Yep! Customers can be a big Pain in the Axel, especially when they want to gig you for early delivery.
Be sure to make a differentiation between a request for quote and an actual purchase order. RFQ is an invitation to negotiate on ALL terms, not just price. Your quote and P.O. should be compared point by point for differences, then for the impact of those differences and whether they are agreeable and achievable.
A P.O. with different terms than your quote should be considered a counteroffer to your quote and an opening to renegotiate EVERY term and condition. Your quote should say something to the effect "no terms or conditions may be added or subtracted without specific notice outlining the changes to be negotiated and jointly agreed." Your company attorney should be able to give you boilerplate language to cover this aspect.
There are "some" streamlining tips, but mostly suppliers have to make sure they don't agree to the impossible.
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- delivery dates - we would only agree to "windows" of several days unless the customer agreed to a surcharge for priority shipping and handling. JIT usually only works when supplier ships in his own vehicles - trains, planes, boats, and trucks operated by 3rd parties can't be guaranteed. (That said, customers usually have a legitimate reason to forbid early shipment, often having to do with storage and production logistics.)
Minor issues usually involved response time to ANY communication or a requirement for electronic notice of shipment. Rarely, some customers would require special packaging - always at an adjusted price.
Nobody got an opportunity to slip in a requirement not present in the original quote.
Issues like price rarely became an issue. Once we had a customer issue an order for a small quantity at the same price we had quoted for a much larger quantity. We just phoned and said,
"Price at this quantity should be X dollars per unit, not Y dollars. Pleased issue a corrected purchase order to reflect either the quoted quantity or the new price." We received the corrected order by FAX while we remained on the phone.