Why are my RFQs not turning into orders?

RFQs often fail to turn into orders for three reasons: the shop quotes work it was never likely to win, quotes too slowly, or never follows up. One machine shop that screened out poor-fit RFQs converted 40 to 50 percent of good-fit requests against 4 percent for the rest, and cut quoting work by 20 percent with no drop in orders.

At a glance

• Fit: in the Modern Machine Shop example (2019), good-fit RFQs converted at 40 to 50 percent; a poor-fit class converted at 4 percent.
• Customer: in The Fabricator’s example quote database (2019), one customer won at 12.6 percent against a 22 percent shop average.
• Counting: an unworked quote logged as a lost bid makes your hit rate look worse than it is and points you at price instead of follow-up.

Why RFQs stall: the four causes, in the order to test them

RFQs stall for four testable reasons, and the cheapest test is to sort your last 50 to 100 quotes by fit, customer, days-to-quote and follow-up status before touching price.

The causes below are ordered by how cheaply you can test them from data you already hold, not by severity.

FAQ: RFQs that do not turn into orders

What is a good RFQ hit rate for a job shop?

There is no audited industry benchmark. Paperless Parts, a quoting software vendor, writes that job shops win about 30% of the jobs they quote, and the example shop in The Fabricator’s 2019 quote-database article averaged 22%. Your own average, split by customer, is the number that matters.

Should I stop quoting a customer with a low hit rate?

Not straight away. Ask the buyer why you are losing and check whether they send you other work, such as time-and-materials jobs, that the quote log misses. If the rate stays under half your average after that, cut the effort.

How fast should I return a quote?

Fast enough that the buyer is still deciding. Modern Machine Shop reports that one shop which stopped quoting poor-fit RFQs could respond to the good ones more quickly, and its owner believes that helps it win orders. Measure your own days-to-quote against your won and lost quotes.

How many times should I follow up on a quote?

Follow up until the buyer gives you a decision, a reason or a new date. A quote with no recorded outcome is unworked, not lost, so keep chasing it on a set schedule and log what the buyer said each time.

Should I quote RFQs that come through a broker or middleman?

Often not, if you cannot win on price. The Modern Machine Shop example filters out middlemen by asking whether the source is ready to issue the order, checking whether the company makes a product that needs the part, and asking for the target price.

Rules of thumb for turning RFQs into orders

RFQ conversion rules of thumb come down to four checks, each taken from the shop examples cited on this page or from the worked example further down.

• If an RFQ fails your fit screen, expect a hit rate closer to the 4 percent poor-fit figure than the 40 to 50 percent good-fit figure in the Modern Machine Shop example.
• If a customer’s hit rate is under half your shop average (customer J at 8.8 against 22 percent in The Fabricator’s example), ask the buyer why before you quote them again.
• If you cannot meet the delivery date, do not quote: the Fabricator shop that adopted this rule reports 98 percent on-time delivery.
• If 30 of every 100 quotes have no recorded outcome, your decided hit rate is about 40 percent higher than the one you report (31 against 22 percent in the worked example below).

The RFQ Triage Framework: score every RFQ before you quote it

The RFQ Triage Framework scores each RFQ from 0 to 8 on fit, buyer type, turnaround and follow-up readiness, and the total decides quote first, quote normally or decline.

The framework is a LeadsNow decision rule built from the screens the shops in the sources use. The fit thresholds in the first row are the ones Advance CNC Machining told Modern Machine Shop it uses (at least 100 pieces, or 50 for a very complex part, and at least $40 a piece, in US dollars); replace them with the line your own won-quote history draws.

Act on the total: 7 or 8, quote it first and fastest; 4 to 6, quote in normal order; 3 or less, decline, or ask the buyer for a target price and a decision date before spending estimator time. Asking for the target price is one of the middleman tests in the Modern Machine Shop article.

Per-customer hit rate: when to stop quoting a buyer

A per-customer hit rate shows which buyers are worth quoting, and in The Fabricator’s example quote database five customers sat under the shop’s 22 percent average.

The figures below are from that article’s example quote database (Vincent Bozzone, 2019). The “what to do” column is our decision rule, not the article’s, and it assumes the customer sends you no other work outside the quote log.

The stop rule we suggest: once a customer has had at least 20 quotes from you, put them on review if their hit rate is under half your shop average, and stop quoting after a review conversation that does not change it. Twenty is an assumption; fit it to your RFQ volume. CADDi’s RFQ management guide makes the same call: decline RFQs from customers where your historical win rate is very low and who seem to include you only for competitive bidding, after first asking whether they would limit bids to work that fits you.

The counting mistake: unworked quotes logged as lost bids

Logging unworked quotes as lost bids is a counting error: a quote nobody chased is not lost, and mixing the two makes follow-up look like a price problem.

Here is an illustrative worked example, with assumed numbers rather than benchmarks. A shop sends 100 quotes in a quarter. It wins 22, hears “no” with a reason on 48, and has 30 with no outcome recorded because nobody called back.

The fix: give every quote one of four statuses (won, lost with a reason, no decision yet, unworked). If unworked quotes are your biggest bucket, the problem is follow-up, not price, and the playbook on quotes sent where nobody replies applies. For older quotes, see how to reactivate dead quotes.

Turnaround and follow-up: the two causes you control this week

Quote turnaround and follow-up are the two RFQ causes a shop can change within a week, because neither needs new equipment, new customers or a price cut.

On turnaround, track days from RFQ received to quote sent, and compare won and lost quotes. Paperless Parts suggests testing whether returning quotes within 24 hours lifts your win rate, and suggests calling a buyer who has opened a quote several times without accepting it.

On follow-up, set a rule your team can keep: a first check-in two business days after the quote, a second at the buyer’s stated decision date, and a final call asking for a decision or a reason. Those intervals are our suggestion, not a measured optimum. For a wider view on response speed in trade businesses, see speed to lead for trade businesses.

What fixing RFQ conversion costs if you do it yourself

Fixing RFQ conversion yourself costs mostly time: a few hours to build the quote log, minutes per RFQ to score it, and a weekly block for follow-up calls.

The Fabricator article notes most of the data is already in your main system; a spreadsheet with customer, dollars quoted, dollars won and outcome status is enough to start. The hardest part to staff is the follow-up itself: someone who calls every open quote on schedule and records the answer. If that is your gap, a service that runs follow-up and booking, such as LeadsNow’s database reactivation for quoted-but-never-closed jobs, is one option. For custom manufacturers, see lead generation for custom trailer manufacturers and tracking which leads become booked jobs.

Sources

• Modern Machine Shop, “Not Every RFQ Needs Your Attention” (March 2019): 40 to 50% vs 4% conversion, fit screens, 20% less RFQ processing with no drop in orders.
• The Fabricator, “3 rules for job shops to follow to avoid unprofitable work” (Vincent Bozzone, October 2019): per-customer hit rates, 22% average, 37% no-quotes for delivery, 98% on-time.
• Paperless Parts, “The 7 Fatal Mistakes of Quoting: #1” (June 2022): job shops win about 30% of jobs quoted (vendor claim).
• Paperless Parts, “The Data That Every Job Shop Needs to Win More Business” (June 2020): win rate by customer, 24-hour turnaround test, quote-view follow-up.
• CADDi, “Effective RFQ Management for Job Shops”: declining low-win-rate customers, post-bid feedback.