Marlcliff Security Services / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Marlcliff Security Services · 15 Apr 2026 15:30
Sharon Tilley, Head of Customer Operations, reported a strong B-Viz story and nearly doubled daily usage. She needs a one-page case for her boss before the Growth renewal and wants no price surprises.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Sharon Tilley, Head of Customer Operations, reported a strong B-Viz story and nearly doubled daily usage. She needs a one-page case for her boss before the Growth renewal and wants no price surprises.
What happened: Check-in on 15 Apr 2026 with Sharon Tilley alone. She described an account manager using B-Viz to brief a client on a night alarm before the site manager arrived.
Customer view: Sharon is positive but must make the case to her boss, who asks what £40k a year buys. The evidence does not show who that boss is.
Commercial: The Growth term ends on 4 Jun 2026, with renewal on 5 Jun 2026. Daniel Okafor could not discuss terms, and Sharon asked to hear any price change early.
Watch: Forty licensed users leave headroom, and Sharon wants to use more of what is paid for. The Welsh account managers and mobile patrol supervisors are the next wave, and IT may review the control room software next year.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Adoption and renewal case
Importance
renewal
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 send a one-page, no-client-names value summary for Sharon's boss, as a first draft by the end of April.
- Daniel to send a short how-to on finding duplicate clients by the end of that week and offer to build the timeline dashboard with the account manager.
- Daniel to set up a half-hour session for the Welsh account managers once Sharon confirms an early-afternoon day, and tell the commercial side the renewal is coming.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Sharon must win budget approval from her boss, who questions what the Growth fee buys, and the evidence does not show who that is.
- A price change is likely at renewal and Sharon wants no surprise, yet Daniel could not discuss terms on this call.
- IT may look at the control room software next year, which could break a connector if BG-Demo is not told early.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daily usage has roughly doubled on the quarter before and questions are spread across several people, which gives a strong value story for the renewal.
- Forty licensed users leave headroom: Welsh account managers, mobile patrol supervisors and shift supervisors are the next wave.
- A client timeline dashboard built with an account manager would deepen use of the Growth dashboards builder.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Sharon, can you hear me all right?
Sharon TilleyI can, yes. Afternoon, Daniel. Sorry, I'm in the little meeting room because the main office is full of people eating biscuits.- Daniel OkaforHa, that sounds like a good reason to hide. Thank you for making the time, I know it's been a busy week for you. It's just the two of us today, is that right? Nobody else from your side joining?
- Sharon TilleyJust me. I did ask a couple of the account managers but they're out on client visits. Which is rather the point, really.
- Daniel OkaforRight, we'll come back to that. How was your week, then?
- Sharon TilleyWell, the incident of the week. We had a night-time alarm activation at one of our client's yards, out past the edge of Bristol. Mobile patrol attended, all fine, nothing taken, but the client's site manager was going to turn up at seven and find a locked gate and a patrol report he hadn't seen.
- Daniel OkaforMm. And had he been told?
- Sharon TilleyThat's the whole thing. What did the client hear from us? Because the old way, the control room would log it, the report would go to the account manager, and the account manager would find it on their list sometime mid-morning. This time the account manager had it on her phone before the site manager had parked the car.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear. And that was through B-Viz?
- Sharon TilleyShe asked it for the site, it pulled up the alarm log, the patrol notes and the last few calls from that client in one go. She sent a note before eight. The client emailed to say thank you, which, you know, doesn't happen often in this business. Usually you only hear from them when something's gone wrong.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly the sort of thing I like hearing, honestly. Just to close the loop on something from last time, you mentioned the account managers were a bit hesitant at first. Is that still the case?
- Sharon TilleyLess so. A few of them still open the old spreadsheets out of habit, but the ones who've tried it properly won't go back. One of them told me she'd stopped printing the site list for her Monday meeting.
- Daniel OkaforGood. Well, let me share my screen and we can look at how it's been going from our side. Can you see that all right? It's the usage page for Marlcliff.
- Sharon TilleyYes, I can see it. A bit small. Hang on, I'll lean in.
- Daniel OkaforI'll make it bigger. There. So the headline for me is the active users. Over the last thirty days you're averaging nearly nine people active on any given day, and if we compare that with the quarter before, it's roughly double. So more than twice the people coming in regularly.
- Sharon TilleyDouble. Right. That tallies with what I'm seeing, the account managers are using it, and credit control have started too.
- Daniel OkaforYes, I wanted to ask about that. How is credit control finding it?
- Sharon TilleyThey like it, actually. They had a habit of ringing a client about a late invoice without knowing the client had complained about a missed patrol the week before. Not a great conversation. Now they look at the site, the incidents and the invoices together before they pick up the phone.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good use of it. It's the joining up that you bought it for, isn't it? Account managers, the control room and credit control all looking at the same picture.
