How long does it take to read and score eleven RFP responses?
A morning to build the matrix and about a week of reading. Without a matrix the reading takes a fortnight and produces a result that cannot be defended.
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How to read eleven RFP responses without losing your mind
Build the scoring matrix before you read the first response. Every RFP question already carries a weight between 2 and 5; score each answer from 1 to 5 with a sentence of rationale, total the weighted scores and sort. Read without the matrix and the first response feels exhaustive, the seventh gets skimmed and the result cannot be defended. With it, the responses cluster into three tiers, and the partner shortlist meeting takes about two hours because disagreement happens on the data.
Why build the scoring matrix before reading any responses?
Because reading order and memory otherwise decide. You send the RFP on a Thursday, three weeks later eleven responses arrive, and you have eight working days to tell the partners which three to put on a pitch stage. Read them in arrival order and you like the third and resent the eleventh; score them in your head and the most recent dominates; rank by gut and the partners ask for working you do not have. Every question in the RFP already has a weight between 2 and 5. The 5s decide the engagement: budget, timeline, security certifications, integrations, CMS recommendation. The 4s matter a lot: account management, team, accessibility, brand consistency. The 3s are standard: references, documentation, training. The 2s are baseline: company details, VAT numbers, offices. Build a spreadsheet with a row for each question and a column for each agency, a score from 1 to 5 and a sentence of rationale in each cell, and a weighted total at the bottom. I have watched marketing leads skip this and pay for it: by the seventh response they are skimming, and by the eleventh they cannot remember whether agency three or agency six had the SOC 2. The matrix takes a morning; the reading takes a week, or a fortnight without it.
Why score with rationale rather than stars?
Because partners interrogate evidence. A score of 4 with two sentences of rationale beats a 5 with none at every partner meeting you take it into: if your evidence is a star rating they discount it, and if it is a paragraph on why this agency scored 4 on integrations and that one scored 2, they can argue with it on the merits. Writing the rationale also forces you to engage with what the agency actually said.
What do the responses look like once they are scored?
Three tiers, reliably. The top tier, roughly four out of five, answers the question asked, within the word limit, with a fixed price broken into hours, named references with contact details, and the certifications it claims. The middle tier, roughly three to four, answers the question it wished you had asked, with good case studies that do not quite match the brief and a price leaning towards a range. The bottom tier, below three and a half, has not read the brief properly: one skips the timeline question, one says "this is not an official budget" and leaves costs blank, one refuses references until a contract is signed.
How long does the partner shortlist meeting take?
About two hours, with the matrix and rationale in front of everyone: half an hour reading the top of the matrix, an hour of questions about specific scores, and half an hour on the three or four agencies clustered at the top and which three go to pitch. The disagreement happens on the data. Without the matrix the meeting takes half a day and ends with a list of agencies the partners liked the look of, which is not a shortlist.
Related evidence: Eleven responses. Three on the pitch day. One agency appointed in eight weeks.. Earlier in this journey: The RFP is the work.
Questions people ask
What separates the top tier of agency responses?
They answer the question asked, within the word limit, with a fixed price broken into hours, named references with contact details, and the certifications they claim.
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