Short answer: A working RFQ follow-up flow in Odoo segments unanswered quotes by value and age, sends a few consented reminders through Marketing Automation, and assigns the rest to salespeople as tasks. Design and test it in one to two weeks — after confirming which marketing apps are actually installed, since triggers depend on them.
The scenario below is a walkthrough. It follows a machine-parts wholesaler; every detail is invented to show the shape of the workflow.
Why do B2B RFQs go quiet in the first place?
A sent quotation is not a rejected quotation — but in a busy sales team it can feel like one. Buyers go quiet for ordinary reasons: they are collecting three competing quotes, the purchase is stuck in someone else’s approval chain, your email landed with a contact who has no buying authority, or the price simply surprised them. Odoo records the quotation beautifully and then records nothing about the silence that follows. Follow-up becomes a matter of individual inbox discipline, which means high-value quotes get chased and mid-value ones quietly rot in the pipeline.
Treat this as a systems problem, not a motivation problem. Every unanswered quote has two facts attached to it — its value and its age — and both are data Odoo already holds. The workflow below automates the routine follow-ups, escalates the exceptions to humans, and makes sure no quote dies of neglect.
What does the illustrative wholesaler scenario look like?
Our wholesaler sells machine parts to manufacturers: six salespeople, roughly 120 open RFQs at any moment, and a mix that runs from small restock orders to large project bids with engineering review attached. Before the workflow, follow-up depended entirely on each salesperson’s habits. One rep kept a spreadsheet; another relied on memory; a third simply waited for the phone to ring. After the workflow, Odoo segments every unanswered RFQ automatically, the routine reminders go out on their own, and salespeople spend their follow-up time on the quotes that actually need a human.
How should you segment unanswered RFQs?
Segment on two axes: value and age. Value bands are yours to set — for the walkthrough, imagine under 1,000 as routine, 1,000 to 25,000 as standard, and above 25,000 as strategic — and age thresholds at 3, 7, 14, and 30 days. The combination decides the channel: a low-value quote that is three days old gets an automated reminder, while a strategic quote that is two weeks old gets a personal call task assigned to a senior salesperson. Never push high-value quotes through generic sequences. A 200,000 bid with custom engineering deserves a phone call, not template number two.
Keep the segmentation visible. A shared pipeline view grouped by age bucket — unanswered 0–3 days, 4–7, 8–14, over 14 — gives the sales manager a morning snapshot without anyone running a report. If the over-14 bucket keeps growing, the workflow has a design problem, not the salespeople.
What does consent-compliant follow-up mean in practice?
Only send marketing-style reminders with consent — this is the compliance note the whole workflow rests on. The B2B nuance: replying to an active RFQ from an existing business relationship is normally treated as ordinary business communication, but enrolling contacts in repeated nurture sequences needs a clear opt-in. In practice this means four rules. First, every automated email identifies the sender and the company. Second, every message carries a working opt-out, and unsubscribes are honored immediately. Third, the automation checks a consent field on the partner before sending anything sequence-like. Fourth, all message templates are approved before activation — no improvising in the sequence builder. One more honest caveat: this is operational guidance, not legal advice; confirm the rules for your jurisdiction with counsel, especially where GDPR or similar regimes apply.
What does the trigger flow look like?
The table below is the core of the design. Each row is one trigger: when it fires, under what condition, and what Odoo does. Build them in this order so the rows do not fire on top of each other — and add one exclusion everywhere: never send a reminder when a personal follow-up task is already open on the same quote.
| Trigger | Condition | Action |
|---|---|---|
| RFQ unanswered 3 days | Quote sent, no reply, consent on file, below value threshold | Send reminder email using approved template A |
| RFQ unanswered 7 days | Still no reply after the first reminder | Create salesperson task: personal follow-up call |
| RFQ unanswered 14 days | No reply and no logged activity | Notify sales manager; task to review or close the quote |
| High-value RFQ created | Amount above the strategic threshold | Immediate manager notification; assign senior salesperson |
| Quote viewed, no reply after 5 days | Tracking shows the customer opened the quote | Create call task: they looked but did not bite |
| RFQ past validity date | Expired with no order placed | Send ‘still interested’ email if consented; otherwise close as lost |
Notice what the flow deliberately avoids: more than two automated emails to the same contact about the same quote. The third touch is always human. Automation earns its keep by being relentless about the routine so salespeople can be thoughtful about the exceptions.
When should a salesperson get a task instead of an automated email?
Whenever judgment is required. High value, aged quotes, quotes the customer viewed but ignored, and any reply containing an objection all become tasks, not sequences. A good follow-up task carries its own context: a link to the quotation, the last recorded activity, the customer’s stated concern if any, and suggested talking points from the approved template. Give every task a deadline — contact within one business day — using Odoo Activities with reminders, and escalate overdue tasks to the sales manager automatically. A task without a deadline is a wish.
What should the message approval workflow cover?
Templates are the voice of the company, so they get approved like it. The sales manager and whoever owns the brand voice sign off on every template before it goes live: the reminder, the value-add message with a spec sheet or reference, and the breakup email that asks whether the quote should be closed. Check personalization fields with real data — company name, quote number, salesperson signature — because a template that prints a blank field looks worse than no email at all. And freeze the rule: no live edits to active sequences without re-approval. If the message needs changing, it needs approving again.
Which Odoo apps do you need installed before building this?
Verify which Odoo marketing apps are installed before relying on automation triggers — this is the prerequisite people skip. The Marketing Automation app gives you trigger-based sequences; Email Marketing covers bulk sends; CRM is obviously required; and Activities handle the task side. If Marketing Automation is not installed, you can replicate the core triggers with scheduled automated actions — a daily server action that finds quotes at 3 days unanswered and sends the template, another that creates 7-day tasks. Less elegant, same outcome for the basics. Also confirm mail tracking is available if you want the ‘quote viewed’ trigger, and define the activity types for follow-up calls before the tasks start flowing.
How do you report on the workflow?
Two headline KPIs: reply rate — the share of followed-up RFQs that get any response — and quote age, the median days from sending to first reply, tracked in aging buckets. Underneath those, watch task completion rate (are salespeople actually working the tasks?), the conversion of followed-up quotes versus quotes that never entered the workflow, and the opt-out rate on automated emails. If opt-outs climb, your messages are the problem, not the buyers. Build the dashboard in Odoo with a pivot or graph on the CRM pipeline, and make the weekly review a habit: every quote over 14 days unanswered gets a decision — advance it, or close it.
Frequently asked questions
Won’t automated reminders annoy B2B buyers?
A couple of short, relevant reminders rarely annoy anyone; a daily blast does. Cap the frequency, make every message useful, and always offer the opt-out. Most buyers prefer a nudge to being forgotten.
Can we do this without Marketing Automation installed?
Yes. Scheduled automated actions can replicate the core triggers — the 3-day email via a mail template and the 7-day task creation. You lose some elegance, not the outcome.
How do we handle quotes sent before this workflow existed?
Backfill once: segment the existing open quotes by age, assign personal tasks for the aged ones, and enroll only consented contacts in the sequences going forward.
What about RFQs that come through the website?
They enter the same flow. Just make sure the website form captures consent explicitly with a checkbox, so the automation has a clean signal from the start.
If unanswered RFQs are quietly dying in your pipeline, a structured follow-up workflow is the fix — and it is worth designing properly before switching anything on. Plan a compliant RFQ workflow with Odoo Pilot and build it on triggers your team can actually maintain.
