Research gets you a strong shortlist, but some of the information that decides a supplier only lives inside the supplier: real prices for your volumes, current lead times, spare capacity, whether they’ll take on your project, and certifications they hold but don’t publish. An RFI sends an email to the suppliers to ask those questions directly.
You send RFIs straight from your supplier list. Speya drafts the email, finds contact information, sends individually to your chosen shortlist of suppliers, and reads the replies back into your columns as the answers arrive. The point isn’t the sending. It’s that every answer lands as structured data on the right supplier, next to everything else you’ve researched, with the email kept as the source. Your list stays the single place where you decide.
In this article
When to send an RFi vs keep researching
Send an RFI
Read the reptiles as they come back
When is your RFI round done?
Best practice tips
Prompt library
FAQ
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When to send an RFI vs keep researching
Pick by where the answer lives:
Keep researching when the answer exists somewhere public: certifications, contact emails, financial summaries, news, production sites. Even when a supplier doesn’t publish the detail, a reasoning research column can give you a first read, likely or unlikely to meet a requirement, so you only RFI where it’s still genuinely unknown.
Send an RFI when the answer only lives inside the supplier: exact price at your volume, current lead time, minimum order quantity, real capacity for your project, willingness to work with you, or a certificate they hold but don’t publish.
Research narrows the list to credible candidates. An RFI gets the commercial answers that let you choose between them. The most efficient pattern is to enrich first, then send an RFI only for the gaps.
Send an RFI
1. Type to Speya what to ask.
“Draft an RFI to the shortlisted suppliers. Ask whether they can supply [product, exact spec], their indicative price at [volume], and lead time.”
Speya adds the RFI as a step on your list, adds a contacts column and finds the contacts, and automatically selects every supplier shortlisted as the best fit for your case. It drafts the email in two versions: a longer, formal draft by default, and a shorter, more concise alternative you can switch to.
2. Check the contact on each selected row. Speya sends to the primary contact for each supplier, so you only need to check the rows you plan to send to. If the primary is a general or support address, open the contact cell and set a sales contact as primary.
3. Review the draft. Read the questions, the tone, and the shortlist. Adjust anything that doesn’t fit: add a line about your company or drop a question. Keep it to 3 to 8 questions, because shorter requests get better reply rates.
4. Attach any files. Optionally add a spec sheet, drawing, or a form you want filled in.
5. Send. Speya sends each email individually and personalized per supplier. From the recipient’s side it reads as a direct one-to-one message, not a visible mass mailing.
Once sent, an Email column is added to your list next to the contact information, and each contacted supplier’s cell stores the correspondence. Replies come back to the same place.
Read the replies as they come back
Replies return into the platform and show up on the supplier’s row.
A blue marker appears on the supplier’s Email cell when a reply lands, and the full thread opens from that cell: your outbound message, the reply, and any follow-up.
Speya reads each reply and writes the answers into your columns. A price lands in the price column, a certification in the certification column. The source on that cell then points to the email conversation instead of a website.
A suggested reply is drafted under each response. Send it as is, edit it, or remove it to write your own.
Not every inbound message is a real answer. Auto-acknowledgements, support tickets, and form confirmations are common, so you still judge whether a given reply contains anything usable.
When is your RFI round done?
Your RFI round is done when the suppliers that matter have replied and their answers are sitting in your columns. At that point the decision-relevant data, both what you researched publicly and what the suppliers told you, is on one list in one view. From here you can ask Speya to shortlist your top suppliers with reasoning, or open a follow-up round with the ones still worth a conversation.
You can also have Speya create or update an executive summary for the project, or complement an existing Excel evaluation model with your real sourcing data. See How to create a Spreadsheet.
To keep your chosen suppliers tracked for changes over time, see How to import and track suppliers with Monitor.
Best practice tips
Enrich first, RFI for the gaps. Ask suppliers only for what research couldn’t find. You can point Speya straight at the empty cells: “Draft an RFI asking for the data points still missing in these columns.”
Create your columns before sending. A reply updates the list only where a matching column already exists. Anything without a column stays in the email thread and won’t roll up into your list.
Set the right primary contact for the suppliers you care about. Thirty seconds on the contact card keeps your message out of a support inbox. Speya doesn’t prefer sales over support on its own; it sends to whatever is primary.
Keep the shortlist focused. Send to the suppliers that matter, not the whole list. A focused request, asking only for information that isn’t public and genuinely feeds your evaluation, gets more attention from the suppliers you want to hear from.
Prompt library
Every prompt here is something you type to Speya. They’re grouped by where you are in an RFI, with a description of what each does.
Send the RFI
“Draft an RFI to the shortlisted suppliers. Ask whether they can supply [product, exact spec], their indicative price at [volume], and lead time.” [attach: spec sheet]
Drafts the RFI, selects the suppliers, and adds their contacts for your review before sending. Use it for what isn’t published anywhere: real prices, stock, exact dimensions.“Draft an email asking the suppliers about their [certification] status.”
Requests the actual certificate documents directly from the suppliers.“Draft an RFI asking for the data points still missing in these columns.”
Builds the request from the gaps in your research, so you ask only for what enrichment couldn’t find.
Follow up
“Draft a follow-up email to [supplier A], [supplier B], and [supplier C] referencing my previous request.”
Nudges specific non-responders.
FAQ
How do I know when a supplier has replied?
A blue marker appears on the supplier’s Email cell, and the full thread opens from that cell. The thread also appears in the supplier overview when you click the supplier’s name.
Do the replies update my list automatically?
Yes, wherever a matching column exists. Speya reads each reply and writes the answers into the columns already on that row, keeping the email as the source. Create the columns you want to collect before you send, because anything without a column stays in the thread.
There’s already a reply written under the supplier’s message. Did I send it?
No. Speya auto-drafts a suggested reply so you can send it in one click. To send something different, edit it or remove it and write your own.
Can I export all the replies to Word or Excel?
No, and it isn’t meant to. Instead of a pile of emails, each answer is written into the matching column on the supplier’s row, so your list is the consolidated view. Make sure the data points you want exist as columns before sending.
Can I bring the suppliers I emailed to the top of the list?
Yes, sort on the Email column and the emailed suppliers move to the top. To keep specific favourites at the top, pin them by right-clicking the supplier’s name.
Can Speya send automatic reminders to non-responders?
Not yet. Select or name the suppliers who haven’t replied and ask Speya to draft a follow-up.
Do the emails come from my email address?
No. Emails are currently sent from a Speya workspace address, not your personal email. Your CSM helps set this up the first time you use RFIs. Replies come back into the platform.
Why are so many of my “replies” just auto-acknowledgements or support tickets?
Two common causes. The contact may be a general or support address, so set a sales contact as primary for the suppliers you care about. And messages currently send from a Speya workspace address rather than your own work email, which can lower deliverability. Gmail and Outlook integration is launching soon; contact your CSM for details.
Can I send to all the sales contacts Speya found?
Not directly. A sales email found with an enrichment research column lands there as text. Copy it and add it manually to the contact cell, set it as primary, then send.