36C25923Q0887 A0003.docx

Amendment to a Previous Combined Solicitation

Amendment to a Previous Combined Solicitation

GENERAL INFORMATION

Network Contracting Office

NCO 19

6162 South Willow Drive, Suite 300 Greenwood Village CO 80111

POINT OF CONTACT*

Contracting Officer Danielle Kramer danielle.kramer@va.gov 303-712-5725

PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

(See PWS section 3.5)

POSTAL CODE

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

AGENCY’S URL

URL DESCRIPTION

AGENCY CONTACT’S EMAIL ADDRESS

EMAIL DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION

Vet Center Call Center (VCCC) Operations Support Services

Final Questions and Answers

Question 1: Reference PWS Section 3.5: Paragraph states: "There shall be an occasional need for contractor staff to come to an RCS Office for training and/or a face-to-face meeting." Can the Government clarify if this is for all contract staff on VCCC, or select key personnel? Will a travel CLIN be added to account for this part of the requirement?

Government Response: In the event it is necessary for Contractor staff to come to the RCS Office, it would be a select key personnel. The following has been added to Section 3.5, “This travel will be approved by the Contracting Officer prior to any travel occurring.” The Government will not be adding a Travel CLIN / Line Item.

Question 2: Our review and assessment of the minimum staffing requirement for Customer Service Representatives to answer projected normal call volume is 14 agents; however, there are a significant number of additional responsibilities in this RFQ that do not involve answering phones, and require experienced leadership to ensure a high level of performance, i.e., quality control management, (call evaluation and scoring, coaching agents, implementing corrective action), daily shift leadership, initial and sustainment training, data reporting and analysis, meeting attendance, providing minutes, and accountability management of VA IT resources. The schedule in Attachment 2 is insufficient without modification to account for the supervisory and management requirements in the RFQ. Would the government consider additional CLINs to account for these basic requirements?

Government Response: Line Items 0004, 1004, 2004, 3004, 4004 have been added to the Final – Attachment 2 – Line Items to account for the parts of the requirement that are not directly associated with answering the phones.

Question 3: Reference PWS Section 3.16.16; The paragraph informs that there will be an annually scheduled five-day period where full call center coverage is required. Will the Government add an additional CLIN per period to account for this surge since this labor would be separate and distinct from the daily workload accounted for in current CLINs?

Government Response: An additional line item will not be added for this five-day period. Hours listed per shifts are estimated hours expected. The Contractor will be given a 60-day notice of when this five-day period will occur to plan for covering all calls.

Question 4: Reference PWS Section 3.26 and 3.27; Paragraph verbiage in 3.26 and 3.27 seems to conflict. Will the contractor be using VCCC training that currently exists, or is the contractor to create training for contract personnel?

Government Response: Current VCCC and VA training unless otherwise specified.

Question 5: Will the government provide the training curriculum mentioned in 3.26 as it relates to crisis intervention (e.g., suicide prevention, emergency services dispatch), or does crisis intervention training curriculum need to be designed by the contractor?

Government Response: The government will provide training curriculum mentioned in 3.26 as it relates to crisis intervention (e.g., suicide prevention, emergency services dispatch). However, the contractor must be a member of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and be accredited by the American Association of Suicidology at the time of award as well as maintaining the membership or accreditation throughout the life of the contract.

Question 6: The Price/Cost Schedule allots 14,600 hours for Shifts 1 and 2 and 11,680 hours for shift 3. Our experience based upon our call center’s American Association of Suicidology crisis line certification suggests that increasing the hours per shift ensures the higher level of supervision/management that would be available to effectively manage escalated calls, particularly those urgent cases that present with homicidal/suicidal intent. Will the Government consider increasing the hours allotted for Shift 1 and Shift 2 to 18,000, and Shift 3 to 15,000 to permit sufficient supervisor/management personnel that account for case escalation, daily supervisory duties, and execution oversight?

Government Response: The allotted hours per shifts are estimated amounts needed. A Supervisory / Management line item(s) (0004, 1004, 2004, 3004, 4004) have been added to Final – Attachment 2 – Line Items to account for the parts of the requirement that are not directly associated with answering the phones.

Question 7: We are newly formed SDVOSB with an interest in working with the VCCC as a contractor on the R699-703 - VCCC Operations Support solicitation. Based on the "OFFER SUBMITTAL INSTRUCTIONS," requirement number 6 in the 36C25923Q0887_1 document states that we "should include 3 relevant past performance evaluations with a rating of 'Satisfactory' or higher along with our quote." We would like to understand if this requirement is strictly based on prior Government Contracts experience or if we can submit our experience as individuals who have run support centers prior to forming our company, even if it was outside of government contracts. In short, will we be excluded from the bid if we do not have 3 prior government experiences to provide?

Government Response: This requirement is not based solely on prior Government contacts. A Contractor can provide relevant past performance evaluations for non-government contracts or state no relevant past performance. As stated in past performance section “If an offeror has no record of relevant past performance record or if information is not available, they will not be rated favorably or unfavorably”.

Note: No additional questions will be answered at this time. All Contractor’s shall use “Final – Attachment 2 – Line Items” to provide pricing.

Close date listed in Section XV is hereby updated to 09-22-2023 @ 14:00 MST in lieu of 09-20-2023 @ 14:00 MST.

See attached document: Final - Attachment 1 - Performance Work Statement.

See attached document: Final - Attachment 2 - Line Items.

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Amendment to a Previous Combined Solicitation