A cosmetics company in Northern Italy needed packaging suppliers for a new product line. The procurement manager had a list of 200 potential vendors across five European countries. Using the traditional approach — email, phone, follow-up — the process would take three to four weeks. Using One-Shot, it took an afternoon.

This is how AI voice transforms supplier qualification from a multi-week project into a same-day operation.

The Problem: Too Many Vendors, Not Enough Time

Every company that sources materials, components, or services faces the same bottleneck: the gap between having a list of potential suppliers and knowing which ones can actually deliver what you need.

The list is the easy part. Directories, trade fair contacts, Google searches, industry databases — finding 200 potential vendors for packaging, raw materials, or logistics services is straightforward.

The hard part is qualifying them. Can they supply the quantity you need? At what price? With what lead time? Are they interested in a new customer?

Answering these questions for 200 suppliers means 200 phone calls, each taking 3–5 minutes of conversation plus 5–10 minutes of dialling, waiting, redialling, and note-taking. At 15 minutes per contact, that is 50 hours of work — roughly six full working days, spread over two to three weeks.

For an SME with a two-person commercial team that also handles sales, customer service, and existing supplier relationships, dedicating 50 hours to a single procurement search is simply not feasible.

The result: most companies contact 20–30 suppliers instead of 200. They settle for the first acceptable option rather than the best one. They overpay because they did not survey the market broadly enough.

How One-Shot Works

One-Shot is a single-use AI voice campaign with no subscription, no onboarding, and no long-term commitment. You describe what you need, provide a list of contacts, and the AI calls every one of them.

Step 1: Create the Brief

You tell the AI what you are looking for in plain language. For example:

"We are looking for suppliers of recyclable glass packaging for cosmetics, specifically 50ml and 100ml bottles with pump dispensers. We need a minimum order of 5,000 units, delivered to Northern Italy. We would like to know price per unit, minimum order quantity, lead time, and whether they offer custom printing."

The system converts this into a structured call script.

Step 2: Upload Your Supplier List

Upload a CSV with supplier names and phone numbers. The list can come from any source: an industry directory, a trade fair scan, a Google Maps export, your existing database, or a combination. Minimum required: company name and phone number.

Step 3: Configure and Launch

Review the AI-generated script. Adjust if needed. Set calling hours (the system respects business hours per timezone). Launch.

Step 4: The AI Calls

Each call follows a standard flow:

Opening: "Good morning, this is an AI assistant calling on behalf of [Your Company]. We are sourcing [product description] and would like to know if this is something you can provide. Do you have a moment?"

Qualification: The agent asks the specific questions from your brief — price range, MOQ, lead time, availability, custom options.

If interested: "Thank you. I will pass your details to our procurement team, and they will follow up with a formal request for quotation. Is this the best number to reach you?"

If not available: "Understood. Thank you for your time."

Each call takes 2–4 minutes. The AI handles objections, navigates receptionists, and adapts to different response styles. If it reaches voicemail, it logs the attempt and retries later.

Step 5: Review Results

Within hours, you have a structured report — outcome per contact, data captured, full transcripts, summary statistics. Exportable as CSV for your ERP, procurement platform, or spreadsheet.

A Concrete Example

Company: Italian cosmetics manufacturer, 25 employees, expanding into sustainable packaging.

Need: Recyclable glass bottles (50ml and 100ml) with pump dispensers, custom printing, MOQ 5,000, delivered to Emilia-Romagna.

Supplier list: 200 packaging manufacturers across Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and Poland. Sourced from Europages directory and Cosmoprof trade fair contacts.

Campaign launch: Tuesday 9:00 AM.

