RFQ Follow-Up for Manufacturers: How to Turn More Quotes Into Orders

RFQ follow-up is the work a supplier does between sending a quote and receiving the purchase order, while the quote moves through the buyer’s engineering review, bid comparison and budget approval. Tie each follow-up to one of those steps, log every RFQ and date your price. Senitix CRM keeps the quote and the next task on one deal.

This guide is for sales engineers, inside sales reps and sales managers at US job shops, contract manufacturers and industrial distributors. It covers a follow-up cadence, a quote log you can copy, price validity when input costs move, and where the CRM stops and your ERP takes over.

Why do manufacturing quotes stall after they are sent?

Because the person who sent the RFQ is rarely the only one who decides. Your quote goes to a buyer or purchasing agent, then waits at several desks you cannot see:

• Purchasing levels the bids, putting your quote beside the others on price, lead time, tooling, freight terms and payment terms.
• Engineering and quality review what you changed or excluded: tolerances, material alternates, finishes, inspection and first-article requirements.
• Finance or the plant manager approves the spend, sometimes only at a monthly review or when the program is released.
• Procurement issues the purchase order from its own ERP, often well after the technical decision.

A follow-up that asks the buyer “any update?” reaches the one person who is also waiting. Silence usually means the quote is parked at a step you have not mapped, not that the answer is no. The fix is to learn those steps on the day you send the quote, and to aim each follow-up at one of them.

How do you follow up on an RFQ?

Use a cadence tied to the buyer’s process rather than the calendar. Each step below has a trigger and a question worth asking.

1. Day 0: send and confirm. Send the quote with a cover note that lists your exceptions in plain words and the valid-until date. Ask two questions: when do they expect to decide, and who else reviews the quote? Those answers set every later date.
2. Days 2–3: the engineering check. Reach the engineer, not only the buyer: “Do our exceptions on the finish and the tolerance on hole B work, or should our engineer call yours?” A technical objection found now costs a revision; found after award, it costs the order.
3. The day after bids are due for comparison. Ask where your quote stands on lead time, tooling and freight terms, not only price. If you are off on terms, fix that with a revision instead of cutting price blind.
4. Before the approval meeting. If the spend needs sign-off at a monthly review or a program release, send one short note ahead of it with what the approver needs: lead time from PO, tooling ownership and the valid-until date.
5. A week before the quote expires. Remind the buyer of the date and the reason behind it, such as a material cost or a production slot, and offer a re-quote if the program has slipped.
6. At expiry. Issue a new revision at current costs instead of extending the old one by email, so the record shows which price was open on which day.
7. At the decision. If you win, check the PO against the quote before you acknowledge it: quote revision, drawing revision, quantities, price, freight terms and payment terms. If you lose, ask for the reason and whether you stay on the bid list.

The rep owns every step; the applications engineer joins step 2; the sales manager reviews every quote expiring in the next two weeks each Monday. For quote follow-up outside manufacturing, where no engineering review sits in the middle, see our quote follow-up plan.

What should a quote log track for every RFQ?

A quote log is one row per RFQ with the fields that drive the next follow-up. Keep it on the record, not in a spreadsheet only one estimator can open. These fields earn their place:

How should you handle price validity when input costs move?

A quote is a promise priced on the day you wrote it. Before the PO arrives, a supplier’s price list can change, a metal price can move, or a new tariff can raise the landed cost of imported steel, aluminum or a purchased component. Tariffs are the sharpest case, because they can take effect on short notice, while the buyer’s PO still carries your old number.

Four tools help, in rising order of what they ask of the buyer:

1. A short, dated validity. Match the window to how fast your inputs move: a quote heavy in commodity metals deserves a shorter one than a quote that is mostly machining time.
2. A stated cost basis. Name the date of the material and component prices behind the quote, so any revision has a reason the buyer can check.
3. An escalation clause for long programs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ guide to price adjustment notes that businesses often use price adjustment (escalation) clauses in long-term sales and purchase contracts, and that its Producer Price Indexes are widely recognized as useful in them. Federal contracting uses the same idea: FAR 16.203-1 describes adjustments based on established prices, on actual labor or material costs, or on cost indexes named in the contract.
4. Duty language. Say whether the price includes duties and what happens if a new tariff applies to your inputs before the PO. Have counsel write that sentence; it is a contract term, not a sales phrase.

