Draft the customer proposal

By the end of this task, you will be able to build a proposal around a customer's stated needs and measurable value, grounded well enough to survive procurement review.

Your situation

This is the document Lidia Holloway asked for. Everything from Tasks 1–6 feeds it: the account position, the numbers, the competitive benchmark, the site-level finding.

You are proposing four things, all services Tailwind does not currently buy, priced against a volume band they are about to cross.

Files you'll use

How to read the prompts

Each prompt below is one block you can copy whole. The # lines are labels, not instructions — they mark where the prompt stops setting the goal and starts giving the context, the sources, and the expectations. Copying them along with the prompt does no harm.

Those four moves, in that order, are what makes a prompt work. Use the same shape when you write your own.

Steps

1. Open Word and create a new document. Attach the service catalogue and your earlier outputs.

2. Ask Copilot to draft the proposal.

   goal

   Draft a customer proposal for Tailwind Traders for their March pricing review.

   context

   They ship about 304,000 parcels a year across five distribution centres and are approaching the next volume band at 320,000. Their stated requirement is 95% on-time delivery and we came in under it last year - use the average you verified against the workbook in Task 2, not the figure in the account notes. Procurement asked for a written proposal with a competitive benchmark.

   sources

   Use the attached service catalogue, competitive brief, branch analysis, and executive brief, and nothing else.

   expectations

   Sections for the executive summary, what you told us, what the data shows, what we propose, what it is worth, how we would implement it, and next steps. Open by naming the service shortfall rather than thanking them for their business, and keep every claim traceable to one of the attached files.

3. Build the commercial case properly. This is the section procurement will read twice.

   goal

   Write the commercial section using the three-number structure from the service catalogue.

   context

   Annual volume is 304,090 parcels and they sit in Band 3, with Band 4 beginning at 320,000. The four services proposed are Return Services extended to Alberta, British Columbia, and New Brunswick, Managed Account Reporting, Peak Season Planning, and a Service Recovery Plan.

   sources

   Use the pricing logic and rates in the attached service catalogue.

   expectations

   Show current state cost, proposed state cost, and the offsetting value in that order. Follow the catalogue’s rule about not quoting a band the customer has not reached - model it as a projection and label it clearly - and show the arithmetic so procurement can check it.

4. Now handle the uncomfortable part. A proposal that skips the service failure will not be believed.

   goal

   Write the section that addresses our own service performance.

   context

   We came in under their 95% on-time requirement - use the average you verified in Task 2 - one site was below target every month of the year, we have not established a root cause, and we committed to give them findings by the end of February.

   sources

   Use the branch analysis and the account notes.

   expectations

   State the shortfall in the customer’s own measure, describe the site-level pattern without claiming a cause, and name what we are doing about it and by when. No hedging and no passive voice hiding who is responsible. Under 200 words.

5. Check it the way procurement will.

   goal

   Review this proposal as a sceptical procurement manager.

   context

   Lidia Holloway runs the review, has asked for a benchmark twice without getting one, and will verify what she can.

   sources

   Use the proposal in this document.

   expectations

   List every claim she could challenge and whether the document supports it, flag any number that appears without a source, and name the weakest paragraph and why. Do not fix anything yet - just find the problems.

6. Apply the fixes, then ask for a final consistency pass.

   goal

   Check this proposal for internal consistency.

   context

   It was drafted in several passes, so numbers may have drifted between sections.

   sources

   Use the proposal in this document.

   expectations

   List every figure that appears more than once and confirm it matches in each place, flag any claim in the executive summary that is not supported later in the document, and confirm the next steps have owners and dates.

7. Save the proposal. Together with your Task 4 deck and Task 6 email, you now have the complete package for the review.

Check your work

• The executive summary names the shortfall in the first paragraph.
• Every figure traces to a source file.
• The Band 4 rate is presented as a projection, clearly labelled.
• No root cause is asserted for the site-level problem.
• Next steps have named owners and real dates.
• The arithmetic in the commercial section can be checked by hand.

Stretch prompts

Starting out:

Draft a customer proposal using the attached files with an
executive summary, customer need, proposed solution, business
value, and next steps.

Comfortable:

Write the one-page version of this proposal for the VP Supply
Chain, and keep the full version for procurement. Tell me
which three facts had to survive the cut and why.

Confident:

Rewrite the executive summary three ways: leading with the
service failure, leading with the growth, and leading with
the competitive risk. Tell me which one you would send to
this specific customer and what each version costs me.