Results by Tuesday 1:00 PM:

200 calls attempted
136 conversations completed (68% contact rate)
41 suppliers expressed interest and capability
12 offered to send a formal quote immediately
18 asked for a follow-up call with the procurement team
11 were potentially interested but needed more details
95 were not able to supply (wrong product, no capacity, not interested)
64 unreachable — flagged for retry

Time elapsed: 4 hours. Cost: 200 contacts × €0.70 average = €140 total. Manual equivalent: €50/hour × 50 hours = €2,500 plus 2–3 weeks elapsed time.

Outcome: The procurement team spends two days following up with 41 interested suppliers, collecting formal quotes from 12, and scheduling calls with 18 more. By the following Monday, they have 20+ comparable quotes — a broader market survey than they have ever conducted for a single procurement search.

What You Receive

Structured data per contact:

Call outcome: interested, not available, no answer, wrong number, callback requested
Key data captured: price range, lead time, MOQ, custom capabilities, willingness to send formal quote
Timestamp and call duration

Full transcripts: Every conversation transcribed and searchable. If a supplier said something nuanced — "We can do 50ml but not 100ml" or "Lead time is normally 8 weeks but we could expedite for a first order" — it is in the transcript.

Summary report: Contact rate, interest rate, common data patterns across all calls (e.g., "Most suppliers quoted €1.20–€1.80 per unit, with lead times of 6–10 weeks").

CSV export: All data in a flat file, ready for import into your ERP or spreadsheet.

Pricing: Per Contact, No Subscription

Destination	Cost per Contact
EU (Italy, Germany, France, Spain, etc.)	€0.50 – €0.80
UK	€0.60 – €0.90
USA / Canada	€0.50 – €0.70
Other markets	€0.70 – €1.00

No subscription, no setup fee, no minimum volume. A campaign of 50 contacts costs €25–€40. A campaign of 500 contacts costs €250–€400.

For comparison: one hour of a procurement specialist's time costs €40–€60 fully loaded. One-Shot delivers the equivalent of 50+ hours of phone work for the price of a few hours.

When to Use One-Shot vs. a Subscription

Use One-Shot when:

You have a specific, one-time procurement need
You want to survey a market before committing to a supplier
You need quotes for a tender or RFP
You are entering a new market or product category
You want to validate a supplier list before investing in deeper relationships

Use a subscription when:

You run ongoing outbound campaigns (lead qualification, renewals, customer outreach)
Procurement is a continuous function (monthly or weekly sourcing cycles)
You want persistent AI agent configurations with iterative improvement over time

How to Get Started

Prepare your supplier list. CSV with company name and phone number. If you have a contact name, add it — the AI will ask for the relevant person if a receptionist answers.
Describe what you need. In plain language. The more specific the brief, the better the qualification questions.
Upload and launch. The system generates the script, you review and adjust, then launch. From upload to first call: under 15 minutes.
Review results. Within hours, a structured report with every outcome, every data point, every transcript.
Follow up with qualified suppliers. Your team contacts interested vendors with full context — no cold introductions, no wasted calls to unqualified suppliers.

How Agoralia's One-Shot Works

Agoralia handles the entire workflow: brief creation, script generation, AI calling in 30+ languages, data capture, and report delivery. The AI adapts to each supplier's language automatically and handles compliance (AI disclosure, calling hours, DNC screening) per country.

See One-Shot pricing → | Learn about voice agents →

The Real Cost of Not Surveying the Market

Companies do not overpay because they choose bad suppliers. They overpay because they do not evaluate enough suppliers. When your procurement search covers 20 vendors instead of 200, you are making decisions based on a 10% sample of the available market.

One-Shot makes the full market survey economically viable for the first time. At €0.50–€1.00 per contact, there is no reason to settle for a narrow search. The supplier who offers 20% lower pricing, faster delivery, or better terms might be contact number 187 on your list — the one you would never have reached manually.

For a broader analysis of AI procurement economics, see: AI Procurement: Why 97% of SMEs Overpay for Supplier Research.

Sources: Deloitte Global CPO Survey; McKinsey Procurement Automation Report; Hackett Group SME Procurement Benchmarks.