1up analyzed more than 5,000 real compliance questions from anonymized and sanitized set of questionnaires. Here’s what we learned.

Few lines strike fear into a sales team’s heart like, “Please complete the attached questionnaire.”

Even worse: you open the document and find, instead of a few boxes to check, 187 questions. Oh, and half of those questions look like a sadistic lawyer-turned-cybersecurity-professor has crafted them. 

In a post-GDPR, post-remote-work world, compliance has gone from an afterthought to a make-or-break deal factor. And for good reason: the average data breach costs millions of dollars. 

Yes. Buyers want to know you won’t blow up their risk profile just by logging in. 

But here’s the little secret: you don’t have to be perfect to win the deal. You just have to be prepared. Most of the time, buyers are looking for reassurance. You can offer them that with proper documentation and evidence that you take compliance seriously. 

When it comes to compliance, buyers aren’t just being picky. They’re protecting their business, reputation, and customer data. 

These questions might seem like hurdles, but they’re actually invitations to build trust. Each one is an opportunity to demonstrate your company’s maturity, transparency, and readiness to partner with enterprise-level clients. 

Here, we’ll break down five of the most common compliance-related RFP questions that cause deals to stall. And we’ll offer you tips on how to respond. 

Before we dive into the questions, we’ll do a breakdown of the five most common categories of compliance-related questions, ranked by how frequently they appear. This insight can help your team focus on what matters most and prepare faster, with fewer surprises:

1. What industry-recognized certifications related to security and compliance does your solution or hosting environment have (e.g., SOC 1/2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI-DSS)?

This is the buyer’s way of asking, “Do other smart, careful people trust you?” Certifications are third-party gold stars. If you’ve got them, buyers breathe easier knowing someone already poked at your system and didn’t find a compliance hornet’s nest. 

How to Respond: List your certifications clearly and accurately.

Your breakdown might look like this: 

• SOC 2 Type II (internal systems)
• ISO 27001 (global information security)
• PCI-DSS (if you handle payment data)
• HIPAA (if you’re touching any healthcare info)

And if you’re still working on getting your certifications, just say so. Don’t fudge the truth. Saying “In progress” is perfectly fine. 

If you’re leveraging your cloud provider’s compliance (hello AWS), just say that, too. Be clear on your shared responsibility model. AWS may be certified, but it’s not watching your app for vulnerabilities while you sleep. That’s your job. 

Pro Tip: They’ll give you bonus points for attaching your actual SOC 2 Report.

2. Does your solution comply with relevant data privacy and protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA)? Please provide documentation or attestation.

Buyers don’t want to explain to regulators why their vendor accidentally emailed 10,000 customer records to someone named “Dave in Accounting.” If you’re handling personal data, your clients need to know you’re respecting the rules of the data privacy game. 

How to Respond: Be specific and give examples. 

That could look like this: 

• “We comply with GDPR and offer Standard Contractual Clauses for EU data transfers.” 
• “HIPAA-compliant hosting with encryption at rest and in transit.” 
• “We provide DPAs on request and support subject rights requests.” 

Most importantly, don’t just say, “yes.” Show your homework and be specific.

Pro Tip: Throw in a nicely formatted GDPR compliance summary or sample DPA. You’ll be saving them hours of back-and-forth emails. And “Dave in Accounting” will thank you.” 

3. How does your organization handle data retention and destruction, and do you have a documented policy outlining these procedures?

No one wants their customer data hanging around like leftovers in the office fridge. Data should be deleted responsibly when it’s no longer needed. Otherwise, it’s a liability waiting to mess things up for you. 

How to Respond: Break down the life cycle of your data. 

You could try: 

• “Data is retained for 30 days after account termination and then securely deleted per NIST SP 800-88.” 
• “Backups are encrypted and automatically purged after 90 days.”
• “We offer early deletion requests and provide deletion logs for confirmation.” 

Yes. It sounds clinical. But you’re better safe than storing PII in a dusty server for a decade.

Pro Tip: If you’ve got a formal retention policy (even if it’s internal), summarize it for your potential client. 

4. ​​Do you have established processes for responding to data subject rights requests (such as access, deletion, or correction), such as required under GDPR or similar laws?

Imagine one of your buyers’ customers asks to have their data deleted. And your system replies with a shrug emoji. 

It’s not a good look. Buyers need to know you support these requests without turning it into a scavenger hunt. 

How to Respond: Lay out your process clearly and concisely. 

That might look something like this: 

• “We process deletion and correction requests within 30 days.” 
• “Our product includes a self-service data export tool.” 
• “We maintain a request log for auditing purposes.” 

Pro Tip: Create a simple internal playbook for handling data subject requests.

5. In the event of a data breach or other security incident, what is your incident response process, including notification timelines, information provided, and mitigation steps?

Buyers don’t just want to know what you’ll do in a breach. They want to know when you’ll let them know about it. The last thing they want is to read about it on Twitter first. “Surprise!” is great for parties. It’s not so great for data incidents. 

How to Respond: Detail your response like a fire drill plan. 

Consider the following: 

Step 1: Detection. “We monitor 24/7 and use automated alerts for suspicious activity.” 

Step 2: Notification. “Customers are notified within 72 hours per GDPR requirements.” 

Step 3: Remediation. “We issue a postmortem within 5 business days. This includes root cause analysis and action items.” 

If you’ve got a dedicated security team or an external partner for incident response, tell your client about it.  

Pro Tip: A simple visual (like an IR flowchart) can really help here. Nobody wants to read six paragraphs of crisis response prose. Or poetry. 

How Sales Teams Automate Compliance Questionnaires

Overall, as long as you’re prepared with all the right documentation and are expecting questions like the ones above, you’ll do amazingly on your questionnaire.

But what’s your secret edge? Automation.

See how Cleeng and Continu used automation to complete their compliance and sales questions.

Both of these companies connected 1up to get a centralized, unified knowledge base and an automated questionnaire response platform. Suddenly, anyone from sales to customer success could get answers to RFPs, compliance questions, or client objections instantly.

“Before 1up, answers to a tough customer question might involve multiple people. Today we’re able to query our knowledge base in seconds.”

– Annabelle Clarke, Director of Revenue Operations

Come prepared with sharp answers, real documentation, and a touch of personality. And automate.

Here’s how 1up can help with that last bit:  

FAQs on Sales Compliance Questions