A customer keeps requesting quotes and never buys. What now?

The replies in the thread were split. Some said to walk away. Others pointed out that the buyer is one of several people in purchasing, that the RFQ may only exist to collect the three quotes a policy requires, or that the quote is being used to negotiate with a competitor. All of those can be true at once. Here is how we would answer the question.

1. Find out why you lose, before you quote again

Ask the buyer directly what happened on the last few quotes: price, lead time, brand, or a requirement you missed. Several people in the thread suggested the same thing. If the answer is “you were a few cents off,” you are in the race. If there is no answer at all, you are probably the comparison quote.

2. Qualify the RFQ, not just the customer

• Is it a real purchase? Ask for the quantity, the need-by date and whether the project is funded.
• Who decides? The person sending the RFQ is often not the one choosing the supplier.
• Is the incumbent fixed? If a policy requires three bids, ask whether a current supplier already has the order.

3. Track win rate per customer

The distributor in the thread mentioned losing more than 50 quotes to this customer. Keep a simple count of quotes sent and won per account. A customer with a 2% win rate and a large spend may still be worth it. One with a 2% win rate and small orders is not worth your best rep’s afternoon.

4. Make each quote cheaper to produce

This is the part you control completely. Some of your quotes will always be comparison quotes, so the question is how much each one costs you. One reply suggested a standard price list for this customer’s usual items. For the rest, most of the time goes into reading the RFQ, retyping the lines and looking up each part number in your catalog, not into the pricing decision.

That is the work RFQ Inbox takes off your team. It extracts every line of an incoming RFQ from the PDF, spreadsheet or email, matches each one to your own catalog with the evidence shown, and flags what it can’t match. Your rep reviews, prices and exports. If a quote takes minutes instead of an hour, being the comparison bid stops hurting. See how it works.

5. Keep the door open, on your terms

You don’t have to drop the account. Quote the items you are strongest on, ask for feedback every time, and spend your real effort on the RFQs that come with a date, a quantity and an answer when you ask why you lost.

More on answering requests well: how to respond to RFQs, RFPs and RFIs.

We summarized a public Reddit thread in our own words and link to it above. We are not affiliated with Reddit or with anyone in the thread.