Writing a chauffeur services RFP. The questions that actually separate suppliers.
Ground transport tenders are usually won on price and lost on consistency, because the document asked about the first and assumed the second. This is a guide to writing one that finds out what you need to know.
Before you start
Decide whether you need a tender at all
A full tender is worth running when ground transport is large enough to matter to finance, visible enough to matter to your executives, or contentious enough that somebody has asked you to test the market. It is not worth running for a handful of airport journeys a month, where a proposal from two or three suppliers and a trial period will tell you more in less time.
If you are running one, the most useful hour you will spend is before you write anything: pull twelve months of actual journeys and look at the shape of them. How many are airport transfers, how many are hours held for a day, how many are out of hours, how many are outside your main cities, how many are cancelled or amended late. That profile is what you are buying, and it is the only fair basis on which to compare quotations. We respond to tenders, so treat this as a supplier's view of what makes a good one. We have written the questions rather than our own answers, because the questions work on any supplier, including us.
Section one
Scope: say what you actually want priced
Most weak tenders are weak here. The scope should state the cities and countries in which service is required, separating daily coverage from occasional coverage. It should state the categories of journey: airport transfers, point to point, hours as directed, roadshows, events, group movements, late night and weekend work. And it should state who travels, at what level, and whether different levels get different vehicles.
It should also state the volumes, honestly and with their seasonality. Suppliers price risk, and a volume they cannot see is a risk they will price. A profile concentrated in September and in two weeks of June will get you a better and more honest price than a round annual number with no shape. Say too what you expect to change, because a supplier who hears about an office move in the tender will build for it rather than be surprised by it. Finally, state the term, the notice period and whether there is any exclusivity: suppliers invest differently in a one year non-exclusive arrangement and a three year sole supply agreement, and they should.
Section two
The service levels worth asking for
Ask for a commitment against each of these rather than a description. A description is marketing; a commitment can be reported on.
- Acknowledgement and confirmation of a booking, and of an amendment, stated separately, because amendments are where most failures happen
- Free waiting time after a scheduled arrival, and after an actual arrival where a flight is delayed, as two different figures
- What happens when a vehicle fails or a chauffeur is delayed: who is told, how quickly, and who arranges the replacement
- Out of hours cover: whether the overnight and weekend desk is the supplier's own people or an answering service
- A named escalation route with a second and third name on it, and a commitment to tell you about a failure before your traveller does
- Reporting: what is measured, how often, and whether you can see it without asking
Section three
The questions that separate suppliers
| Ask this | Why it matters | What a weak answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Are your chauffeurs employed by you, self-employed, or subcontracted to other companies? | The single strongest predictor of consistency. An employed chauffeur can be trained, scheduled and held to a standard; work passed to whoever is free cannot be | A description of standards without ever saying who the driver works for |
| What proportion of our work would be performed by people you employ, by city? | Almost nobody employs drivers everywhere. The useful thing is knowing where the line falls | One hundred per cent, with no qualification about cities outside the home base |
| Where you subcontract, how are those suppliers selected, monitored and made accountable to us? | Subcontracting is normal and not a scandal. Unmanaged subcontracting is the problem | We use trusted partners, with nothing about how trust is established |
| Which operator licences do you hold, in which jurisdictions, and may we see them? | Licences are public documents that can be checked in minutes | A licence mentioned but not evidenced, or one city's licence offered as coverage of several |
| What insurance do you carry, on what basis, and will you provide the certificates? | Ask for the certificate rather than a number in a brochure, and check that hire and reward cover extends to the work you are buying | Figures in a proposal with no certificate attached |
| What background screening is carried out on chauffeurs, by whom, and how often is it repeated? | Screening at hiring and screening maintained are different things. In the UK this normally involves the Disclosure and Barring Service and the licensing authority | Rigorous vetting, with no statement of what is checked or how often |
| What passenger and journey data do you hold, for how long, where, and who can see it? | Travel data is sensitive and your legal team will have a view. Ask for the retention period in writing | A data protection policy attached with no specific answer |
Ask each of these of every supplier including the incumbent, and ask for the evidence rather than the assertion. The questions are deliberately phrased so that an honest answer can be a qualified one.
