US Department of Labor National Call Center Bridge Contract

This proposed action is for services for which the government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 to Computer Sciences Corporation of Lanham, MD. This notice is not a request for competitive proposals and there is no solicitation. Any interested party who believes they can provide the required services may respond by submitting a capability statement to the contract specialist identified in this notice. The capability statement must include price information and describe in detail the parties' ability, qualifications, and experience in providing contact center services at all three locations beginning October 1, 2009 meeting all required performance standards. Period of Performance: 10/1/09-9/3010. The capability statement must identify the available locations; provide the offeror's DUNS number, business size standard and classification. All submissions must be received within 15 calendar days of the publication date of this synopsis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed action based upon responses to this notice is solely at the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a comprehensive procurement. No solicitation document exists. Responses to this synopsis must be in writing. No telephone inquiries will be accepted. Responses must include the capability statement and reference this synopsis by number and title. Responses must be addressed to DOL contract specialist at the email address in this announcement and must have as the subject line: "US DOL NCC Capability Statement and Pricing" Statement of Work The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) requires a contractor-provided and managed multi-channel contact center that utilizes state-of -the-art solutions for comprehensive communications and customer service programs. The Statement of Work (SOW), which is incorporated herein, provides both general and specific requirements which the Contractor is expected to accomplish in order to meet minimum contract needs. Independently, and not as an agent of the Government, the Contractor shall be required to furnish and maintain all the necessary services, qualified personnel, material, equipment, and facilities not otherwise provided by the Government, to meet the requirements described in this SOW. The DOL established the National Contact Center in September 2001 to support the mission and goals of the U.S. Department of Labor by providing the public with consistent, accurate, and understandable information services covering a wide range of Departmental programs and initiatives through nationwide toll-free and email services. DOL-NCC delivers this service as the answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs), referral information, fulfillment of product and service requests, and compliant intake. The DOL-NCC's main toll-free help line, 1-866-4-USA-DOL, is the universal access point to all of DOL. The toll-free number is used for special one-time Secretarial events, and for answering inquiries for DOL small agencies. In all there are eight citizen-centric information service programs are supported at the National Contact Center. The toll-free numbers currently in operation at the DOL-NCC include: Office of Public Affairs (OPA) - 1-866-4-USA-DOL DOL TTY - 1-877-889-5627 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) - 1-800-321-OSHA Employment and Training Administration (ETA) - 1-877-US2-JOBS Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - 1-866-4-US-WAGE Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) - 1-866-ODEP-DOL Women's Bureau (WB) - 1-800-827-5335 Mine Safety and Health (MSHA) - 1-800-746-1553 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management (OASAM) - 1-877-DOL-SAFE The DOL-NCC is currently located in Chantilly, Virginia with additional facilities in Barbourville, Kentucky and Ft.Worth, Texas. There are approximately 100 English and Spanish speaking customer service representatives (CSRs) available in house (30 % English/Spanish bilingual), and a tele-interpretretation service is immediately available to assist CSRs with over 140 additional languages. During FY 2003, a pilot with the DOL Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) successfully resulted in the training and hiring of four remote, home-based CSRs with significant disabilities. Since the DOL-NCC inauguration, the Contact Center has responded to more than 8.9 million calls and over 400,000 e-mails from employers and employees. Call volume is currently exceeding 1.3 million calls and 70,000 emails annually. The Contact Center responds to live inquiries between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm Eastern Standard time, weekdays, except Federal holidays. The DOL-NCC also provides twenty four hours a day, seven days a week (24 x 7) coverage for the OSHA Referral and Information Line and the MSHA Emergency Line. The DOL-NCC directly supports all of the Department of Labor's strategic goals by providing citizens across the nation with timely, accurate, and understandable information on a wide range of Departmental programs and services. To accomplish this, the DOL-NCC interacts with customers through the communication vehicle of their choice including telephones, telecommunications devices for the deaf (TDD/TTY), and e-mail. The term "multi-channel contact center," as used in this SOW, refers to a customer contact center that supports all of these various communications vehicles. The DOL-NCC will support voice and fax communication, e-mail, self service Interactive Voice Response (IVR)s, web-enabled calling (VoIP), and voice recognition and text-to-speech technologies. The contractor must be knowledgeable of industry best practices in customer service; call center operations, and prescribed rules of conduct concerning government information dissemination. The contractor shall provide a fully integrated Tier 1 (first contact) customer support solution to support the Department. This SOW provides a baseline of both general and specific requirements that the Contractor will be expected to accomplish to meet minimum contract needs. The Contractor shall furnish the necessary facilities, personnel, equipment, supplies, and services to meet the requirements described in this SOW. The Contractor shall perform all technical and management functions, as described in this SOW, to plan, design, implement, operate, and manage the contact center and associated services to meet