Is it too much to ask that you spend more than 14 seconds reading my response to your RFP?
07/14/09 05:44 PM Filed in: Management
Marketing
Most companies go through the RFP process because their procurement people make them but in reality the decision on which vendor is chosen has already been made. The RFP process can be a lot of work at a time when agencies have to squeeze every dollar they can from expenses to stay profitable. Big companies with big marketing budgets love to through accounts into review and in the past it has led to some agencies doing creative work for free to get the business. Most agencies learned that this is not the way to go but in this case the agency, Ignited, created the RFP online and smartly attached Google analytics to the site. To their surprise only 5 of the 25 pages were reviewed with an average time of only 14 seconds. That tells me that either the person doing the review is the worlds fasted speed reader or that they didn’t give a damn that the agency has gone to all this work. It tells me that Zappos is not the kind of organization that I would want to work for or do business with.
It is a buyers market, make no mistake about it, but when companies start treating all vendors like and expendable commodity it’s time for something to change. It’s also interesting to note that several agencies sent pizza’s, ice cream and Red Bull to Zappos to try and “buy” their business. This to me stinks since it says that we need to bribe you to get your business and that we cannot let our work speak for itself. It also tells me that the agency has more overhead that needs to be cut. Good procurement departments would not allow this to happen at all.
Zappos should be ashamed of themselves and kudos to Ignited for saying “wait a minute”...If the vendor agency relationship is to improve it has to be on a level playing field and let’s remember basic business courtesy ha?