When a cost does move, the quote log earns its keep. Filter open quotes by cost basis date and material, and you know within minutes which buyers need a revised quote. Call them before a PO arrives at the old price, not after.

How do you calculate quote win rate on RFQs?

Quote win rate = RFQs won ÷ RFQs decided. Count RFQs, not revisions, and count a quote that expired without an answer as decided. Leave out no-bids and quotes still open.

Example (hypothetical): a 60-person contract machine shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, received 140 RFQs in the first quarter. It declined to quote 22 and quoted 118. By June 30 it had an outcome on 90: 27 won, 51 lost and 12 expired with no reply, with 28 still open. Quote win rate = 27 ÷ 90 = 30%. Leave the expired quotes out and the rate reads 27 ÷ 78, about 35%: a flattering number that hides a follow-up gap.

Then read the loss reasons. If lead time beats price as the top reason, the fix is in scheduling, not discounting.

What are the most common RFQ follow-up mistakes?

• Following up with the buyer only. The engineer with a question about your exceptions never hears from you.
• Extending an expired quote by email. Nobody can later tell which price was valid on the PO date.
• Counting every revision as a new quote. Volume looks higher and win rate looks lower than they are.
• Acknowledging a PO without checking it. A PO against rev A, when rev C is the accepted quote, ships the wrong part or the wrong price.

Where does the CRM stop and the ERP begin?

A CRM holds the commercial side of an RFQ: the request, the people, every quote revision, the follow-ups and the outcome. Your ERP or MRP holds the production side: bills of materials, routings, standard costs, inventory, capacity and production orders. Many shops also build costs in an estimating tool or a spreadsheet.

Keep each system authoritative for its own data. The estimate builds the cost, the CRM carries the price the buyer saw and the follow-up, and the ERP takes over at the purchase order. The handoff between the last two is the step to check twice.

How do you run RFQ follow-up in Senitix CRM?

In Senitix CRM, each RFQ becomes a deal on the buyer’s account, with drawings and spec sheets attached to the record. Every plan includes a product catalog and price books: 50 products and 1 price book on Free, more on paid plans. A quote is built from that catalog with line items, discounts and totals, sent as a PDF from your quote template, and kept as a numbered version for every revision; the rep marks each one accepted or rejected once the buyer responds. Each step of the cadence is a task on the deal with a due date and a reminder.

The accepted quote continues into an order or an invoice without retyping its line items, and a discounted quote can go through an approval with named approvers before it is sent. See products and quotes in Senitix CRM and how manufacturers set it up on our manufacturing and wholesale page.

The boundaries are the ones above: Senitix CRM does not replace your ERP or MRP, and it holds no bills of materials, inventory or production schedule. Quotes are priced line by line, and volume discount schedules are not available yet. To see a technical request carried through scope, samples, quotation and dispatch on one record, read the Gurbetçiler case study.

Compare plans on the Senitix CRM pricing page, or talk to our sales team about your RFQ process.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an RFQ, an RFP and an RFI?

An RFI (request for information) asks suppliers about their capabilities before the buyer has settled on a requirement. An RFP (request for proposal) asks for a proposed approach and price when the buyer has defined the problem but not the solution. An RFQ (request for quotation) asks for a price on a defined requirement: a drawing, a spec and quantities. RFQ follow-up is therefore about price, terms and exceptions, not about the solution.

Should you follow up on an RFQ you lost?

Yes, once, with two questions: what decided it, and will you stay on the bid list for the next one? Many buyers will not share a competitor’s price, but most will say whether lead time, terms, price or a technical point decided it. Record the reason on the quote. Over a quarter, those reasons show whether you are losing on cost, capacity or fit.

When should a manufacturer decline to quote?

Decline, or no-bid, when the part does not fit your equipment, certifications or minimum volumes, when the deadline does not allow a sound estimate, or when the buyer only needs a third number to benchmark an incumbent. Answer quickly and politely so you stay on the bid list. Log each no-bid with its reason; the pattern shows which RFQs your team should stop spending estimating time on.

Who should own RFQ follow-up, sales or estimating?

Sales, with estimating on call. Estimating builds the cost and the price; the follow-up is a series of conversations with the buyer’s purchasing, engineering and finance people, and that is sales work. Estimating rejoins when an exception or a revision needs a new cost. Whoever owns it, one named person per RFQ owns the next date.