A Request for Proposal (RFP) is more than just a document—it's a strategic approach to sourcing solutions, products, or services. It provides a structured way for brands to outline their needs and evaluate potential suppliers, ensuring the best fit for their unique requirements. Simply put, a good RFP sets you up for success at the forefront.

To make this process easier, we’ve created a customer engagement platform RFP template. It’s designed to help you clearly define your brand’s needs, invite potential suppliers to propose solutions, and, ultimately, select the one that aligns best with their objectives. Here’s some of what you’ll find in our RFP template.

For your company to fill out:

• Company Background and Goals. Your company’s mission and business goals. The idea is to detail what you’re hoping to achieve with a new customer engagement partner.

• Project Scope and Timelines. The business outcomes you’re hoping to achieve, along with the issues you’re facing with your current solution. You can also detail the customer engagement use cases that are most important for achieving your business goals and the KPIs you use to measure the success of customer engagement.

For your potential vendor(s) to fill out:

• Data Connections and Integrations. The typical integrations used to get data into systems; plus, how the platform connects to third-party systems to ingest customer and behavior data from external systems.

• Scale and Speed. How the platform can scale for large message, data, and user volumes; and whether the vendor offers an end-speed SLA for transactional emails.

• Security and Compliance. The vendor’s security certifications, support for single sign-on, data management policies, and encryption of customer data.

• Audience Building and Targeting. How the platform enables and maintains audience segments.

• Campaign and Journey Orchestration. Which channels can be orchestrated in the platform, how the platform supports the creation of lifecycle campaigns and journeys, and how the vendor facilitates journey collaboration, versioning, and approvals for distributed marketing teams.

• Cross-Channel Support and Message Composition. How the vendor’s channels support native, easy-to-use, drag-and-drop message composition.

• Optimization and A/B Testing. The vendor’s ability to provide real-time multivariate testing and support control groups.

• Reporting and Analytics. The kinds of reports and reporting metrics that are available from the solution.

• Support and Services. The strategy and process for successfully onboarding and supporting clients.

• Product Roadmap and Strategy. How the vendor’s product vision aligns with your business goals.

Ready to take the first steps? Check out the RFP template to help gain the clarity you need to select the platform that will elevate your customer engagement strategy to the next level.