Questions that reveal how they work
Ask: Can you walk me through a recent project from kickoff to launch, including who was involved at each stage and what was the hardest decision you made? A supplier with a real process answers concretely, names the constraint they were working within, and explains what they changed as a result.
Ask: How do you handle a subject matter expert who has not done the agreed review by a milestone date? Ask: What happens when the client asks for changes after sign-off?
Ask: How do you decide what to escalate and what to resolve yourself? These questions separate a managed delivery process from a series of improvised negotiations.
Ask: What proportion of your work is custom from scratch, what proportion is adaptation or rebranding of existing content, and how do you price each? The question is uncomfortable, and the answer is very informative, because it tells you where the real depth of their expertise sits.
Questions about the team you will actually get
Ask: Who are the named individuals on my project, what does each own, and what is their current workload? Ask: Are these commitments contractual, and what happens if someone must be replaced? Ask: Which parts of my project will be delivered by subcontractors or freelancers, and who manages them?
Ask: Who at your company is my day-to-day contact, and what is their role in escalation? Ask: How many clients does this person support? An answer of a vague number, or the fact that your contact is also the account director and a senior producer on two other projects, is useful information.
Ask: What is the supplier's retention profile and how do they onboard new team members onto a live project? On a project that runs for many months, the mid-project arrival of someone who has never seen the context is a real risk to consistency.
Questions about quality and accessibility
Ask: What quality assurance steps sit between a draft and a launch-ready build, and who signs off on each? Ask: Do you test the finished course in the target learning management system and on the devices my learners use? Ask: Can you show a recent accessibility conformance report for a similar deliverable?
Ask: How do you handle captions, transcripts, and audio description, and are these produced by your team or subcontracted? Ask: How do you test screen reader behaviour for interactive elements, and how do you deal with learners who need a non-standard route through the material?
Ask for a sample of your own written quality standard, and for the check that most often fails at your organisation. A supplier that names a common failure honestly is showing you a process that is actually applied.
Questions about technology and interoperability
Ask: Which authoring tools do you use day to day, and what output formats do you deliver as standard? Ask: Can you produce SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004 and xAPI packages, and have you tested those in my named platforms? Ask: What happens if my learning management system is replaced in two years?
Ask: Do you deliver editable source files, and in what format? Ask: What assets do I own outright, and are fonts, music, stock footage and third-party templates licensed in a way that lets me keep using them after the engagement ends? Ask: How do you name and version files, and will my team be able to update the content without calling you?
Ask: How do you handle content that must meet a specific standard, such as SCORM 2004 sequencing for compliance pathways, or xAPI event schemas for a particular learning record. Detail here is a good proxy for experience.
Questions about commercials and risk
Ask: What is included in the price, and what is explicitly excluded? Ask: What triggers a change request and how is it priced?
Ask: How many review rounds are included at each stage, and what happens when we exceed them? Ask: What is the payment schedule, and is any part of it held back until acceptance criteria are met?
Ask: Who owns the intellectual property, and when does it transfer? Ask: Do you retain any rights to reuse my content, my templates, or a de-identified version of my structure? Ask: What are your liability terms for defects, and what remediation do you commit to after launch?
Ask: What happens to my content and my access to source files if we end the relationship, and how long do you keep files after that? Ask: How do you handle a breach of deadline, and what remedies apply. Our guide on how to assess content quality before full production explains how to test quality early, and our guide on comparing enterprise content production proposals shows how to turn these answers into a scored comparison.
Commonly overlooked pitfalls
- Asking only about capability and never about process, which leaves the operational risk unexamined.
- Accepting a named team without confirming that the commitment is contractual.
- Failing to ask what is excluded from the price, and then discovering it in the first invoice.
- Omitting questions about asset licensing and post-engagement rights, which quietly constrain future use.
- Letting a single enthusiastic sales contact answer questions that should have gone to the delivery team.
Next steps
- Send the questionnaire in writing at least a week before any demonstration, so answers are considered.
- Request written answers to commercial and intellectual property questions as an attachment to the proposal.
- Schedule a separate session with the proposed delivery team rather than only with the account contact.
- Add an acceptance-criteria section to the contract that references the quality standard the supplier shared.
- Schedule a reference call with a client whose engagement resembles yours in scale and constraints.
Related guides
Put this into practice
The vendor evaluation checklist and the RFP template turn a guide into a process you can run this week.