- Sharon TilleyThat was the pitch I made internally, yes. And I'll be honest, I was nervous about it at the start. It's my name on it.
- Daniel OkaforI remember. Well, it looks like it's paying off. The other thing I wanted to flag is the questions. People are asking a good many more questions than they were, and it's spread across several people rather than one or two. That's the bit I watch most closely, because it tells me it's becoming part of the day rather than a novelty.
- Sharon TilleyWho's asking the most? Is it me? I suspect it's me.
- Daniel OkaforYou're up there, but not by as much as you'd think. A couple of your account managers are close behind you. And someone in the control room has started asking about shift patterns against incidents, which I found interesting.
- Sharon TilleyAh, that'll be one of the shift supervisors. Which site, which shift, that's his constant refrain. He's been wanting to see if we're short at particular times. Honestly he'd have asked it in the first week if I'd told him he could.
- Daniel OkaforWell, he's found his way there on his own. How is the team finding it overall, would you say? Not just the heavy users, the quieter ones too.
- Sharon TilleyMixed, but in a healthy way. The quiet ones say it's fine, they just don't have a reason to open it every day. The control room people, I think, want it faster. Not that it's slow. They just want it to be there at three in the morning when something is happening, and the answer to be right.
- Daniel OkaforRight, and that's a fair thing to want. The nightly refresh is done before seven each business morning, so the picture you see at the start of the day is current to the night before. If they need something live, that's a different conversation, and I'd rather be straight with you about that than promise something I don't own.
- Sharon TilleyNo, that's fine. They know the difference. I'd rather they knew it was last night's picture than assumed it was live. The incident I mentioned, the alarm log was from the control room's own system anyway, so the patrol had been logged properly.
- Daniel OkaforGood. And on the support side, you'll have seen it's been very quiet. No tickets in the last thirty days, nothing high priority.
- Sharon TilleyThat's me being good. Or the team being good. I did wonder whether to raise something about a client name that looked odd in one search, but it turned out the client had two entries in our own system. Our fault, not yours.
- Daniel OkaforThat happens, and it's often the first thing a tool like this shows people, the duplicates they didn't know they had. If it's useful, I can show you how to ask it for entries that look like the same client. It might save someone a tidy-up job.
- Sharon TilleyPlease do. Let's get the account manager on it, actually. She'd enjoy that, she's the one who spotted it.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. I'll come back to you by the end of the week with a short note on how to do it, and she can try it herself. Would you like me to send it to you or direct to her?
- Sharon TilleySend it to me, and I'll pass it on. Otherwise it ends up in her inbox under forty other things and I never hear the end of it.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Now, one more thing from the numbers, and it's a good one for you. You're licensed for forty users, and at the moment you're nowhere near that on a daily basis. So there's plenty of headroom if you want to bring more people in. No extra cost, no change to anything.
- Sharon TilleyForty. Yes. I did wonder about that, whether we'd overbought. When we signed I thought we might be rolling out faster than we have.
- Daniel OkaforI wouldn't call it overbought. You've got a plan to grow into it, and a lot of customers do it in stages. The thing I'd say is that the people who'd get the most out of it next are probably the ones you haven't reached yet. Who would that be, in your view?
- Sharon TilleyThe rest of the account managers, for a start. We have some on the Welsh side who've been slower, partly because they're out on the road more. And the mobile patrol supervisors. They see the sites more than anyone, but they only ever get information by radio or phone.
- Daniel OkaforThat sounds like a sensible next wave. Would it help if I ran a short session for the Welsh team? Half an hour, nothing heavy, just walking through how to look up a site before a visit.
- Sharon TilleyYes, I think that would help. They'd listen to you more than to me. No offence.
- Daniel OkaforNone taken. I'll find a slot, and you tell me which day suits them. Mornings, or after their first visit?
- Sharon TilleyEarly afternoon, I'd say. Most of them are back at their desks after lunch, catching up on reports. I'll check with the team leader and come back to you.
- Daniel OkaforPerfect. Thank you. Now, while I've got you, I wanted to touch on the contract. You came on board on 5 June 2025, and the current term ends on 4 June 2026, with the renewal on 5 June 2026. So it's a couple of months away, and I'd rather we spoke about it properly now than rush it at the last minute.
- Sharon TilleyYes. I've had it in my diary. I've been quietly dreading the conversation, if I'm honest, not because I'm unhappy, the opposite. I just know I have to make the case internally.
- Daniel OkaforThat's completely reasonable. What does making the case look like on your side? Who needs to be convinced?
- Sharon TilleyIt's my boss, mostly. I never commit budget without running it past him. He's supportive, but he likes to see what we're getting for the money. At the moment it's thirty-nine thousand six hundred a year, and he asks me every so often what that buys.
