? Let me think. Me, and the supervisor. Not the whole team. I don't want fifty people panicking over a blip.
- Daniel OkaforTwo names is sensible. I'll confirm them in writing afterwards so we don't rely on memory.
- Sharon TilleyGood. Now I'll ask the awkward one. Is anyone else seeing this? Are other customers hit by the same thing?
- Dominic HaleI can't speak for other customers on this call, and I wouldn't want to guess. What I can say is that if it turns out to be a general weakness in how we handle a source changing, it will be fixed for everyone, and you'll hear that from us directly.
- Sharon TilleyThat's a careful answer.
- Dominic HaleIt's the honest one.
- Sharon TilleyOkay. I respect that more than a flat no.
- Daniel OkaforSharon, one more thing about the people side. You mentioned the board. Would it help if I put together a short note for you, plain language, what happened, what we're doing, what's changed? Something you can use, not a slide deck.
- Sharon TilleyYes. Short. Half a page. And no jargon, they'll switch off.
- Daniel OkaforHalf a page, no jargon. I'll come back to you with a draft once we know the cause, so it's true when you read it out.
- Sharon TilleyPerfect. Thanks, Daniel.
- Jake FennellCan I raise one small thing before we close the technical bit? When the re-run happens, people may see a burst of older events appear on client timelines. It's expected, but it could look odd. Worth warning the account managers.
- Sharon TilleyGood catch. I'll tell them. Better they expect it than panic.
- Dominic HaleI'll include that in the note too, so there's a written heads-up they can point to.
- Sharon TilleyRight. What else? I feel like I'm forgetting something.
- Daniel OkaforPossibly the follow-up call for the client from Tuesday. Did the account manager manage to call them back with the right information?
- Sharon TilleyYes. That's the thing. She went to the control room log, got it from the source, and called them back within the hour. So the client got their answer. But she had to go round the houses, and she said to me, why have we got this tool, then?
- Daniel OkaforAnd that's a fair challenge from her. I'd like to be the one to answer it, once the fix is in. I'd like her to see it working.
- Sharon TilleyThen fix it, and she will.
- Jake FennellUnderstood. I'll start on the category comparison as soon as the sheet arrives.
- Dominic HaleLet me read back the actions so we've all got the same list. One: Sharon sends the old and new category sheet to the ticket thread, today. Two: Jake compares it against what we load and confirms the window and likely cause, today. Three: I send the written update by 17:00 today, including our response times on the four tickets. Four: Jake tests a re-run on a small window, then the full gap, early next week, and I'll confirm the day once the cause is known.
- Daniel OkaforFive: I speak to the account manager from Tuesday, and I draft the half-page note for Sharon once the cause is confirmed. Six: we agree the two names for the alerts and the design of the nightly check.
- Sharon TilleyAnd seven, I tell my people to trust the source for recent incidents until you say otherwise.
- Dominic HaleYes. And I'll tell you when that can stop.
- Sharon TilleyGood. That's clear. I feel better than I did at the start, I'll admit. Not fixed, but better. Because I know who has it.
- Dominic HaleThat's the point. You have my name, and you'll have my update by five.
- Sharon TilleyWhich site, which shift, what did the client hear from us. I'm going to keep asking those questions, you know. It's how I run the control room.
- Daniel OkaforI wouldn't want you to stop. It's what makes the product better for the rest of our customers, too.
- Sharon TilleyFlattery. But accepted.
- Jake FennellSharon, is there anything else about the data that looks off to your team, that they haven't raised because they assumed it was the same problem? Better I know now.
- Sharon TilleyOne of the account managers said some of the client call summaries looked thinner than usual. I assumed it was the same thing. I haven't raised it.
- Jake FennellThank you, that's helpful. It could be unrelated, or it could be the same cause upstream. I'll check the call source alongside, and I'll say in the update if it's separate.
- Sharon TilleyFine. Ask her to put it on the ticket, and I'll chase.
- Dominic HalePlease do. I'll add it to the linked incident so it isn't lost.
- Daniel OkaforIs there anything you'd like from us that we haven't covered, Sharon? Anything at all, even if it sounds small.
- Sharon TilleyOnly that nobody makes me find out from a client again. That's it. That's the whole ask.
- Daniel OkaforThen that's what we'll aim at. I'll come back to you by Monday on the alert design, and sooner if there's news.
- Sharon TilleyMonday works. Right, I'd better go and tell the control room what we've agreed. Anything else from anyone?
- Jake FennellNothing from me. Sorry again for the trouble this caused, and thanks for being so clear about what you saw. It makes my job easier.
- Dominic HaleNothing more here. Next update by 17:00, as I said. Thanks, Sharon.
- Sharon TilleyThanks, all. Speak later, Dominic. Daniel, Monday.
- Daniel OkaforMonday it is. Thank you for your time, and for being so direct. Best wishes to the team on shift this weekend.
- Sharon TilleyCheers. Bye for now.
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