70--Request for Information (RFI) Managed Contact Center Infrastructure Services for Department of Veterans Affairs

Managed Contact Center Infrastructure Service for Department of Veterans Affairs Request for Information (RFI) Introduction This Request for Information (RFI) is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation nor does it restrict the government as to the ultimate acquisition approach. In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The purpose of this RFI is to identify qualified contractors, who are able to meet Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) requirements for a managed contact center infrastructure service solution. Any contract/order that might be awarded based on information received or derived from this market research will be the outcome of the competitive process. The purpose of this RFI is to obtain market information on capable sources of supply, industry practices, and input specific to the information

provided. The Government is not responsible for any cost incurred by industry in furnishing this information. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested vendor's expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposal (RFP), if any is issued. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code applicable to this acquisition is 541512. The Small Business Size Standard for this NAICS code is $27.5M. Please indicate your company size and socio-economic status under this NAICS. Scope of Work The Contractor shall provide a managed contact center infrastructure service solution capable of supporting VA s enterprise-wide call center environment. The managed CCS solution shall be capable of supporting, at a minimum, the current estimated volume of 140 million contacts per year across VA s approximately 9300 agents supporting over 1800 individual contact centers. The managed CCS infrastructure service solution shall support a wide range of customer support work types for all communication channels (e.g., telephone, text, e-mail, WebChat, fax) at an enterprise level. The Contact Center Service (CCS) solution shall integrate all existing VA contact centers, both within the Continental United States (CONUS) and outside CONUS (OCONUS), and shall seamlessly interoperate between all contact centers. The Contractor shall provide the managed infrastructure services on a 24 hour per day, 7 day per week, 365 day per year basis. The managed infrastructure service solution shall include providing toll free services (TFS) into and amongst the contact centers. The VA s contact center operations currently operate on multiple different platforms with a wide array of capabilities. The scope of this effort shall provide contact center infrastructure that will meet the collective needs of all contact center operations across the VA. Providing a standardized, single contact center managed service infrastructure capability will facilitate VA contact centers ability to maximize existing business resources and create an environment for positive veteran experiences. VA s goal is to transition all of its contact center activities to the managed contact center infrastructure service within 5 years after award of the base contract. The current contact center environment is highly diversified, from medium and large, geographically redundant enterprise-level contact centers (e.g., VBA, VHA Office of Community Care (OCC), VHA Health Resource Center (HRC), VHA Health Eligibility Center (HEC), VHA Veterans Crisis Line (VCL)), that include most or all of the mandatory and optional features described in the PWS, to small, localized contact centers (e.g., VHA Women Veterans Health, VHA Caregiver Support) which currently leverage telephony solutions with limited functionality (e.g., local VA Medical Center phone systems). These small contact centers initially require only the mandatory features, but are expected to require optional features to be added, post-migration, as their business processes mature.  Transition of contact centers will be in a phased approach, beginning with a single VISN which includes on average 8-10 VA Medical Centers, to meet VA s identified need to establish streamlined, centralized VISN-level contact center services. These require the mandatory features with the expectation that they will add additional optional features as required. Remaining VISNs will be transitioned following the implementation of the initial VISN. Additional, small contact centers in operation today may be migrated to the managed infrastructure service simultaneously, requiring the mandatory features with the expectation that they will add additional optional features as required. VA s medium and large enterprise level contact centers (who require most or all of the mandatory and optional features in the PWS) require the most extensive planning and coordination. As such, it is expected planning and coordination will begin while VISN transition occurs. As new contact centers are created, they will be implemented through the managed infrastructure service provided simultaneous with migration activities. Attachment A of the PWS includes information describing VA s current infrastructure on which its contact centers operate. Under the managed services described within this RFI, the entire solution (or portions described below) would be entirely owned by the provider including the infrastructure, code updates, management, change and other necessary practices with the exception of the data.  