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The firms sends RFQ can not say that time is a factor, as the firms involved in FREE quotes invested more time, I hope.
Even if vendors want to find the status, and send a question about the status those prestigious firms will never send even a word or reply. Is not the way firms from US ad UK do? We from countries like India have been thought that western people are more responsive, but recently that ethics seems to be vanishing among many.
I am sure many offshore development firms have this issue.
They do not have to give the work, and they have the rights to reject the Quotes. But with proper response and not by hiding themselves unethically.
I hope my words are reflecting the outburst of many companies like us.
Benjamin.
Responding SHOULD definitely be a common courtesy in my mind, but time is always an issue. Let me rephrase by saying that QUALITY proposals should ALWAYS get some type of response. You are definitely right in assuming that you deserve some type of response (good/bad or other), when you send out a proposal that was reasonable and in good faith. This is definitely a pet peeve of mine as well as a salesperson when you can't get an honest answer from someone. In many cases, people don't have respect for sales people because they are approached by "cold callers/ solicitors" so often.
This is something important to keep in mind in your sales approach as well. Show that you are willing to go above and beyond, and suck it up and don't hold a grudge when you run across idiots. Don't let there attitude change yours for the next client. The GOOD clients will respect your customer service level, and will eventually gravitate towards you for this reason.
Oh! Welcome to Webmaster World, agbenny!
[edited by: vkaryl at 11:46 pm (utc) on Aug. 18, 2004]
countries like India have been thought that western people are more responsive.
Well, from where have you formed an opinion like this?
People waste their efforts. It was not the case before when they need to type or write, print and send RFQs via post. Internet made all things easier and many cases worst.
As you said we have to be choosy and only experience can teach us to how to be. Sometimes I try giving them an immediate reply asking one question (Just 2-3 lines of reply) before start preparing the complete Quote. If they reply we proceed to go further.
If they do not respond, better we go for a swim or badminton.
This is not a good tool to evaluate the enquiries for all the quotes, But its needed I hope if we are about to spend hours on that to study, research and quote.
Good companies, give a reply, if they do not we can expect the same level of communication even if we do the project for them.
What do you say?
Chndru (Chandru?) : In my early days, we had brought up with an idea that western are timely, effective, and responsive. Its mere openion, No proof. Thats it. It may differ. :-)
Benny
Excellent idea! I think I will adopt this as my "official corporate policy" in response to rudeness -- It will help to lower my blood pressure. :)
Jim
Let me rephrase by saying that QUALITY proposals should ALWAYS get some type of response.
If one sends a RFP out, it seems logical that one would only send it to those from whom one expects a quality propoal.
If that's true, then it might well follow that if one gets inferior proposals back then perhaps one needs to examine the process by which they select who to send a RFP to.
A person submitting a requested proposal deserves at least a brief note saying someone else has been selected and thanking them for taking the time to submit. Even if you are using open RFP systems, a brief rejection note seems like it shouldn't be too much to expect.
Remember, the person you brush off today may be the person giving you the brush off tommorow.
I have even gone so far as to have clients contact me over the phone and begin negotiations / discussions over a period of a week and a half only to have them dissapear one day without any reply.
It really makes me furious because these are people I've spent hours of my time with on the phone or replying back and forth via email. In the 2 most recent cases the client had already agreed on a price and set of final deliverables but vanished after a proposal was sent - just before the contract signing.
People seem to think the impersonal nature of internet / telephone precludes them from common courtesy and respect.
In any case - my new policy is no negotiations / proposals without an in-person meeting first. Unless they are willing to invest some time in meeting with me or my partner, they are not serious...
In any case - my new policy is no negotiations / proposals without an in-person meeting first. Unless they are willing to invest some time in meeting with me or my partner, they are not serious...
I think this is a good policy. The sales process should be one of mutual commitments. Too often, we make all of the commitments -- we meet with the prospect, we spend time consulting him, we write a proposal -- without asking for anything in return.
Asking for some type of reciprocal commitment definitely helps you determine how serious the prospect is. Suppose you asked the client, "If I can deliver all of your requirements for an acceptable price, what will you do?" You've just asked him for some sort of commitment.
Depending on his answer, you can decide what you're willing to do next. If he says, "I'm not sure, I'm just shopping," you can decide if you're still willing to meet with him. At least you'll know going in what to expect. (If he says, "I'll disappear and you'll never hear from me again," well, you know what to do with that one.)
I now take it one step farther and will not write a proposal without the prospect's commitment to do business with me first.
All of the above is exacty why I avoid competitive bid situations. You can't get in front of the client to do any of these things. I'm also finding out that RFP's are often "fixed" -- in other words, one firm may be the preferred vendor, but the buyer is abiding by company policy to get multiple bids and has no intention of buying from any of these other firms.
