Staying on the buyer's radar between RFQs: what is worth a message

You quoted the buyer's last new part, lost it on price, and have heard nothing since. When the next drawing lands on the buyer's desk, it goes to the vendors that come to mind first. So between RFQs, send news, not greetings. A new machine, a process brought in-house, an approval the quality team asks for, open hours on a named machine, or proof that you closed the gap you lost on. Each update carries one fact, one photo and one line on what it means for the buyer's parts. If nothing at your plant has changed, send nothing.

The shortlist is written in the quiet months

The RFQ for a new part goes to a short list, drawn up before the drawing is released. When a new model or a localisation drive starts, the buyer opens the vendor file and tries to remember who is good at what. A vendor who last sent a festival greeting is a name in that file. A vendor who wrote to say it now does induction hardening in-house is a capability. The second one is likelier to get the drawing.

Brochures and greetings give the buyer nothing to act on. Our page for automotive component makers covers the RFQ itself, and this post covers the months around it. If you already supply the account and want it mapped person by person, repeat orders from OEMs for sheet metal parts sets out that register.

Five kinds of news, and the test for each

Before you write, put the news through its test. If it fails, do not send it.

1. A machine or process that changes what you can quote. In-house heat treatment, a larger press, a second CMM. Test: does it change a part the buyer purchases, or one you quoted and lost?
2. An approval or certificate the quality team lists. Test: did the supplier quality engineer ask about it, or does it appear in the vendor criteria?
3. Open capacity on a named machine. Test: can you name the machine, the shifts and the date it frees up?
4. A new part family, made for someone else, that resembles the buyer's. Test: can you describe it without naming that customer or showing the drawing?
5. The gap you lost on, now closed. Test: is it actually closed, in price or lead time? Hoping does not count.

Not news: the company brochure, a new website, a factory pooja on LinkedIn, and "any requirement?". One more rule sits over all five. Ask whether the buyer would forward the note to the development engineer. If not, rewrite it or hold it.

The update note, written to be forwarded

Keep it under eighty words, with the buyer's part number in it and no request for a meeting. Send it to the buyer and copy the development engineer only if that engineer was on the RFQ.

Subject: Induction hardening now in-house at [your unit]: shafts up to [length]

Dear Mr / Ms [name],

We have installed induction hardening at our [town] plant. When we quoted your part [number], hardening was done outside, which added a transport step and [number] days. That step is gone.

A photo and the machine's specification are attached. If a hardened shaft is coming up in your next programme, we would like to quote it.

[Name], [role], [phone]

Claim only what the buyer can check: a photo, a certificate or a part number. If the buyer visits and finds the machine not yet commissioned, that vendor loses credibility fast. Post the same photo on LinkedIn afterwards if you like. The email to the named buyer comes first.

Open capacity: the message that can backfire

"We have spare capacity" can read as "we are losing work", and a buyer may take it as a reason to ask for a lower price. Write it as an offer about one machine instead: which press or line, how many shifts, from what date, for what size of part.

A buyer may keep a mental list of vendors who could take a part at short notice when the current one is late. A specific capacity note puts you on that list. But do not send it while you are negotiating a price with the same buyer, because it weakens your position, and do not send it to a buyer whose current vendor is a partner or customer of yours.

For example: a shaft shop in Oragadam

Imagine a gear and shaft machining shop in Oragadam, near Chennai, that quoted a transmission tier-one twice and lost both times. The details are illustrative. After each loss, the buyer went onto the festival greeting list and received the company brochure. Nothing came back, and nobody at the shop had asked why it lost.

The owner finally called the buyer and asked for five minutes about the second quote. The answer was plain. Hardening was outsourced, so the lead time was longer and the price higher than a rival who hardened in-house. Months later the shop installed induction hardening and sent a note like the one above, with a photo, to the buyer and to the engineer named on the RFQ. On the next variant of the same shaft, the shop was on the RFQ list. Price will still decide part of that one.

The owner also sent a second note, about spare hours on a gear shaper, to a different buyer at another tier-1. It got no reply, and no third note followed. The one note that did land is the reason the shop is quoting again.

When to stay quiet

Some silences are better than any note.

• Nothing has changed at your plant since the last RFQ. A message now is noise, and the lack of news is itself worth a look.
• You are inside a live RFQ with this buyer. Follow that quote up instead, as set out in why buyers go quiet after your quotation.
• Your last delivery went wrong. The first thing the buyer should receive is the root cause and what you changed.
• Two notes have gone without a reply. Stop and wait for a real occasion, such as the buyer's vendor meet or a new programme.

List the RFQs you lost, and what has changed since

List every buyer who sent you an RFQ you lost or never heard back on. Next to each name, write one thing at your plant that has changed since. Where you cannot, you have nothing to send that buyer yet. Keeping the accounts with real news in view is account management and key account growth. If you want the list built with you, tell us what you need.