The government would engage services strictly through outcome based SLAs and rendering of business capabilities presented to the provider. The Contractor shall provide all management, transportation, equipment, tools, materials, service related equipment (SRE), supplies, installation, supervision, engineering, maintenance, testing, and services necessary to make the circuits, services, functionality, and features fully operational and perform all the tasks associated with providing an enterprise-wide managed contact center infrastructure and associated TFS. The managed infrastructure service shall include ongoing responsibility for 24-hour monitoring, managing and/or problem resolution for the CCS and TFS systems. The Contractor shall be bound by the service-level agreements that state the performance and quality metrics of their relationship. The managed infrastructure services shall not include contact center business operations personnel (e.g., agents). The managed infrastructure services shall be capable of supporting transition of the entire VA enterprise and the remaining VA contact centers are planned to be incorporated following a phased approach. Contact Center Infrastructure Service Capabilities include: Single-Channel (Individual Licensing) Multi-Channel (Individual Licensing) SMS Text Text Chat (Web Chat) E-mail Response Management FAX Management Web Call Back Web Call Through Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Collaborative Browsing Outbound Dialer Intelligent Routing and Call Queuing Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) Automatic Number Identification (ANI) North American Numbering Plan (NANP) Virtual Queue Call Back Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Self Service Speech Recognition Automated Call Survey Work Force Management Forecasting Scheduling Analytics Quality Management Call Recording Screen Capture Monitoring Scorecard Supervisor Tools Agent and Supervisor Desktop Tools Requirements Call Detail Record (CDR) Scheduling / Running Reports Agent / Supervisor Statistical Data Agent Monitoring End User Managed Service Platform Training Training for Supervisor and Agent application use Virtual Training Training videos available for AdHoc Training Storage Application Specific Record Specific Archive Specific Toll Free Service Single Number to Call Government Service Circuit Universal International Toll-Free Number Agency-based routing database (also known as Host Connect) Alternate Routing (also known as Cascade routing) ANI Based Routing Announced Connect Call Redirection Service Assurance Routing Disaster Recovery/Continuity of Operations Disaster Recovery Plan Information System Contingency Plan Resiliency / Failover Continuity of Operations Guide Support 24x7x365 Support Response Times Scalability to support 140 million contacts per year minimum, with ability to support additional growth as necessary Scalability to support 9300 contact center agents supporting over 1800 individual contact centers, with ability to support additional growth as necessary The Contractor is expected to use its own robust telephony (inclusive of voice and IVR services), as well as offer customer services through channels such as email response management, Short Message Service (SMS), text services and mobile applications, to meet VA s Contact Center requirements. VA currently anticipates the following period of performance: 60 months from the date of award, with 5 optional performance years. RFI Response Instructions NOTE: The capability package must be clear, concise, and complete. VA is under no obligation to provide feedback to the company, or to contact the company for clarification of any information submitted in response to this RFI. Provide the following information: Provide Company Information: Company Name CAGE/DUNS Number under which the company is registered in SAM/VetBiz.gov Company Address Point of contact name Telephone number Email address For Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)/Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) concerns, indicate whether at least 50 percent of the cost of performance incurred is planned to be expended for employees of your concern or employees of other eligible SDVOSB/VOSB concerns. Provide a detailed description of the 50% or more of the service the SDVOSB/VOSB will be providing plus a detailed description of the services provided by non-SDVOSB/VOSB s. What contract vehicles to you have available to provide this managed service? Do you plan to be a Prime or subcontractor? Can your company independently provide the entire range of requirements? If not, which requirements cannot be met and describe teaming arrangement to meet all of the requirements. Describe which tasks will be provided by each team in terms of percentage of work. Describe your proposed architectural and managed service approach to support the initial Veteran Integrated Service Network (VISN)-level roll out and describe how this can scale to an enterprise-level implementation, supporting 140 million calls per year and 9300 agents, nationally and internationally. Provide a brief summary describing your company s available solution (business and technical) to meet the requirements, to include: Number of Clients supported Number of Contacts (by Channel) supported per year Number of call center agents Geographic locations (indicate those that you would recommend to provide service to the VA) Indicate whether your solution meets all of the capabilities identified above (Scope of Work). If not which capability cannot be met with business process outsourcing solution. Identify alternative approaches to meeting the capability if available. What is your planned approach to provide managed infrastructure services for both the contact center and toll-free requirements described in the draft PWS (i.e., single provider, multiple providers, etc.)