Query raised in March, still open in September
Your analyst found a wrong standing charge on a client's bills and raised a query with the supplier in the spring. The supplier acknowledged it with a reference. A month later, a different team replied asking for a copy of the contract, with a new reference. Then nothing. The analyst who raised it has since moved to another client.
In September, the client asks whether the credit ever came through. Nobody can say without reading through six months of emails.
Why supplier queries go quiet
Billing queries are slow by nature, and the process at the supplier's end involves handoffs. On the consultancy side, they are tracked less carefully than new business.
- Queries are raised by email from individual analysts.
- Suppliers issue new reference numbers as queries move between teams.
- Responses arrive in shared or personal inboxes.
- There is no routine for chasing queries that have gone quiet.
- Credits promised are not checked against later bills.
Money left on the table
A query that goes quiet often means a credit never received. The client paid for an error and was never refunded, and the consultancy's work to spot it counted for nothing.
Clients notice when the same issue appears on bill after bill. They also notice when their consultant cannot tell them the status of a query. And analysts spend time rebuilding the history of a query instead of resolving it.
There is a management blind spot as well. Without a list of open queries, nobody can see how many are waiting on each supplier, which clients have the most outstanding, or whether a particular supplier's queries routinely stall at the same stage. Those are useful facts in a supplier relationship meeting, and they are usually missing.
A query tracker from first email to credit
We build a supplier query tracker linked to your bill validation.
- Each query is created against the client, meter and bills affected, with the issue and the amount in question as your analyst has worked it out.
- The query is sent to the supplier from the tracker, using the supplier's preferred address or portal, and a copy is kept.
- Replies are matched to the query from the inbox, including replies with new reference numbers, using the meter, account and bill details. Uncertain matches go to a person.
- Every supplier reference is kept against the query, so the history is in one place.
- Queries without a reply are chased after an interval you set, then escalated.
- When a supplier agrees a credit, it is recorded, and later bills are checked to confirm the credit appears. If it does not, the query is reopened.
| Emails and spreadsheet | Query tracker | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the query lives | An analyst's inbox | Against the client and meter |
| Supplier references | Scattered | All kept on the query |
| Chasing | When remembered | On a schedule |
| Credit promised | Assumed received | Checked against later bills |
| Client asks for status | Search and reconstruct | Current status on screen |
The tracker records what was raised and what happened. Whether to escalate further, and how, remain decisions for your consultancy and the client.
Queries that reach an outcome
Every open query is on a board by client and age. The ones that have gone quiet are chased automatically. When a credit is agreed, the next bill is checked for it. When an analyst moves to another client, their queries stay visible and move with the client.
In reviews, you can show clients every query raised on their behalf, the status and the credits received, which is a clear record of value.
Are supplier queries disappearing?
- Queries are tracked in analysts' inboxes.
- You cannot quickly list open queries for a client.
- Suppliers' reference numbers change and are lost.
- Promised credits are not checked on later bills.
- Queries go quiet when analysts move on.