Stumbled on a stat about RFI delays that stopped me cold

I was digging through project reports from a 60-unit multifamily job in Denver we wrapped up in March. I wanted to see where our biggest time losses were. Turns out, the average RFI took 11 days to get a response on that site. That floored me because we track everything in Procore and I thought we were on top of it. A buddy of mine who runs a GC firm in Phoenix told me his standard is 3 days max, and he uses automated reminders through their software to enforce it. Now I'm thinking we need to set up some kind of escalation rule in our system so nothing sits that long. Has anyone else flagged their own RFI response times and found similar numbers?

3 comments

3 Comments

matthewmartin6d ago

Is 11 days really the norm for most crews, or are we just slacking? I've seen smaller jobs where RFIs sit for two weeks and nobody blinks, so maybe it depends on the team. Setting up an auto-escalation rule sounds like a solid move to tighten things up.

jana_hart185d ago

But does a two week wait actually hurt anything or is it just people in the office getting nervous? I've seen crews where the RFI sits that long because the field guys already know what to do and they're just waiting on paperwork. The auto escalation just ends up bugging the same people who already have their hands full. So what's the real goal here, getting answers or just making sure nobody forgets to close out a form?

river_allen6d agoTop Commenter

Nah, I gotta push back on the "tightening things up" idea. That phrase assumes every crew needs to move faster when sometimes the pause is the whole point. 11 days is nothing if the RFI is sitting because the super actually read it and decided it wasn't worth burning a week of everyone's time. Auto escalation just adds noise, not solutions. Most of these rules exist because someone got yelled at once, not because they help the actual work get done better.