RFP Questions to Ask Customer
Questions for a vendor to ask the issuing organization during an RFP, covering budget status, scoring weights, who actually decides, whether an incumbent is in the race, data readiness, and contract terms. Use them to decide whether to bid and how.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you start this project now rather than a year ago?
Why ask it
The trigger tells you whether a forcing event exists or whether someone is exploring. A project with no trigger, no expiring contract, no failed audit, no new regulation, is the kind that gets shelved after you have spent forty hours writing.
Who wrote the requirements, and did any vendor help shape them?
Why ask it
If the specification reads like a competitor's feature list, it probably is one, and you may be there to satisfy a three-bid rule. Ask who consulted on the document and be prepared to hear a systems integrator's name.
What are you using today, and what specifically is failing about it?
Why ask it
The named failure is worth more than general dissatisfaction. A month-end close that takes nine days is something you can price against. "It's dated" usually means one influential person dislikes it, and that person needs to be addressed in your bid.
How many vendors are you inviting, and is the incumbent one of them?
Why ask it
The count gives you your rough odds and tells you whether the effort is justified. An incumbent in the race is not fatal, but it changes the whole proposal: you need to give the buyer a reason to change, not just a reason to like you.
Who sits on the evaluation panel, by role, and who signs the contract?
Why ask it
Roles matter more than names, because a panel weighted toward finance scores a different document than one weighted toward operations. Ask about the signature separately, since the person signing is frequently not on the panel at all.
How is the scoring weighted between price, capability, and references?
Why ask it
Weightings are often available simply for asking, particularly in public procurement. Where price carries most of the weight, an elegant technical response will not rescue a high number, and you should know that before you write it.
Is the budget approved, and has it actually been released?
Why ask it
Approved and released are different states. Money that exists in a plan but has not been allocated to a cost center is the most common reason a decision slides into next year after you have already won it.
What is your path from proposal to signature, and which internal approvals sit along it?
Why ask it
Mapping the approval chain gives you a realistic signature date rather than the one printed in the RFP. Each additional committee adds weeks, and knowing they exist lets you time follow-up instead of guessing.
What happens to this project if the decision slips past your fiscal year end?
Why ask it
Fiscal boundaries kill more deals than competitors do. If the funding expires, you have found the real deadline, and you can propose a phased start that lets the budget be committed in time.
Which requirements are genuinely mandatory, and which would you trade if the rest were strong?
Why ask it
RFP documents mark nearly everything as required. Asking what they would trade exposes the two or three items that will actually decide the award, and often shows you where a competitor is weak.
What did your last vendor in this area do that you would not want repeated?
Why ask it
Complaints about the previous vendor are the unwritten evaluation criteria. If you hear that the senior people vanished after the pitch, name your actual team in the proposal and commit in writing to who stays on.
Who on your side would own this day to day after go-live, and how much of their time is allocated?
Why ask it
Projects fail on customer capacity more often than on vendor capability. If the named owner has no time set aside, say so in the proposal and price the gap rather than discovering it in month two.
What data would we need from you, in what condition, and who would prepare it?
Why ask it
Data preparation is where timelines break, and buyers consistently overestimate the state of their own records. A vague answer here is a reason to propose a paid discovery phase rather than a fixed migration date.
Which of your teams is not in favor of this project, and why?
Why ask it
There is almost always an internal objector, and knowing who it is tells you what your proposal has to answer. A buyer who says everyone is aligned has usually not asked the people who will have to use the thing.
What does your security and legal review involve, and how long did it take on your last two purchases?
Why ask it
These reviews are the invisible half of the timeline. Asking about the last two gives you an actual number instead of an estimate, and it is a question most buyers can answer from memory.
Are your standard contract terms negotiable, and which clauses are not?
Why ask it
Raising this before you write saves a month later. If their paper is fixed and includes something your business cannot accept, that is a decision to make now rather than after you have won and staffed the work.
What would cause you to cancel this procurement altogether?
Why ask it
Buyers can usually name the condition, a leadership change, an acquisition, a bad quarter, and they rarely put it in the document. This is the single most useful question for deciding how much to invest in the bid.
How will you judge whether this worked, twelve months after go-live?
Why ask it
The measure they name tells you what to promise and what to keep out of the proposal. If they cannot name one, propose two or three yourself, because a project nobody can evaluate later gets judged on price alone.
If our proposal came second, what would the winner have that we did not?
Why ask it
Asked before submission this prompts the buyer to describe their ideal bid, which is more useful than asking about preferences directly. Asked after a loss it becomes a debrief, and people answer it more openly than they answer either question straight.
May we submit clarifying questions in writing, and will the answers go to all bidders?
Why ask it
In formal procurements the answer is usually yes and the responses get circulated, which should change what you choose to ask. Knowing the rule keeps you from wasting the channel or handing competitors your line of thinking.
Qualifying an RFP Before You Write It
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you commit to bidding
- Establish whether the procurement has a sponsor, a released budget, and a deadline. Missing any one of the three is the usual signature of a bid that never gets awarded to anyone.
- Find out who wrote the specification. Requirements built around a competitor's product are visible in the vocabulary, and declining politely costs less than three weeks of losing.
- Confirm whether you will get access to the buyer before submission. A process with no contact permitted favors the incumbent and whoever employs the largest proposal team.
- Read the contract terms first, not last. Finding an uncapped liability clause after you win is worse than never having bid.
- Cost the bid in hours and set it against your realistic odds. Most firms bid on too many things and write a worse proposal for every one of them.
Getting real answers from a procurement contact
Use the written channel deliberately
Formal procurements route questions through one address and publish the answers to every bidder. Send the questions whose answers help you more than they help your competitors, and save the rest for a live meeting if one is offered.
Ask about the last project, not this one
Buyers are guarded about current plans and surprisingly open about history. How the previous vendor was chosen, and what went wrong afterward, tells you most of what the scoring sheet will not.
Offer a range to unlock a number
Someone who will not state a budget will often confirm whether the figure is above or below a number you propose. The same technique works for timelines, headcount, and transaction volumes.
Ask who else has to be convinced
This reads as helpful rather than nosy, and the answer tells you which section of your proposal each reader will actually open. Write those sections for those readers rather than for the panel as a whole.
Answers that should change what you submit
- No named owner on the customer side after go-live: describe and price the support you will supply instead of assuming they will find someone.
- Data in unknown condition: propose a short discovery phase with its own price rather than a migration date you cannot defend.
- Price weighted heavily in the scoring: move optional scope into clearly separated add-ons so the base figure can compete.
- An incumbent in the race: build the argument around the cost of staying put, because a feature comparison rarely moves a comfortable buyer.
- A hard fiscal deadline: propose a phased start so the money can be committed before the year closes.
After the decision
- Ask for a debrief whether you won or lost, and ask for category scores if the process publishes them.
- Ask what the winning bid did differently on the two criteria where you scored worst. Evaluators will often tell you if the question is that specific.
- If you won, ask which parts of your proposal the panel doubted. Those doubts become the first three months of scrutiny on the project.
- Record who the real decision-maker turned out to be and compare it with who you were told. That gap is the most valuable thing a lost bid leaves behind.