Q0051 - Attachment 1 - Scope of Work.pdf

19FR6326Q0051 – Call center services – Attachment 1

Statement of Work – After Hours Call Center

Mission France is seeking an after-hours Contractor to screen all after-hour calls for the Duty Officer Program at the U.S. Embassy Paris, US Missions to UNESCO and OECD, Consulates General in Marseille and Strasbourg, and American Presence Posts (APP) Bordeaux, Lyon, and Rennes.

The Contractor will need to provide fully trained, customer service focused, and skilled teams of telephone operators. The operators will be the first point of contact for after-hours calls from 6pm to 9am, CET - Paris local time, including 24 hours on weekends, and U.S. and French Holidays. They must be courteous, prompt, polite, professional, and knowledgeable when acting as the ‘voice’ of the Mission. To be specific, we ask that the operators always use a polite and kind demeanor to greet each caller, even when asking callers questions or asking for answers.

At the present time, U.S. Mission to France receives approximately 110 after-hours emergency calls per month, and a total of 550 total calls per month for the Embassy, Consulates General, and other offices. These figures are provided as a guide only and may fluctuate widely from this in case of emergency and/or during a special event.

The operators will be required to screen each after-hours call received for Mission France using scripts provided by the Embassy Human Resources section with input from the Embassy Consular section, other sections, and agencies within Mission. True emergencies will be passed by the operator to the Embassy Duty Officer for action.

The Contractor will need to satisfy the following criteria:

1. The call center operators must be fluent in English and French at the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale level 4 – full professional fluency in both reading and writing.

2. To ensure data integrity protection and strengthen cybersecurity to the Government contractor shall provide a written quality assurance plan describing steps the company will take to ensure the quality of the service and the protection of the information collected under this contract.

3. If you are using on hold music to transfer to French Translation services, Contractor shall change it to use a message instead of music. It shall explain in French and English that the caller is on hold while being transferred to French Translation services and repeat until the call is successfully transferred.

4. If caller is put on hold, the message must indicate how long the hold time would be for the caller.

5. If caller is put hold for French Translation, to connect all parties for translation after no more than 30 seconds.

6. The Contractor shall provide references of current clientele/customer-based for proven track record for Government to review for Contract selection.

7. There are no limits to the number of calls which may be received each day.

8. The call center operators shall handle the callers with consistent customer service support, professionalism, respect and empathy.

9. The contractor shall take calls for actionable inquires only, such as an

American in distress; Passport, Visa inquiry; Mission personnel requiring assistance for medical, residential issues, or security reports; State Department Operations Center; local law enforcement police, fire, and hospital. Calls that hang up as soon as the Operator answers are not actionable.

10. Handling of abusive mental illness cases, telemarketers, and robocalls shall be swift and request lower tier service level pricing. The call center should not act on unsolicited calls, such as abusive mental illness, telemarketers, or robocalls.

11. Contractor shall provide a record of each call/message received and the response provided by the operator. This record must include the time the call was received/made and the duration of the call.

12. The recording of each call/message received and the response provided by the operator shall be sent to the Contracting Officer Representative (COR).

This recording must include the time the call was received/made and the duration of the call. Recordings will be accessible if the COR need to listen for issues concerning the Mission and quality assurance monitoring.

13. The Contracting Officer Representative (COR) will evaluate and monitor every call/message daily to ensure that the Statement of Work is followed.

14. Program Office will include Diplomatic Technology Infrastructure Management team, COR, and Consular American Citizens Services Chief.

15. A daily/monthly/annual activity and call log report will be required and shall be submitted via email ParisAfterhours@state.gov by 0730 CET to the Contracting Officer’s Representative and Program Management Office.

16. The Contractor must be flexible in its work practices e.g. operating virtual call centers or teleworking in cases of severe weather or other situations so that there is continuation of service.

17. The Contractor shall allow for circumstances which create an overflow of calls should the Embassy experience an emergency or unexpected situation, for example a fire alarm or building evacuation.

Hours of Operation for After Hours

Contract hours Monday to Friday 18:00 CET through to 09:00 CET Paris local time, 24 hours on weekends, American and French (local) holidays.

For reference the American and local French holidays, observed for Mission France are the same for all Consulate and offices listed below. Schedule and link are attached.

https://fr.usembassy.gov/embassy-closing-dates/

U.S. Embassy Paris

Consulate General Marseille

Consulate General Strasbourg

APP Bordeaux

APP Lyon

APP Rennes