If the preferred vendor already has an established relationship with the client, he may have "built in" certain requirements for the project that only he can meet. This is a guaranteed way to get your proposal accepted when the buyer's boss is involved in the decision-making process. I know of an IT consultant who has been the "preferred vendor" in many cases.
My complaint is many companies who try to get the good vendor (good means cheaper in many cases) but they never bother about the rest of the vendors who received their RFQ, spent much hrs on researching, valuable time in Quoting. These firms will not even send a note that they received the Quote or they do not even send a reply for some unknown reasons.
I think this problem is universal. I have worked with both local and international clients. What I try to do is after a week, give a gentle reminder to the concerned person whether they took any decision on the proposal that we send and if they have any queries/questions/doubts which they would like us to answer? If they do not reply back then the project is as good as gone.
Also one important thing which might affect communications is that your email might not have reached the potential client. This is a nightmare situation as the other person simply thinks that you did not respond to thier RFQ. So one thing which you might consider (when sending documents or attachments) is to ask for "non hotmail or yahoo" type of email addresses.
Also are you using HTML format to reply to client enquiries? some people have in built filters which might classify HTML emails as SPAM.
Show that you are willing to go above and beyond, and suck it up and don't hold a grudge when you run across idiots. Don't let there attitude change yours for the next client. The GOOD clients will respect your customer service level, and will eventually gravitate towards you for this reason.
Very good advice IMHO.
Sometimes I try giving them an immediate reply asking one question (Just 2-3 lines of reply) before start preparing the complete Quote. If they reply we proceed to go further.
Thats a good idea. I used it myself. But the actual effectiveness of the idea might vary. I use a template type email, which gives information about company, services, the way we operate, billing procedure etc and this has worked for us.
Remember, the person you brush off today may be the person giving you the brush off tommorow.
We have rejected a lot of potential clients, who initially brushed us off. Feels great ;)
Likewise, when I send out a quote per someone's request I don't expect them to reply unless they're giving me the business or have a question/revision. When I send out a quote, I forget about it and move on to do other things. If it's accepted, I get to work. If not, I've probably already forgotten about it anyway.
Digitsv is talking about policy but we are discussing here about the ethics. We are taking about business in a gentle way.
We reply to RFQs, informing we were unable to accept and process their RFQ at present, Thank them and mention them that if they are interested in future they can send RFQs to us, This is a gentle way of handling who felt that we are capable to serve them, and we respect them. I hope this is also an ethical and intelligent approach, that may help them to get back to us. This worked out well with us. We even worked with a client for whom we were unable to accpet one first request.
What others say?
Digitsv is talking about policy but we are discussing here about the ethics. We are taking about business in a gentle way.
I'm not talking about policy ... I'm saying I don't think there is anything wrong with not replying to quotes you don't accept. I'm not into that touchy-feely liberal crap, I have a lot more to do than waste time trying to make sure that the guys who didn't win the bid don't "feel bad". If they're little feelings are going to be hurt because they didn't get a bid, then they should have given me a better offer :)
It's not unethical or rude not to respond to the people who didn't get the bid. I don't do it, and I don't expect other people to do it if I'm the one bidding on a project.
There is no concrete answer to the rude/not rude question.
Never heard another word from them.
The next time I got a big RFP - I spent about 45 minutes on it. Never heard back.
The best advice I ever read (here) was never make a proposal unless you are talking to the person that cuts the check.
Personally I just don't take website design clients anymore - and I have adsense on my website design site and it "pays the hosting" and a bit more. To make up for the income deficit due to not having new clients I make affiliate sites and currently they make what I would have made if I took on 2 new small clients a month.
When someone actually wends their way to my contact info, I forward their requests to my friend - who's just starting out and a bit hungrier than I am.
I have a lot more to do than waste time trying to make sure that the guys who didn't win the bid don't "feel bad".
I mean, how hard can it be to create a standard rejection email template. Once you have this template, it will take you one minute to send out multiple rejection letters.
I'm not into that touchy-feely liberal crap
if this person feels like you didn't behave professionally by showing them the smallest amount of courtesy, you may end up with a bad reputation
Maybe ... but see the thing is, I don't care :) What are they going to do? "That S.O.B. - he didn't thank me for sending a bid!". Yeah, that's gonna hurt me in the long run. Lol.
Anti-touchy-feely conservatives have feelings too! At least I think so? :)
Maybe ... but see the thing is, I don't care :) What are they going to do?
In all honesty, I really don't care what my customers think about me either; however, I do care what they think about my business and what they tell others about my business. Out of concern for my business, I have to show common courtesy and respect to everyone I deal with.
In sum, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you".
When you look at it from both sides, you have to ask if it really matters. If you have a request for a project, people are going to bid on it whether you thanked them last time or not if they want the work. And likewise if you're the one looking for work, when a company puts out a second request for a new project, are you really going to not submit your bid just because they didn't acknowledge your last one? If your answer is yes to either, then you've got a lot to learn about business.
