An AI agent for B2B manufacturers
that qualifies an RFQ before a rep spends an hour on it
A manufacturer's sales inbox fills with RFQs that range from a serious buyer with a drawing and a quantity to someone collecting prices for a comparison chart, and a sales engineer often cannot tell which is which until a call is already booked. We build an agent that asks the qualifying questions first, answers routine spec and lead-time questions from your own catalog, and hands a rep only the RFQs worth their time.
Why B2B manufacturers lose money today
An RFQ inbox is the front door to every real order, and most manufacturers run it the same way they did ten years ago: a shared mailbox or a form that collects a name and a message, then a sales engineer reading each one to figure out if it is worth a call. Industry surveys of B2B manufacturing sales teams consistently rank “qualifying inbound leads” among the largest unpaid time sinks in the sales process, because the information that actually separates a real order from a comparison exercise, quantity, application, timeline, a drawing, is rarely in the first message.
A second cost is response speed. A buyer who sends the same RFQ to five manufacturers usually orders from whoever answers first with something specific, not whoever eventually answers best. A spec question that sits unanswered over a weekend, or a lead-time question that waits for someone to check the production calendar, often means the deal is already gone by Monday.
A third problem is uneven coverage across time zones. A manufacturer selling into export markets gets RFQs at 3 a.m. local time that a rep will not see for hours, and the buyer has usually already moved on to a competitor who answered inside the hour.
A fourth, quieter cost is where the good leads actually go. Without a consistent qualification step, a complex, high-value RFQ from an engineer with a drawing can sit in the same queue as a routine spec question, and whoever answers the inbox first handles both the same way, which wastes the senior rep’s time on the easy one and the easy win on a rep who was not ready for a technical conversation.
What we build
An agent that reads every inbound RFQ, asks the qualifying questions your own reps would ask, quantity, application, target date, whether a drawing exists, and answers spec-sheet and lead-time FAQ straight from your catalog and production calendar. It never guesses at a lead time it cannot verify, and it never improvises a custom price.
Every qualified RFQ gets written to your CRM with the full conversation attached, scored by the criteria your sales team actually uses, so a rep opens a lead already knowing what the buyer needs instead of starting the qualifying conversation from zero. Typical integrations: your site chat and RFQ form, WhatsApp or Telegram for export buyers, HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive for the CRM write-up, and your ERP’s API for live lead-time data where one exists.
For manufacturers running several product lines with different lead times and minimum order quantities, the agent routes by line, so a buyer asking about a long-lead custom part gets a different qualification path than one asking about a stock item that ships this week.
What stays with humans
Every custom price, discount, contract term and technical judgment call about whether your process can actually meet a buyer’s spec stays with your sales engineers, by design. The agent’s job ends at qualification and routing: it collects the facts a rep needs and gets out of the way before the real negotiation starts. A borderline technical question the agent cannot answer from the catalog is routed immediately, with the context attached, rather than guessed at.
Price and timeline
| Model | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Agency runs it | from $2,200 | We build, launch, host and tune the agent; you send us catalog and lead-time updates as they change |
| Full control, handover-ready | from $3,740 | Same build, full source code and credentials transferred to your team, documentation included, paid edits available as an option |
Both run on the same 3 to 5 week build. Running cost is separate, usually $30 to $200 a month in model usage depending on RFQ volume, with a hard budget cap set before launch.
Related
Pair this with a lighter Telegram bot for B2B manufacturers if RFQ intake alone fits your line better right now, or a CRM and lead-routing build for B2B manufacturers if the bottleneck is what happens to a qualified lead after intake. See the full package breakdown on the AI agents service page. A closely related sales-outreach and inbox-agent build for a certification body is detailed in the B2B certification AI sales agent case study, and the production-data side of a manufacturer’s systems is covered in the factory ERP recovery case study. Get a written plan with a fixed price for your plant.
FAQ
How much does an AI agent for a B2B manufacturer cost?
Our Assistant package starts at $2,200: RFQ intake, spec and lead-time FAQ, lead scoring, CRM write-up, hand-off to a sales engineer, live in 3 to 5 weeks. A lighter Telegram intake bot alone starts at $900.
Does it quote prices or negotiate terms?
No. It can share a published price list or a standard lead time if you have one, but any custom quote, discount or contract term is routed to a sales engineer. That line is fixed in the playbook before launch, not left to the agent's judgment.
How does it know a serious RFQ from a tire-kicker?
From the same questions your own reps would ask: quantity, application, timeline, and whether the buyer has a drawing or spec sheet ready. We build the scoring rules with your sales team from real RFQs you've handled before, not a generic lead-scoring template.
Which channels does it run on?
Your site chat and an RFQ form, plus WhatsApp or Telegram if a meaningful share of your buyers already reach out that way, which is common with export buyers in different time zones.
Does it connect to our CRM and ERP?
We integrate with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a custom CRM through its API, and read stock or lead-time data from your ERP where an API or reliable export exists. We have rebuilt a factory ERP from a lost cloud account before, so we are comfortable working with imperfect source systems too.