Section four
Employed or subcontracted: how to read the answer
This is the question that most reliably predicts whether your executives will complain in year two, and the one most often answered in a way designed not to be untrue rather than to be clear. Almost every chauffeur company does some work through others, and very few employ drivers in every city they claim to cover. The point is not to find one that does; it is to find out exactly where the line sits and how what falls beyond it is managed.
Ask for the model city by city, in a table you supply, and ask for the proportion performed by employed staff in each location to be reported monthly rather than promised once. Ask what happens when demand outstrips the supplier's own capacity, because that is the moment your executive meets a stranger in an unfamiliar car. A confident supplier will answer in a paragraph and volunteer the limits; treat a long answer with no proportions in it as a no. And be reasonable in return: a company that employs its chauffeurs in two cities and arranges the rest through named operators it works with regularly may be a far better supplier than one that claims employment everywhere and cannot show it.
Section five
Evidence to request, not assertions
Everything here is a document a genuine supplier can send you in a day. Ask for all of it at proposal stage rather than at contract stage.
- Current operator licences for every jurisdiction in which service is offered, with the issuing authority and number, so they can be checked against the public register
- Insurance certificates with the policy basis, showing cover appropriate to carrying passengers for hire and reward, plus employer's and public liability where relevant
- A written statement of the background screening carried out on chauffeurs and how often it is renewed
- Vehicle policy: ownership, maximum age, service intervals, and how the fleet is inspected
- A sample invoice and a sample monthly report, using data of the shape you will actually send them
- Two or three references from accounts of a similar shape, with permission to speak to them directly
Section six
Pricing structures, in general terms
| Structure | Suits | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed price by route or zone | High volumes of repeated journeys, particularly airports | What is excluded: waiting, tolls, road and emissions charges, extra stops, out of hours |
| Hourly, as directed, with a minimum | Unpredictable days, roadshows, events | The minimum, how part hours are treated, and whether the clock starts at the collection or at the garage |
| Monthly retainer for a named chauffeur | Daily use by one principal or one office | Cover during absence, hours included, and what falls outside them |
| Cost plus management fee | Large programmes with a lot of subcontracting | Whether the underlying costs are genuinely open, and who audits them |
Whatever the structure, ask every supplier to price the same twelve months of your own real journeys. It is the only comparison that survives contact with reality, and it exposes the exclusions a rate card hides.
Section seven
Scoring and mobilisation
- 01
Weight it before you read anything
Agree the weighting with your stakeholders before proposals arrive, and publish it in the tender: service model and consistency, assurance, coverage, reporting and account management, and commercials.
- 02
Score the evidence, not the prose
Mark against documents received and questions answered specifically. A supplier that qualifies an answer honestly should score better than one that answers expansively and vaguely.
- 03
Meet the people who will run it
Interview the proposed account contact and the operations manager, not the sales team. Ask them to talk you through a failure they handled badly and what changed afterwards.
- 04
Mobilise in stages
Traveller profiles, authorised bookers, cost centres and escalation contacts first. Then a pilot on one route or one office for a month, with a written review, before the full switch.
If you are running one now
We complete supplier questionnaires as part of a proposal
Send us your tender document, your due diligence questionnaire or simply twelve months of journey data, and we will answer it in your format rather than sending a brochure. Our own cars and chauffeurs are in London and Manchester; elsewhere cars are arranged through operators we know, and we say which is which.
Questions we are asked about this
About running the process
How many suppliers should we invite?
Three to five for a genuine tender. More than that and the evaluation becomes the project. Fewer and you learn nothing you did not already believe. Include the incumbent, and put them through the same questions.
Should we run a trial before awarding?
A short pilot on a defined slice of the work tells you more than any reference call. Build it into the timetable rather than bolting it on.
Is a single supplier better than a panel?
A panel gives you resilience and costs you consistency, and it also means nobody is accountable at three in the morning. Most organisations are better served by one primary supplier with a named second.
What should we ask about cities where the supplier does not employ drivers?
Who is driving, how they were selected, what proportion of your work that represents, and who carries the responsibility if something goes wrong. An honest answer is worth more than a claim of global coverage.
Start the conversation
Send us your document
Tell us the shape of the programme, the cities involved and the timetable. If you already have a tender document or a due diligence questionnaire, send it and we will answer it in your format.
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