Being petty never helped anyone. If you're the type of person who would complain about not getting a "thank you for your unaccepted bid" letter, then I would think that you would have a bad reputation long before the company you're complaining about would.
[NOTE: When I say "you" I don't mean you Yowza, I'm speaking figuratively - not trying to insult :)]
When some one wants to ask for bids, It is known that how hard to choose a list of firms from your initial filtration process. This is a great trouble to many, even for experienced, if they want to get the bids from new set of companies. So keeping a set of firms and sending them bids and rejection and encouraging letters, will keep them up with you.
Also you if you inform the reason for the rejection, and how they can improve their will help your relationship and keep them ready for the next bid, and to the Business. For Bids which are very unrealistic you can just send a Thanks mail and stop it, as they have wasted time for you. This is Business! But you think its Waste.
By not replying them (sending a 10 Emails from a “Sorry Template”) , you are going to waste hours and hours of your research in finding them, as you are shutting the door closed.
>> But when I do I usually send a request to multiple sources and go with the one
You found multiple "resources” and replying them is waste, as they didn't do a good quote. Part of the mistake is with you, as you didn't find the right guys. Also was that finding them easier to you? Is yes, I am sure you are not good at finding the right people. If you spent much time in finding them, then you have wasted already much of your efforts permanently, as you are not going to reply, with one or more quotes.
>> And likewise if you're the one looking for work, when a company puts out a second request for a new project, are you really going to not submit your bid just because they didn't acknowledge your last one? If your answer is yes to either, then you've got a lot to learn about business.
Yes they will learn, But in your second Quote, or some people learn slowly, in three or four quotes after wasting much of their time by Quoting you.
I am sure people they will learn that you are a Time passer, and Not serious in business and business ethics.
We have such guys comes with RFQs just to fool around, we never bother them, and we don’t want their business.
There is a way to do business and a matured way to do business. Is considering anything waste lying where?
DigitalV,
Its not about "Thanking" or "aww", the business premise behind response is of a larger concern that goes into the core of projecting. Working mostly in corporations around 500-1000 techheavy/strategy-consultants, its been vital that all projects have a finite and known state at any point from lead generation through the entire flow to completion and service contracts. As a manager, you want to have your pipeline relatively true to fact, or your ability to respond becomes sluggish. As a salesperson, you want to know if or when, because if you do not, your manager will kick your arse out on the streets in short order. Been there, done it myself, not much fun - the fun of hiring new people almost makes up for that though.
Thats the everlasting dilemma that every salesperson goes out on a limb on, with every new client - is it justifiable to spend time on this customer? In the companies I've been in, I've seen tech quote time be paid for by sales-bonuses - which means that the salespersons pay for the quotes directly out of their salary. Its raw maybe, but it results in nicely darwinistic results - you're either gold or you're not. Granted I've had the luxury of working almost exlusively in a regional market-leader position for the better part of a decade, so my point of view may very well not apply to your operation - there's a long distance between having three possible suppliers at all for your project, vs several hundred. You can better afford to take a leak on people if there's plenty of places you can turn to.
Having designed plenty of the systems that the companies I've worked for have been using to govern the day-to-day aspect of operations as well as economics, it is very interesting what you can find of data when you pull up your query tools and start snooping around in your old flames. Such as that there's a high probability for clients that miss meetings early on in the critical phases to not go through with the purchase - or for that matter, clients failing to respond within a reasonable timeframe. Or that clients only showing with certain groups of people are going to run into certain issues along the way of the project.
One easy way to get around this particular issue is to state when the quotes must be delivered by, and the date & time that your pick will be done - and the simple fact that only the winner will be contacted within a stated timeframe. That said and done, no need for further contact.
It means that the quote can be immediately removed from the pipeline. You can't attribute full pipeline value to a known procrastinator - you have no fix on when the project is lost and that means it can be months or days away. So, people that follow "best practice" gets higher priority - Consequently you cant book the projected pipeline hours, which means that if the project goes through, its going to be difficult to fit the hours in between other projects. Scrambling to meet a demand lowers profitability for the supplier, and lowers the attractiveness of the client. Its just a tiny bit of the reasons that prompt and concise communication is of value to many people, whether its a tiny 20k$ project or something with some meat on in the 500k$+ class.
Which, granted you could theoretically care not a damn thing about - except you have no idea if the supplier is going to muscle its way into your specific neck of the wood, 5 years down the line. I've been part to cleansing companies we've engulfed several times (and been merged 3 times) - and something as simple as a lack of response spells lack of dilligence to me, aka /boot, or assigment to the drain (being assigments that are bound to let "unfireable" people fire themselves, eventually - or as a proving/testing ground that have no exposure to the public if you wish to look at it that way). The issue with people is that they leave their place of work and join other corporations - where, especially in terms of salespeople, the systems in place will soak up the new salespersons entire "little black book" that contains the experiences of that salesperson, positive, negative, either way. It is, after all, business - nothing personal.