- Daniel OkaforYes, that's the contracted figure, £39,600 a year for Growth, and it matches what we've invoiced, so nothing odd there. And you're up to date on payments, which I'm grateful for.
- Sharon TilleyFinance would be mortified if we weren't. They pay on the dot. They'd pay a day early if they could.
- Daniel OkaforHa. Well, I'm not going to complain. So what would help your boss, do you think? If I put something together for him, what would he want to see?
- Sharon TilleyNot a deck full of graphs. He'd want a page. What's changed since we started, who uses it, and one or two stories he can repeat. The alarm one from this week would be good. The credit control one, too.
- Daniel OkaforI think I can do that. Usage doubling, the spread of people asking questions, and a couple of the examples you've given me today, in your words where I can. Would you be happy for me to quote you?
- Sharon TilleyWithin reason. Run it past me first. I don't want a client's name or a site in there. Nothing that identifies anyone.
- Daniel OkaforOf course, no client names, no sites. I'd show you the draft before it goes anywhere. And I should say, I can't talk about any change to the terms today, because that's with our commercial side, but I'll make sure whoever picks it up knows how well things are going.
- Sharon TilleyFine. I just don't want a surprise. If there's a change in the price I'd rather hear it from you early than discover it in a contract.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fair, and I'll make sure you do. I won't guess at anything I don't own, but I'll come back to you as soon as I know the shape of it. Is there anything else on your side that might affect the renewal? Any reorganisation, anything changing in how you run customer operations?
- Sharon TilleyNothing that I know of. We're busy, we're taking on a couple of new clients, but that's growth rather than change. If anything, the more clients we have, the more I need this thing.
- Daniel OkaforGood to hear. And your connectors, anything changing there? Any systems being swapped over or upgraded? I only ask because a change in a source system is the main thing that can quietly stop a feed.
- Sharon TilleyNot at the moment. The IT team did mention they might look at the control room software next year, but that's not this year, and I'd tell you well before.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do, even if it's just a rumour. If I know early, I can make sure nothing drops out when it happens. It's much easier to plan for than to fix afterwards.
- Sharon TilleyWill do. I'll put it in my notes so I don't forget.
- Daniel OkaforThank you. Let me ask something a bit different. Is there anything you'd like B-Viz to do that it doesn't do today? Anything the team has grumbled about?
- Sharon TilleyGrumbled, no. Wished for, yes. I'd love to see, per client, a kind of timeline. Incidents, calls, complaints, invoices, in date order, so an account manager can see the story of a client at a glance before a review meeting.
- Daniel OkaforMm. Right, you can get quite close to that today by asking for it as a chronological summary for a client. Let me try it now, if you give me a client you're comfortable with. Not a real name, perhaps, if it's sensitive. Just pick one that's already in the system and I'll look at it with you.
- Sharon TilleyI'll pick the yard from this week. Hold on, I want to make sure the screen isn't showing anything it shouldn't. You're sharing yours, it's fine, mine's not shared. Go on.
- Daniel OkaforOkay, I'm typing it in now. Give me a chronological summary of this client's incidents, calls and invoices over the last few months. And, there. It's thinking.
- Sharon TilleyOh, that's quick. And that's the alarm from this week at the top. And a complaint from, goodness, a while ago, about a late patrol. I'd forgotten that.
- Daniel OkaforThat's the kind of thing it's good at. It's not a polished dashboard, it's a written summary, but it's built from the actual records. If you want something more permanent that people can pin, that's what the dashboards builder is for, and you've got it with Growth.
- Sharon TilleyHave we built any? Dashboards, I mean. I can't remember.
- Daniel OkaforA few have been built by your team, which is a good sign, it means someone is investing time in it. But I think the timeline you describe would be a good candidate for a proper one. If you like, I can sit down with whoever on your team is keenest and we can build it together.
- Sharon TilleyThat'd be one of the account managers. The one with the duplicates. She's quick at this sort of thing.
- Daniel OkaforThen she's our person. I'll fold that into the note I'm sending you. So that's two things for me: the short how-to on finding duplicate clients, and an offer to build the timeline view with her.
- Sharon TilleyAnd the session for the Welsh team. Don't forget that one.
- Daniel OkaforThree things, then. And the one-page summary for your boss. Four. I'll write them down properly.
- Sharon TilleyYou're very organised. I'm taking notes in a notebook that I'll lose by Friday.
- Daniel OkaforI'll send you a recap after the call, so you don't have to rely on the notebook. Now, can I ask you something about the control room? You said earlier they'd like it faster. Is that a view across the whole team, or one or two people?
