SOLICITATION NOTICE
99 -- Service Center RFI
- Notice Date
- 10/2/2013
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 561422
— Telemarketing Bureaus and Other Contact Centers
- Contracting Office
- Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, Office of Financial Service, Office of Financial Service-Procurement and Contracts, 77 K Street NE, Suite 10000, Washington, District of Columbia, 20002, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20002
- Solicitation Number
- TIB-2014-RFN-0001
- Archive Date
- 11/4/2013
- Point of Contact
- Timothy B. Costas, Phone: 2029421689, Pamela K. Jones, Phone: 2029421686
- E-Mail Address
-
timothy.costas@tsp.gov, pamela.jones@tsp.gov
(timothy.costas@tsp.gov, pamela.jones@tsp.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Thrift Savings Plan Service Center Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board Request for Information (RFI) 1. General The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (Agency or FRTIB) is using this RFI to gather information from industry in order to better understand current industry ap-proaches in managing and operating consolidated Service Center Call and Processing Centers. Work is required to be performed in the continental U.S. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes. It does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the FRTIB to contract whatsoever. Further, the FRTIB is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Respondents are advised that the FRTIB will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party's expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website. Any information that the respondent considers proprietary should be clearly marked as such. All submissions become Agency property and will not be returned, including any proprietary information 2. Background The FRTIB is an independent Federal agency in the Executive Branch created by the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986 (FERSA). The TSP is a retirement savings and investment plan for Federal civilian employees and members of the uni-formed services that offers its participants the same type of savings and tax benefits that many private corporations offer their employees under I.R.C. §401(k) plans. The mission of the FRTIB is to administer the TSP solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) informs the Agency's procurement activities; however, as a non-appropriated fund Agency, it is not bound by the FAR. The TSP is the largest participant-directed defined contribution plan in the world. As of August 2013, the TSP had approximately 4.6 million participants, of which an estimated 4% are domiciled overseas, and about $367 billion in assets. The TSP is available only to Federal employees of the civilian service and members of the uniformed services; vested participants may leave their funds in the TSP after they leave service. The FRTIB currently has two contractor operated call centers handling all inbound calls, outbound survey/follow-up work, and written/electronic mail processing. One of these (in Clintwood, VA) is government owned, and the other (in Frostburg, MD) is contractor owned. The FRTIB also has one contractor owned/contractor operated processing center in Birmingham, AL, designed to provide back office support functions (mail opening, scanning, data entry and forms processing) for the TSP. All centers are required to be physically located in the U.S., and all call center staff must be U.S. citizens. The agents, designated as Participant Service Representatives (PSRs) respond to in-coming calls from participants, beneficiaries, and other third parties that concern (but are not limited to): • Account Maintenance • Loan Issuances and Repayments • Withdrawal Information • Service Requests (e.g., transaction processing, fulfillment inquiries) All desktop applications are government provided. Mail opening and scanning equip-ment is also government provided. Phone equipment is government provided at one site and contractor provided at the other call center. Annually the two call centers receive approximately 3.4 million calls with an opt-out rate of 70% (approximately 2.5 million calls), 50,000 pieces of written correspondence, and 50,000 electronic mail inquiries. The processing center receives approximately 1.1 million forms annually for processing, 70% of which are received via fax. The TSP's vision for the future includes enhancing the participant experience. This includes, but is not restricted to, making our call centers more consultative, offering participants TSP education and guidance based on their individual needs; initiating outbound calling programs to assist participants with forms/transaction processing; rapid turnaround of forms processing and drastically reducing and potentially eliminating paper based transactions by moving to fully electronic, but secure submissions. 3. RFI Questions To aid the Agency in understanding current industry approaches in managing and operating consolidated call and processing centers, FRTIB requests responses to the following questions: 1. What structural strategy would you recommend in operating call and processing centers that perform, mail opening, scanning, data entry, forms processing, in-bound phone services, outbound call programs, e-messaging (secure e-mail) and correspondence processing? 2. Given the configuration you recommend, what considerations are there from a site location perspective? In providing your responses please include a risk as-sessment for each approach. 3. Given the approximate size of the operation as outlined above, what do you be-lieve is the optimum number of sites and why? 4. What do you suggest are optimal operating hours to perform and offer these ser-vices? Please give suggestions for hours of operations and coverage. 5. If you suggest more than one location, should all work functions be done at all locations, or should some only be completed at one site? 6. Based on your configurations and locations, how would you prepare for and handle disaster recovery? 7. Should processing staff be cross-trained on both inbound and back office pro-cessing functions? Please provide reasons for your recommendation. 8. Do you have an outbound calling program? If so, are staff cross-trained to han-dle both inbound and outbound functions? Are outbound programs educational or sales related? What metrics should be used for qualitative calls? 9. How does your staffing configuration relate to employee retention? Do you pro-vide employee incentives? If so, what effect does this have on turnover? 10. What contract strategy and type should be used for this requirement and why? 11. What should the duration of the contract be and what is your rationale? 12. What metrics should be used to measure contractor performance? Should in-centives be used to oversee metric performance? If so, how should they be structured? 13. What future trends do you see occurring in the call and processing center industry? 14. What experience does your firm have in running combined processing and call center functions? Please describe these projects, the industries served, the amount of staff required for each one, how you structured them, and how you used your resources to balance inbound call handling with back office functions. Please note if you used subcontractors in any of these projects. 15. Explain the phase in and out approaches and transition time needed until the new centers would be fully operational. 16. What would be the best structural approach for a Government consolidated call and processing center operation that replicates some of the for profit financial services characteristics associated with enhancing participants' experience? In particular, fostering a strong educational environment consisting of consultative conversations, outbound calling programs, more immediate responses, and feedback touch points to provide a robust customer service model. 17. Identify best practices that should be applied to current and future call centers and processing centers. 4. Submission Your submission should include: 1. A cover letter, to include name, mailing address, overnight delivery address (if differ-ent from mailing address), phone number, fax number, and e-mail of designated point of contact(s). 2. Submit your responses to this RFI within thirty (30) days from issuance to Timothy.Costas@TSP.Gov. Phone: (202) 942-1689
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/FRTIB/OA/WashingtonDC/TIB-2014-RFN-0001/listing.html)
- Record
- SN03209985-W 20131004/131002234722-729ca2a36e94ae499131e4b73c8b2686 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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