Sales Proposal RATER and Request for RATER
What
do your customers think of your proposals? The Strategic Proposal RATER gives you the opportunity to evaluate your proposals
from a buyer's viewpoint. It helps you rate the quality and effectiveness of your proposal's content using five quality
dimensions. It also helps you evaluate how you integrate the proposal in your sales process.
How the RATER Works
The five
Strategic Proposal Quality Dimensions provide the foundation for the Strategic Proposal RATER. Each RATER dimension
has five specific evaluation points. To rate your proposal's quality you will need to:
1)
Carefully read the proposal to be evaluated.
2) Use the 1 to 5 rating scale to answer (score) each of the 25 questions.
3) Total the questions' scores to measure the five quality dimensions.
4) Plot the scores
on the graph to illustrates relative strengths and weakness for the quality dimensions.
Five Quality Dimensions
Delivering
Quality Service a book by Valerie A. Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman, and Leonard L. Berry identified five quality customer
service dimensions: reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness. These co-authors stated customer service
must embody all five quality dimensions.
When
a sales professional sells, he or she provides customer service during the sale. Selling activities must epitomize the five
quality dimensions. In a consultative sales process, selling and proposal development are integrated; therefore, the proposal
also must embody these five quality dimensions. Unlike selling and customer service, the proposal is a tangible product that
makes it much easier to evaluate its quality using the five quality dimensions.
The quality customer
service dimensions become the basis for the following Strategic Proposal Quality Dimensions:
- Reliability reflects the seller's ability to identify creative and practical business
solutions that will help the buyer achieve their goals and objectives.
- Assurance
increases the buyer's trust and confidence in the seller's ability to deliver successful results.
- Tangibles
enhance and differentiate the communication of the seller's message and invites readership by its content, structure,
and overall appearance.
- Empathy reflects the seller's thorough understanding of the buyer's unique
business environment, internal processes, and goals and objectives.
- Responsiveness demonstrates the seller's willingness
to work closely with the buyer to understand their unique situation and expeditiously present viable business solutions.