- Sharon TilleyOne or two, if I'm honest. The ones who've been there longest. They're used to their own system, which answers instantly, and I think they compare. It's not a fair comparison, because theirs does one thing and this does everything, but you can't tell them that at four in the morning.
- Daniel OkaforNo, I can see that. Perhaps the answer is to be clear about when to use which. The control room system for what's happening right now, and B-Viz for what's the background, who is this client, what's happened here before. Does that sound right?
- Sharon TilleyYes. That's the line I've been trying to draw. Now versus context. I may borrow that.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do. And if it helps I can include a line like that in the training session, for the control room as well as the Welsh account managers.
- Sharon TilleyGood idea. Shift supervisors especially. Honestly, if they used it properly we'd stop having the same argument about who knew what and when.
- Daniel OkaforRight. Shall we talk about timing? You mentioned your boss. When would be sensible for me to get the summary to you, so you have it well before the renewal?
- Sharon TilleyGive me a good few weeks. If I have it by early May, I can sit down with him and still leave plenty of time. I don't want to be doing this the week before.
- Daniel OkaforEarly May is fine, and I'd actually like to give it to you sooner than that, so you can tell me if I've got anything wrong. Would the end of April work for a first draft?
- Sharon TilleyThat would be lovely. Then I can tweak it and we're not up against it.
- Daniel OkaforThen I'll come back to you by the end of April with a draft. And in the meantime I'll make sure our commercial side knows the renewal is on the horizon and that you'd like to hear about any change early.
- Sharon TilleyGood. Thank you. I don't mean to be difficult about the money. It's just that if I'm going to say yes, I want to say it with a straight face.
- Daniel OkaforYou're not being difficult at all. It's exactly how I'd want a customer to approach it. And from what I'm seeing, you'll have plenty to say.
- Sharon TilleyI hope so. Can I ask you something? Do other customers in our line use it the way we do? Not names, just in general. I'm curious whether we're ahead or behind.
- Daniel OkaforI can't share anything about other customers specifically, but what I can say is that the pattern you've described, account managers adopting it first, then a second team like credit control, then the operational side, is a very healthy one. I'd say you're in a good place.
- Sharon TilleyThat's reassuring. I do worry we're slow.
- Daniel OkaforNot at all. Doubling in a quarter is not slow.
- Sharon TilleyNo. When you put it like that. Right.
- Daniel OkaforIs there anything else you want to raise while we're here? Anything about the account, about your own role, about how we work with you?
- Sharon TilleyOnly that you've been good to deal with. I say that because I've worked with suppliers who vanish after the contract's signed. You haven't. The fact that you remembered my worry about the account managers, that counts for a lot.
- Daniel OkaforThat's kind of you, thank you. It matters to me. The people behind the logo are what make this work, so I'd always rather ask than assume.
- Sharon TilleyWell, keep asking. Now, I should probably go in a minute. I've got a call with one of the clients about that alarm, a courtesy follow-up.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Let me just run through what we've agreed, so we're both clear. I'll send you a short note on finding duplicate clients by the end of the week. I'll set up a half-hour session for the Welsh account managers, and you'll tell me which early afternoon suits. I'll offer your account manager a session to build the client timeline as a dashboard. And I'll have a one-page summary with you by the end of April, no client names, for you to share with your boss.
- Sharon TilleyThat's it. And I'll check with the team leader about the day for the Welsh session, and give you a heads-up if IT make any noise about the control room software.
- Daniel OkaforPerfect. And you'll let me know if the account manager would like a hand with the dashboard sooner.
- Sharon TilleyI'll tell her tomorrow. She'll be thrilled. She likes being asked.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. Is there anything on the renewal you'd like me to be thinking about before we speak again? Any worry I haven't addressed?
- Sharon TilleyOnly the one I've said. No surprises on the price, and a page my boss will read. Beyond that I'm happy. If anything I'd like to talk about whether we use more of what we're paying for.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good conversation to have, and the numbers say there's room. Let's do that properly when I send the summary. We can look at which teams to bring in next and what it would take.
- Sharon TilleySounds good. Honestly, Daniel, this has been a better call than I expected. I thought it would be a tick-box exercise.
- Daniel OkaforI'd hope not. A check-in should be a conversation, otherwise there's no point. Thank you for being so open about it, it helps me do my job.
- Sharon TilleyRight, I'll let you go. Actually, I'm the one running off. Sorry.
- Daniel OkaforNot at all. You get to that client call. Do pass on my regards to the account manager with the duplicates. She sounds like someone worth keeping.
- Sharon TilleyShe is. I'll tell her. Thanks for this, Daniel.
- Daniel OkaforThank you, Sharon. I'll send that recap within the hour, and the how-to by the end of the week. Speak soon.
- Sharon TilleySpeak soon. Thanks, bye.
- Daniel OkaforBye for now.
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