SPECIAL NOTICE
D -- Integrated Customer Response Facility
- Notice Date
- 9/13/2006
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Social Security Administration, Office of Budget, Finance, and Management, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1st Floor, Rear Entrance 7111 Security Blvd., Baltimore, MD, 21244
- ZIP Code
- 21244
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-SSA-RFI-ICRF-091306
- Response Due
- 10/13/2006
- Archive Date
- 10/28/2006
- Description
- 1 Purpose of RFI The purpose of this RFI is to gather information on behalf of the Social Security Administration (SSA) about a strategy to leverage existing, emerging, and converging customer service delivery channels. SSA is seeking information on what Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products and/or services are available to support customer service convergence and how to evolve or replace current customer service delivery with a more integrated customer service environment. RFI Respondents are asked to provide input that reflects a customer support system that is robust enough to support agents located in thousands of geographically diverse locations, will increase agent productivity, reduce cost, provide secure communications channels, and enhance or replace current systems. Using information gathered from responses to this RFI, the Government may issue a solicitation to vendors interested in becoming an ICRF provider. ALL STAKEHOLDERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO SUBMIT RESPONSES TO ALL OR PARTS OF THE RFI EVEN IF THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY INTENTION OF RESPONDING TO A FUTURE SOLICITATION. Nothing in this document shall be construed as obligating the Government to issue a Solicitation. 2 Background SSA currently operates an in-house developed Internet Email Customer Response System (ICRS) software solution for responding to e:mail inquiries in a few SSA locations. 3 Basic Functionality As a first step, SSA is interested in replacing the home-grown ICRS and providing enhanced functionality, such as auto-response functionality. The current ICRS is a service delivery channel which has room for additional automation. SSA would like to know what products and/or services are available to replace or enhance this stand-alone centralized e:mail solution. Instead of using a small group of agents to handle e:mail inquiries, SSA would like to leverage the expertise of employees located around the country. This enterprise-wide e:mail solution would allow for the distribution of work to multiple components across the agency so that the available customer service capacity and expertise could be used to the greatest advantage. 4 Integration In addition to determining which COTS products and/or services are available for replacing or enhancing the current e:mail answering solution, SSA is seeking information on how a replacement system could be integrated with other customer support channels, such as Internet, chat and click, and call functionality. 5 Long Term Vision Ultimately, SSA is looking to fully integrate all service delivery channels including e:mail, phone, and chat. With that goal in mind, the agency is seeking information to help plan for transitioning to this new integrated service delivery environment. 6 Contents of the Response Respondents should address the following desired features and are invited to recommend additional desired features. It is not necessary to respond to each item. It is recognized that respondents may have different areas of expertise and interest. Please identify by Heading / Number each outcome / question you are addressing. Security 1 Ability to perform secure web-based communications (e.g. email and chat) so that sensitive information (like SSN, name, date of birth, medical information, etc) can be exchanged between customers and SSA agents. Scalability 2 Ability to scale up to a large number of SSA employees involved in direct contact with the public(e.g. up to about 20-25,000 employees) as possible customer service agents. 3 Ability to route or distribute to the most appropriate individual or group of individuals to respond to each inquiry. Automation 4 Ability to interface with legacy systems and provide a feature that routes all channels of inquiries and allows the next agent, based on availability or skill set, the ability to receive an incoming email, phone call, or chat, from one queue. 5 Ability to automatically propose responses to inquiries when agents are preparing responses. 6 Ability to keep a centralized record of the history of each inquiry, so that if a customer attempts to obtain a self-service answer (by Internet, online FAQ, or telephone) but can???t, the agent will be aware of the customer???s attempt and will find another solution to the inquiry. Consider legacy call center telephone hardware and software. 7 Ability to perform spelling and grammar checks on e-mails and / or chats before they are sent. 8 Ability to automatically populate selected articles and pre-written responses to e-mail / chat messages. 9 Ability to automatically suppress duplicate messages. 10 Ability to include working hyperlinks in article text. 11 Ability to support quick turn around times when providing responses for all delivery channels. Maintainability 12 Ability to add, update, archive, and approve response articles as they are developed and retired. 13 Ability to import existing knowledge base content, currently stored in MS Word files and an SQL database. 14 Ability to easily access archived records. Flexibility 15 Ability to allow customers to reach out to SSA via one channel but be seamlessly switched to another channel at the customer???s or SSA agent???s discretion. 16 Explain the advantages / disadvantages of hosting the solution at SSA???s site or at the vendor???s site. 17 Allow special characters in the subject line of an e-mail. 18 Ability to validate e-mail addresses upon receipt. 19 Enhanced artificial intelligence to parse messages based on language. Ability to discern when a foreign language word is used as a literal (as in, part of a street address) when the rest of the message is in English, and conversely, the ability to discern that an English language word is contained within in a foreign language word (as in ???pregunta???, the Spanish word for question contains the English word ???gun,??? but should still be parsed as a Spanish language inquiry). 20 Enhanced artificial intelligence to parse messages based on keywords. 21 Ability to allow co-browsing so that agents and customers can see the same screens. Tracking / Reassignment 22 Unlimited ability to reassign inquiries. 23 Ability to track response times, reassign inquiries as needed, and escalate inquiries to supervisors when customer service goals are not met. 24 Ability to refer inquiries to other agents when they are inappropriately assigned. 25 Ability to improve assignment capabilities when inquiries are assigned after initial assignment is found to be inappropriate. 26 Ability to respond to a closed inquiry. 27 Ability to show the entire history of an inquiry in one view. 28 Ability to link related emails 29 Allow users to respond to customer and send a blind carbon copy to another agent or supervisor. 30 Ability to send internal notes and attachments to other agents that are not visible to customers. 31 Ability to track one customer over several diverse inquiries, over different channels via a customer service record history. 32 Ability to identify trends and provide analysis for assignment, suggested response usage, percent of suggested responses correct/incorrect/incomplete, etc. Search Capability 33 Ability to search databases (e.g. inquiries, articles, agents, users, e-mail addresses) using multiple search criteria. 34 Ability to provide the number of hits when displaying results. Legacy Systems 35 Ability to provide knowledge base / FAQ functionality. Compliance 36 Ability to show that proposed solutions are compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (commonly referred to as Section 508). 7 Submission of Responses to the RFI Diverse insights are critical for the development of a comprehensive acquisition. All stakeholders are encouraged to respond whether or not they intend to respond to a solicitation. Please submit all responses in writing by 10/13/2006 to: ICRF@ssa.gov Please include a name and phone number of whom to contact in the event there are questions regarding your submission. Note: This is not a Request for Proposals. A contract will not be awarded based on submissions.
- Record
- SN01142871-W 20060915/060913222330 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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