NonRFPMonkey.com?

Alternate Uses for your RFP Sales Content

or Using RFP Software for Non-RFP Purposes

Of course you can use RFPMonkey.com to improve your RFP response quality and turnaround time – That’s what it’s for.  But there are some clever, non-RFP uses as well.

Innovative features such as collaboration, email notifications, flexible categorization, and channel support allow you to:

• Communicate company/product information to non-RFP users
• Add value to channel partners by granting access to your repository
• Create self-serve applications customers and prospects can use to search a knowledge base without being able to change the contents
• Create non-RFP knowledge bases for your support team or call center

Implementing one or more of these creative uses can enhance your ROI both on the bottom line and in good will.  Read on to see how each of these bonus usages can benefit your company.  If you have a creative use that we haven’t thought of already, please share it with us.

Communicate Information to non-RFP Users

Who ever reads your RFPs?  Certainly your sales/marketing staff reads them as they write them.  Hopefully your business prospects read them as they evaluate you as a partner/vendor.  Who else?

Probably no one else – that’s who.

Now, who should know (or at least have access to) the most accurate, most recent, most compelling information about your company and its products and services?  Just Marketing and Sales?  Just the engineers or programmers?  How about your trainers, recruiters, support desk, call center?  Why shouldn’t the receptionist share this knowledge?

• Add read-only users – Add a user account for each employee, not just those who contribute to or create RFPs. In order to keep tight control over the quality of the database, assign Read-only permission to these users.
• Add notification-only users – You can actually have user accounts that don’t even have read-only access. Consider adding user accounts that have no permissions, but who are subscribed to the email notifications that can be generated when an entry is created or updated. Users that never log into RFPMonkey.com can still receive these notifications, keeping everyone informed as new content is created.
• Add departmental alias users – Consider adding a notification-only user with a departmental email alias. Adding a phantom user whose notification email address is sales@yourcompany.com would distribute new entries to entire departments without having to create user accounts for multiple people.

Add value to channel partners by granting access to your repository

No one knows your product or services like you do, not even your channel partners or resellers. You would like them to, but they’re simply not close enough to your subject matter experts. 

In reselling your solutions, if your channel partners have to respond to RFPs, giving them access to your RFP repository helps them generate more revenue for you. 

One of the unique benefits of RFPMonkey.com is the ability to extend the RFP knowledge base to channel partners. RFPMonkey.com entries may be designated as Internal Only. 

This allows you to decide which entries can be viewed by your staff only, and which entries can be viewed by your staff as well as channel partner staff.



By default, each RFPMonkey.com user is designated as Trusted, but this can be de-selected for channel partners. This prevents them from “looking under the covers” at closely-guarded content.

Now that your channel has access to the RFP database, they can respond to their own RFPs faster, with better answers – and all without requiring your sales resources. Good for them. Good for you.

Allow prospects to access a knowledge base for themselves

If you have looked at the RFPMonkey.com Live Web Demo then you have seen this in action. When a web visitor comes to www.RFPMonkey.com, they can log into a live repository of RFP entries about (you guessed it) RFPMonkey.com. This demo allows users to read the repository and search for specific topics without being able to add or change any of the data. 

This was facilitated by simply creating a user within a normal account, and assigning that user the status of DEMO. Demo users can use all parts of the application that they have been assigned permissions to, but all of the database calls are disabled that would otherwise write or update any data. While the demo user has limited access, all other users continue to work normally. Storing certain entries as “Internal Only” and not turning on the “Trusted” flag for the demo user protects sensitive information while allowing internal access to it as needed.

There are two potential benefits:

• Helping prospects draft their RFP – RFPs are not only time consuming to respond to, they are also time consuming to write. So much so that many companies seek help drafting them. Some hire consultants or industry experts to help them write their RFPs. Others will look to a preferred vendor for guidance. In fact, they are sometimes written and submitted to justify buying decisions they have already made. 
  
  For this reason, some experienced sales professionals feel that if you were not involved with the prospect while they were drafting their RFP, you are likely already de-selected. So why not offer (a cleansed subset of) your RFP repository to assist prospects through this difficult process. If their new RFP is drafted featuring your strong points, so much the better.
  
  
• Preventing prospects from submitting their RFPs to you – While you prefer RFPs that are a good fit for your solutions, all things being equal, what you really want is to win business without having to respond to RFPs at all. Remember, RFPs are difficult to respond to. 
  
  While prospects use RFPs to select the most suitable solution from multiple vendors, all things being equal, virtually nobody would draft an RFP if they didn’t feel it was required. Remember, RFPs are difficult to draft.
  
  If your solution is the best fit for the prospect’s needs; if this can be determined by reading your publicly-accessible repository; and if that repository is offered to prospects freely, just maybe they can select your solution with confidence, without having to spend the effort required by the RFP process.

Create non-RFP knowledge bases for your support team, call center, or other internal groups

The same centralization, categorization, and retrieval features that make RFPMonkey.com so strong for your RFP repository are also perfect for other types of information. Consider the effectiveness and quality improvements possible by granting this sort of information access to such teams as QA, Tech Support, and Customer Service. A few of the creative uses for RFPMonkey.com include: 

• FAQ repository
• Solutions knowledge base
• Customer References library
• Support and Escalation Procedures guidelines
• Competitive information repository

If you would like this sort of information available within your regular RFP repository, you might use the Division field to separate these entries from regular RFP data. You can use a separate account if you want these different information types to be completely separated from each other.

ABOUT RFPMonkey.COM LLC

RFPMonkey.com LLC is a leading provider of hosted RFP automation solutions. RFPMonkey.com allows companies whose revenue is closely tied to the number and quality of their RFP responses to win more business by providing better, more timely responses to RFPs.

RFPMonkey.com offers a secure solution with an intuitive user interface. RFPMonkey.com is packed with practical features envisioned over a decade of responding to vendor RFPs in the sales departments of several industry-leading companies.