May 22, 2026
How to write an RFQ that gets you a reply before Thursday
The specific things in an RFQ that get fast, complete replies versus the ones that kick off a week of back-and-forth. From a rep who has sent thousands of them.
I’ve been sending RFQs for commercial flooring bids for a long time. Some of them have been good. Some of them have been genuinely bad, and I can tell you exactly what makes the difference.
The RFQs that work get a complete, usable reply in 24 to 48 hours. The RFQs that don’t work kick off two or three rounds of “can you clarify” emails and end with you calling the supplier at 2pm on Friday when you needed that number by noon.
Here’s what separates them.
Lead with the project
The first thing a supplier rep does when they get an RFQ is try to figure out what project it’s for, when it’s due, and who’s asking.
If that information isn’t in the subject line or the first line of the email, they have to hunt for it. If they’re busy, which they usually are, they may put it in a pile and get back to it later.
Your subject line should have the project name and bid date. Something like: “RFQ: Harborview Office Park, bid 5/30.” The rep can find it in their inbox immediately when they reply, and they know exactly how urgent it is.
Inside the email, the first paragraph should have the project name, the GC, the delivery address (not the GC’s office, the actual job site), the bid date, and the required on-site date if you know it. Suppliers price freight by delivery location and lead time. If you don’t give them the address, they’re either guessing or emailing you to ask.
Use a line-item table
Most commercial flooring RFQs I’ve seen are written as paragraphs. “We need pricing on carpet tile, Interface Third Space in Pebble colorway, approximately 12,000 square yards, and also LVT from Armstrong, and base…”
The supplier rep has to read that sentence, extract the product names, figure out the quantities, and build their own price sheet from your description. That takes time and introduces room for misreading.
A table is better. One row per product. Columns for the spec number, product name, colorway, quantity, and unit of measure. That’s it. The supplier reads down the list, fills in the price column, and sends it back.
When you use a table, you also catch your own gaps before you send. If you’re writing row by row and you notice you don’t have a specific colorway for one product, you catch it Monday afternoon instead of Wednesday night when their reply comes back asking about it.
Be explicit about freight
Freight is where most RFQs break down.
Half of supplier reps include freight in their unit price by default. The other half break it out as a separate line. Some forget to include it at all. When you get four quotes back and two include freight and two don’t, you’ve got a reconciliation problem on Thursday afternoon.
Tell them explicitly what you want. Something like: “Please quote unit price and freight as separate line items to the delivery address above.” Short sentence, unambiguous. Every reply comes back in the same format.
This single instruction saves about 20 to 30 minutes of reconciliation work per bid. It also removes the most common source of underbidding on freight-heavy material like broadloom.
Ask about attic stock in the RFQ
If the spec calls for attic stock, and most commercial specs do at 10 to 15 percent overage, put it in the RFQ.
Some reps ask about attic stock after they get the initial quote, which means a second round of emails and a second wait. On a tight bid schedule, that second round sometimes doesn’t complete before submission, and you’re guessing on the attic stock number.
If attic stock is in the original RFQ, it comes back with the first reply. One round of communication, complete pricing. The line item is ready to go into the bid without a follow-up.
State the unit you want
Shaw prices carpet tile per square yard. Some LVT suppliers price per square foot. Broadloom is typically priced per linear yard. This is common knowledge in the industry, but when you don’t specify the unit you want, you sometimes get replies in mixed units, and then you’re doing conversions.
Tell them: “Please quote per square yard.” Or whatever unit your bid is built around. Takes five seconds to add to the RFQ, saves ten minutes of conversion math and a potential unit error.
Unit errors in commercial flooring bids are genuinely dangerous. The difference between $2.35 per square foot and $2.35 per square yard is a factor of nine. That error has put shops in bad positions on jobs. It’s not hypothetical.
Send earlier than you think you need to
Most flooring reps send their RFQs after the takeoff is done, which on a typical bid timeline is Tuesday or Wednesday. That works if suppliers reply within 24 to 48 hours, which is the standard for in-stock products.
But if one supplier takes 48 hours, another takes 36, and a third doesn’t reply until you follow up, you’re looking at Thursday afternoon for your last quote. If the bid is due Friday morning, you’ve got one evening to finalize everything.
Send RFQs as early in the week as possible. If the takeoff is done Monday afternoon, send them Monday afternoon. You’ll have most of your replies back by Wednesday, time to follow up on the stragglers, and room to work through discrepancies without rushing.
There’s also a practical reason to send early that most reps don’t think about: your suppliers are getting RFQs from multiple contractors for the same bid week. The ones who send early tend to get replies earlier because they’re at the top of the pile. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s a real pattern.
One follow-up, on a schedule
Every rep has a system for chasing suppliers who don’t reply. Most of those systems are reactive: you remember to follow up when you happen to think about it, or when panic sets in on Thursday.
A better approach is one follow-up, scheduled. Send RFQs Monday, check replies Wednesday afternoon. Anyone who hasn’t replied gets one follow-up email Wednesday evening: “Following up on the RFQ I sent Monday for Harborview Office Park, bid due Friday. Can you confirm you’re able to quote?” If they haven’t replied by Thursday noon, you call.
Two touches, on a schedule. You know exactly where every RFQ stands at any given point. Nothing falls through because you forgot to follow up.
What happens when you standardize all of this
When you put these practices into a standard RFQ template that every rep on your team uses, a few things change.
Suppliers start recognizing your format. They know exactly where to find the project info, the line items, the freight instructions. Quotes come back faster because processing your RFQ is predictable work for them.
New reps at your shop start with a professional template instead of building one from scratch. They’re sending quality RFQs on day one instead of month six.
Your bid history becomes comparable across reps because everyone asked for prices the same way. When you’re looking at what a spec cost last year across three projects, the numbers are apples-to-apples.
The template takes about an hour to build. The time savings run for as long as your shop is operating.