How to write an RFP for your mobile app platform (+ free sample template)

You've planned your mobile app platform. Check. Done your research into buying or building. Check. Settled on outsourcing the project to an agency or SaaS company. Check. Now it's time to inform your shortlisted software development companies that you're looking for a partnership with a Request for Proposal (RFP) document.

Over the past decade, we’ve received and responded to hundreds of RFPs. So to help you out, we've compiled our knowledge into this article. We've also hooked you up with a sample RFP template, based on some of the strongest RFPs we've seen. Using this will boost the interest (and potential responses) you'll get for your guest experience project by helping potential vendors deeply understand your needs.

But first things first, what’s the point of the RFP process?

Why do you need to write an RFP?

Writing an RFP is a vital step in the procurement process. It helps you clarify your project requirements and ensure a fair and consistent selection. 

For many companies, it’s often policy to write RFPs for new projects. This is because they: 

• Ensure consistency. RFPs provide a structured format for evaluating and comparing proposals from different vendors, helping you standardise your review process.
• Maintain compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. An RFP can serve as the foundation for your legal contracts with vendors. The document specifies the terms and conditions along with other important contractual elements, keeping you in line with industry compliance.‍
• Mitigate risks. By specifying your requirements and expectations, the RFP helps you reduce the risk of misunderstandings or disputes during the project. It provides a clear reference point for addressing any issues that may come up.

What should you include in your RFP?

When it comes to proposal documents, the more detail, the better. You'll need to break down your core functionality, as well as all the smaller components that will make your mobile app platform delightful to use for both your guests and operators.

If you've ever worked with freelancers, you'll know that nailing the brief is crucial to achieving your intended outcomes. RFPs are no different. Potential responders will want to know all the details before they engage with your proposal.

Strong RFPs have:

• A quick summary of the scope of work to help vendors gauge right off the bat whether it's something they can help with.
• An introduction to your attraction and its history. Context is key to helping partners understand your needs, so be sure to include things like annual attendance, whether your attraction is primarily indoors or outdoors, your target demographic etc.
• An overall goal for the guest experience project. What should the platform achieve to be a success for you?
• Key submission requirements. If there's anything that potential bidders need to include, make sure you list them here. This might include references to previous work, price proposals, or required signatures from stakeholders who are authorised to commit to the bidding.
• An estimated procurement and project timetable. Start with your end in mind. Work out your desired launch date, and then work backwards to create a timeline that works within your time restraints.
• A full breakdown of the scope, required and desired features. Here's where you go into detail about how your mobile app platform will function on a practical level.
• What's out of the scope of work? List out your exclusions like the creation of brand images, fonts, text etc that aren't included in the project work.
• Your weighting in the selection process. For example, you might list criteria like price, the ability to meet project requirements, past relevant experience and assign them each a number between one and three. One being important, and three being essential.

If you're unsure how to lay out all these components in your RFP, check out the sample template at the bottom of this article. 

With your overview done, it's time to look at writing up your requirements in more detail.

Writing up your feature set

It’s time to outline. Some of these might seem like little details, but they play a significant role in the number of proposals you'll attract. So, it's important to nail them down. Let's start by crafting your core functionality.

Key functionality

You probably already have detailed feature requirements that align with your organisational goals. We’d recommend breaking these features down into your must-haves, and your nice-to-haves.

Your must-have features might include:

• Ticketing. Going paperless? A mobile wallet enables your guests to purchase, import and view their tickets directly in your platform.
• Digital maps and interactive wayfinding. Help your guests find the fastest route to any of your attractions with just a few taps.
• Content management systems. Rolling out content updates with an intuitive UI is frustrating. Having a sophisticated CMS ensures your content is updated in real-time.
• Itinerary planners. There are only so many hours in a day. With an itinerary planner, your guests can tailor their day out to their preferences, ensuring they don't miss out on rides or shows. 
• Push notifications. Target your guests with promotions and offers to drive spending and increase engagement.

Your desired features might include:

• Virtual queuing systems. Increasing ride throughput might be on your goal list, and a virtual queuing system can help you do it by minimising wait times and freeing up guests to explore.
• Mobile food ordering. You don’t want to leave your guests feeling hungry. Mobile food ordering creates more time for adventures by freeing guests from long lunchtime queues.‍
• Hotel check-in. You might have accommodation on site, and so you want to allow guests to check in directly from your mobile app and view their reservation from their digital wallet.

Integrations

Arguably, integrations are the most critical technical specification you should include in your RFP – and it’s important to include this information for each technology you use, such as ticketing, CMS, F&B, etc. 

It's gold dust for helping software developers understand the amount of work involved in your project. This is because if there's a strong set of well-documented APIs available for your chosen provider to work with, it'll make everything that much easier. And by easier, we mean you'll remove roadblocks in your project, reduce delays, and minimise the possibility of siloed data.

Accessibility

Now it’s time to shift your focus from your functionality to your user. Consider whether your mobile app platform will support:

• Multiple Languages. Do you attract visitors from overseas? When you're reaching out to a global audience, you’ll want to offer a language selection most commonly spoken by your visitor demographics. To ensure inclusivity, consider language selection and translation capabilities.
• Less mobile guests. In the UK, around 43% of working-age adults have some sort of mobility issue. So, it's a good idea to think about how your mobile app platform makes things easier for those who may not be as mobile. One simple way to do this could be by including a wayfinding feature that helps folks avoid uneven terrain. This also helps young families with prams.
• Visual impairments. Over 2 million people in the UK suffer from some form of sight loss. What settings will your platform have to help them out? This could range from the ability to change font sizes, all the way up to sophisticated talkback functionality.

Over-the-air updates

Think of your park as a living ecosystem that's always evolving. Now, imagine you want to tweak your content. Can you do it without going through the hassle of an App Store or other software update?

This might sound challenging, but it can seriously level up the guest experience. With the Attractions.io platform, we deliver updates seamlessly over-the-air. So, when a guest opens the platform, there aren't any annoying updates causing roadblocks.

Hardware limitations

Sometimes during development, it's easy to forget the device that your mobile app platform will run on. And those devices have their limitations. Think about:

• Battery life. Be sure to ask your vendor to detail how they will maximise battery life and ensure the experience isn't cut short due to unnecessary drain.
• Offline capability. Do you have perfect Wi-Fi that covers every inch of your park with high bandwidth? Probably not. So, think about how your solution will react when the net goes down. Will it become unusable? Will your map go from a beautiful illustration to a black square?
• Data usage. How much data will it transfer while it's being used? If the answer is high, it's going to strain your Wi-Fi networks or eat up a guest's mobile data.

Great RFPs make great products

These considerations provide critical information to a potential partner reading your RFP. So, if we had to boil down our advice into three words, it would be: clear, concise, and comprehensive. Your RFP should clearly state what you're looking for, get to the point in each section, and cover all the necessary technical requirements in good detail.

If you're not feeling completely confident with your RFP, you might consider bringing a consultant in to help get the right requirements down for a provider. But, if that doesn't feel right for you, we've provided a sample template to build your information around. Download your copy here.