the needs of DOL. When requested, the Contractor shall provide any additional services described in the base contract, expand the services to support new requirements, and/or provide any special project support needed to analyze, plan, design, implement, operate and manage special customer support services that may be needed to meet the evolving needs of DOL. The Contractor-provided, operated, and managed first contact center should be located no less than 10 miles and no more than 50 miles from the center of Washington, DC. The second Contractor-provided, operated, and managed contact center should be located no less than 400 miles from the first contact center. The third Contractor-provided, operated, and managed contact center should be located no less than 700 miles from the third contact center location. All sites will provide daily contact center service operations and can be used for back-up purposes if required to handle elevated call volumes. All contact centers must be located within the Continental United States. Due to the diversity of agency requirements, the Contractor must have the capability to provide service on a 24 x 7 basis. The hours of operation for the various telephone inquiry activities currently supported by the DOL-NCC are identified in Table C.2.1.2. An automated service (e.g., Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or equivalent) shall be used to provide unattended service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. DOL reserves the right to expand or contract hours of operation, at its discretion, with a minimum notice to the Contractor. As required by DOL, the Contractor shall provide an option to provide telephone coverage during night-time, Saturdays and Sundays, and holidays. When requested by DOL, the Contractor shall provide the required support within 24 hours of notification unless an emergency event directs otherwise. Additionally, the call center shall not be open on designated federal holidays or times specified by the Contracting Office Technical Representative (COTR). Specific operating hours, weekend and holiday coverage, and emergency notification requirements, if any, will be determined on a case-by-case basis. In the event of an internal DOL emergency, a natural disaster or other emergency situation so-designated by the Contracting Officer (CO) or COTR, the Contractor may be requested to temporarily expand the hours of operation to as much as twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week (24X7) with in a 24 hour period. The Contractor shall be prepared to start ramp-up to emergency operations within one (1) hour of notification from the CO or COTR and will be at full emergency operational level within 24 hours. One purpose of the 24X7 operation is to assist the DOL in accounting for its employees affected by the emergency. This will necessitate the gathering of basic information, such as the employee's location and safety, and providing that information to DOL in a prescribed format. This shall be a separately priced option in the proposal. The second purpose of the 24X7 operation is to provide information to the American public in the event of a major catastrophe or emergency. The DOL-NCC is a Tier 1 (first contact) customer support program that provides the public with consistent, accurate, and understandable information services covering a wide range of Departmental programs and initiatives. Due to the diversity of agency requirements, the Contractor must have the capability to support a wide range of customer support work types for all communications channels (e.g. telephone, e-mail, facsimile, postal mail), including but not limited to the types of inquiries listed below. General information inquiries Inquiries on specific programs and services Referrals Order intake & Fulfillment requests Congressional inquiries Media inquiries Emergency inquiries Life threatening, Injury, & Fatality reporting Contingency-related inquiries (e.g., inquiries resulting from the activation of an agency's contingency plan) Complaint calls Comments & Feedback Customer surveys The Contractor must have the capability to support a wide range of languages in responding to live inquiries under various workload conditions. The Contractor shall provide qualified personnel in sufficient quantities to meet the language requirements. At a minimum the Contractor must have the capability to supply 30% of the CSRs who are proficient in English and Spanish. Additional languages may be supported via third-party interpreter/translation services providers. The DOL-NCC's current workflow processes for telephone and email inquiries for various activities are described in Attachment B. The current workflow processes are provided only as a frame of reference as to how work is currently being done. The Contractor shall develop the optimum workflow processes to meet project requirements, using industry best practices as applicable. The Contractor shall have the capability to accommodate workflow requirements of varying complexity. The Contractor shall have the capability to direct calls to appropriate offices at a specified volume level as established by the DOL agencies. The Contractor is expected to manage the workflow processes and make adjustments from time to time to ensure performance objectives are met. The Contractor shall obtain approval from DOL prior to implementing any changes on the workflow processes. DOL reserves the right to change the work flow requirements at any time to accommodate changes in program requirements on an as-needed basis. The Contractor shall provide qualified management and trained staff in sufficient quantities to respond to inquiries in accordance with the performance parameters stated in this SOW. As an initial task, the Contractor shall provide a complete multi-channel citizen inquiry response and management solution to meet the needs of the existing DOL-NCC. Historical work volumes for the various DOL-NCC activities are described in Attachment C. The Contractor shall provide a flexible solution that will accommodate growth to the existing supported activities as well as the new programs/initiatives without undue restrictions. Where and when appropriate, DOL will request the expansion of the existing center(s) and/or establishment of additional center(s) by the Contractor to serve the needs of other agencies and/or programs in DOL. Specific work volume requirements will be determined on a case-by-case basis. (continued in attachment)