? What are your company s processes to satisfy the requirements for adherence to schedule, agility, flexibility, responsiveness, scalability and reliability, service quality and consistency, and continuous improvement? Are any of the technical requirements or features listed in the draft PWS not typical of an industry standard stack for a managed services contact center with toll free services? If so, which ones? Are there any typical industry features that are missing? VA has described its anticipated phased roll out approach in the scope section above and has defined small, medium, and large contact center optional tasks in the draft PWS. Please provide feedback on the proposed approach, including any alternate recommended approach to the phased roll out (i.e., based on district, VISN, license volume price breakpoints, etc.), including feedback on the small, medium, and large categories proposed? VA has provided a conceptual pricing spreadsheet as part of this RFI. Please provide feedback on the structure and provide recommendations on alternative pricing models addressing required scalability. Is there any variance to the pricing structure which is dependent on the PoP? Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) pricing for the anticipated volume. Recommended Service Level metrics, targets and measurement windows for the following Performance Metrics: Availability (Service) (Av(S), Service Requests, Change Request, Event Notification-Service Availability Impacting, Event Notification-Security Breach (as defined by NIST guidelines), Response Time-Service Availability Impacting. Provide additional Performance Metrics (if any) that are standard components of your service offering. Proposed standard transition/implementation timelines; address an implementation timeline of 90 days for an operational platform and 6 months for full VISN migration to the managed contact center infrastructure service? What would be the risks? Provide standard timelines and activities for implementation of this service (based on establishing this service at a client of similar scope and volume). If you have operated as a prime contractor in providing a managed contact center infrastructure solution: Provide three case studies (no more than one page each), that describe how you have provided or currently provide this solution to an organization of similar scope, size and complexity to the VA, which supports at least 140 million calls per year and 9300 agents nationally and internationally.  Indicate the percentage of the work that was performed by your company as the prime contractor in this case study. Provide a case study (no more than one page), that describes how you implemented and transitioned a client to your Contact Center Business Process Outsourcing services. The client scope, size, complexity and contact volume must be similar to the VA. Indicate the percentage of the work that was performed by your company as the prime contractor in this case study. Provide a list of the number of clients that you have successfully implemented and supported as a prime contractor. The client s scope, size, complexity and contact volume must be similar to the VA. Additional information such as contact center capacity, number of contacts (by channel) and geographical scope should be included, as available. The Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) point of contact for this RFI is Contract Specialist, Seena Ninan and Contracting Officer, Mary Craig. RFI responses are to be submitted directly to seena.ninan@va.gov and mary.craig3@va.gov by 10:00 AM Eastern Time (ET), February 05, 2018. Page limitation is limited to no more than 23 pages, including the three, 1-page case studies. All proprietary/company confidential material shall be clearly marked on every page that contains such. VA will not be able to grant any extensions to this RFI. To that effect, a virtual Question and Answer Session will be conducted via Microsoft Lync and VA Nationwide Teleconferencing System (VANTS) on January 30, 2018 from 1:00PM ET to 5:00PM ET. The agenda will include a briefing on the Contact Center Services, question/answer (Q&A) session, and anticipated acquisition schedule. All attendees must register by January 26, 2018 to participate. To register for the virtual Question and Answer session, please complete the Contact Center Services Question and Answer Registration Form provided at Attachment 1 and submit it via email to seena.ninan@va.gov and mary.craig3@va.gov. All Question and Answer information will be posted publicly via FBO. Written Questions, to be addressed during the Q&A session, shall be submitted via e-mail to seena.ninan@va.gov and mary.craig3@va.gov by 5:00PM ET, January 25, 2018. See attached document: