Market engagement
Interview the market. Don't survey it.
Soundings holds a real interview with every supplier you invite, by voice or by typing, and turns what they say into findings you can act on.
- Built for UK councils
- Data stored in the UK
- Nothing anyone says is scored
A questionnaire
A Soundings interview
A questionnaire: Knows nothing about who is answering
A Soundings interview: Knows your brief, and the firm it's talking to
A questionnaire: Takes the first answer and moves on
A Soundings interview: Follows up until the answer is clear
A questionnaire: A misread question comes back blank
A Soundings interview: Asks again, another way
How it works
You ask the question. We do the legwork.
A sounding is a short round of conversations with the market about one thing you need to know.
Say what you want to know
Describe it in a few sentences and add any documents you already have. Soundings drafts the questions for you to check, change or throw out.
Every supplier is interviewed
We invite the right firms, from our panel of UK suppliers or from your own list. Our AI interviewer spends about 15 minutes with each, by voice or by typing, following up where an answer is thin.
Read what the market told you
Findings arrive organised by the things you set out to learn. Every figure opens the answers behind it, and you can ask follow-up questions in plain English.
Why it helps
Better evidence, for less effort.
Talking to the market early is how you end up with a tender it can actually deliver. Soundings makes that quick enough to do every time.
Hear from many, not a few
A supplier day hears from the firms that can spare someone for a morning. A conversation that fits around the working day reaches small and local firms too.
Answers people wouldn't give in the room
Nobody is scored, nobody speaks in front of a competitor, and quotes are anonymous. So suppliers tell you what they actually think.
Weeks, not months
An afternoon to set up and about two weeks to hear back. No agency to brief, no event to organise, no diaries to line up.
Fair to every supplier
Every firm gets the same core questions and the same information, and nothing you haven't published is given away. That is what the Procurement Act asks of market engagement.
Evidence you can stand behind
Every number links to the answers it came from, and every time someone reads a transcript it is logged. If a decision is challenged, the record is already there.
No research team needed
Soundings drafts the questions, runs the conversations and writes up the findings. You check the work, make the decisions and share the results.
What it replaces
Not just the questionnaire.
Every way of asking the market trades depth against reach. Soundings gives you the depth of an interview with every firm you invite.
One-to-one meetings
Deep, but you can only hold a few, and they go to the firms you already know.
The supplier day
A handful of firms in one room. The incumbent asks most of the questions, and nobody says what they think in front of a competitor.
The questionnaire
Reaches everyone, but takes the first answer. A few come back, some of them boilerplate.
- One-to-one meetings
- Supplier day
- Questionnaire
- Soundings
How many firms you hear from
When to use it
Whenever the market knows something you don't.
Commissioners, category managers and procurement teams run soundings themselves. No research background needed.
Before a contract ends
Find out who would bid next time, and what put people off last time.
Before you decide the lots
Ask the market where the lines should go while you can still move them.
Before you try something new
Check that someone can deliver it, at the shape and scale you have in mind.
After a tender gets few bids
Find out the real reason. It is rarely the one in the debrief.
Not only for procurement. A policy team testing a proposal, or a trade body finding out what its members think, has a market and a question too. Tell us yours.
Fair by design
Built for the rules on market engagement.
The Procurement Act 2023 lets you talk to the market before a tender, as long as no supplier gains an unfair advantage. Soundings keeps that true, and keeps the evidence.
Whether to publish a preliminary market engagement notice stays your decision and your legal team's. How the record is kept.
The same questions for everyone
Every firm is asked the same core questions and given the same information. Only the follow-ups differ, and they go where each answer leads.
Nothing you haven't published
Tell Soundings what is off limits, such as the budget, the scoring or the incumbent, and the interviewer will neither confirm nor deny it.
Nobody is scored
No supplier is rated, ranked or shortlisted, and nothing said is attached to a bid. Every conversation opens by saying so.
A record you can produce
Every quote traces back to the moment it was said, and every time a transcript is opened it is written to a log that cannot be edited.
For suppliers
Invited to a conversation?
A council or another organisation wants to hear from firms like yours before it decides. Here is what we promise you.
- Nothing you say is scored or graded.
- Nothing confidential is disclosed to you, and anything you mark confidential is never quoted.
- If you are quoted, it is anonymous: your role and company size, never your name.
- You are never paid to take part, and taking part never affects a bid.
Questions
The ones we hear most.
If yours is not here, ask it. We would rather answer it now than halfway through a procurement.
- Is the interviewer a person?
- No. It is an AI interviewer that works through your questions and asks a follow-up when an answer opens something up. Every supplier is told this before they start, on the invitation screen.
- How is this different from a survey?
- A survey asks fixed questions once and takes whatever comes back. Soundings interviews each supplier: it knows your brief and the firm, follows up when an answer is thin, and asks again, another way, when a question was not really answered. Suppliers can talk rather than type, which is how most people say the useful part.
- Does every supplier get the same questions?
- Yes. Every firm is asked the same core questions and given the same information, which is what fair market engagement requires. Only the follow-ups differ, because they go where each answer leads, and the interviewer does not ask for facts it already has, such as a firm's size.
- What does a supplier see?
- Who is asking, what about, how long it takes and what we promise them. Nothing about the other suppliers, and nothing about the procurement you haven't already published.
- Can a supplier keep something off the record?
- Yes. Anything they mark confidential still counts towards the findings but is never quoted. Quotes that are used show a role and a company size, never a name.
- Who can read the transcripts?
- The people on your own team you give access to. Every time a transcript is opened it is logged, with who and when. Our staff can only look inside your workspace for support, after someone at your organisation agrees, and that visit appears in your own log.
- How long does it take?
- An afternoon to set up and about two weeks to hear back. Each conversation takes a supplier around 15 minutes, by voice or by typing.
- Where is the data kept?
- In the UK, in London. While a conversation is happening, what has been said so far is sent to AI providers outside the UK so the interviewer can reply; nothing is stored there by us. Every provider is named on the security and data page.
Safe with your data
Security and data- UK
- Everything we keep is stored in London
- Logged
- Every time a transcript is read, in a log nobody can edit
- Separate
- Each organisation's data walled off in the database itself
- WCAG 2.2 AA
- Accessible throughout, on a phone as well as a desk
Ready to interview your market?
Tell us what you want to know. We will show you a finished sounding from start to end, and run your first one with you.