Attachment_70SBUR27I00000002_RFI_ECX2_Revision 1.pdf

Department of Homeland Security United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

Request for Information (RFI) Enterprise Customer Experience 2

70SBUR27I00000002

1. RFI Announcement

This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal, or Request for Quotations. In accordance with FAR 15.101(c)(2)1, responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract, nor do they affect a potential respondent's ability to respond to any future synopsis/solicitation, which may or may not follow or restrict the Government's eventual acquisition approach. Additionally, the Government will not provide reimbursement for any information submitted in response to this RFI. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Respondents will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided; however, information gathered may be utilized for future technical and acquisition purposes.

The agency intends to gather market information pertinent for acquisition planning. The responses to this RFI will be captured as market research and may contribute to the development of an acquisition strategy. Information provided may be used to assess tradeoffs and alternatives available for the potential requirement and may lead to the development of a solicitation. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate.

This RFI is not intended to include company marketing material, capability slides or sales literature. Rather, real-world experience and lessons learned are the desired outcome.

2. Purpose

The purpose of this RFI is to understand the landscape of vendors, including both those that currently hold contracts on government vehicles and those that do not, that can provide the type of service outlined below. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) aims to identify vendors that provide the required services and can recruit and retain staff with the experience and skills needed to meet the needs of this requirement. The results of this RFI will aid the government in determining if small business can perform this work and if any specific set-asides are appropriate. Additionally, responses to the RFI will be used to help USCIS determine which contract vehicle to use.

3. Background

The USCIS Office of Information Technology (OIT) has an existing task order performing the requirements for Enterprise Customer Experience (ECX) operations. This RFI is being conducted for a replacement contract ECX after its period of performance ends. The follow-on

1 In this document, citations to RFO Part 15 are citations specifically to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Class Deviation 26-08 for FAR Part 15, which was issued as part of the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), which was implemented in response to Executive Order 14275, Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement, signed April 15, 2025.

contract, Enterprise Customer Experience 2 (ECX2) will provide modern and adaptive omnichannel experience to include:

Modernization Initiative: USCIS currently utilizes a cloud-based Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution to improve agility, reduce costs, and enhance customer experience through emerging technologies including AI capabilities.

Current Scale & Operations: The existing contact centers support three business units (Verification Contact Center, External Affairs Tier 1 & 2, and Language Services Section) across 18 physical locations with approximately 1,500 agents handling roughly 15 million calls annually.

Core Services Provided: The contact centers deliver multichannel customer support including voice calls, IP-TTY, web chats, email, and SMS-text communications with intelligent call routing, interactive voice response (IVR) systems, and self-service capabilities for immigration-related inquiries.

Technical Requirements: The solution must provide 99.99% availability, support up to 3,000 live agents, integrate with existing USCIS systems (Salesforce CRM, ServiceNow, and USCIS internal databases), include workforce management, analytics, and maintain FedRAMP Moderate security compliance while enabling 100% remote work capability.

Live Chat Services: The solution provides web-based chat capabilities where USCIS website customers interact with the "Emma" Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) chatbot, with seamless escalation to live contact center agents when needed. The system archives and stores chat transcripts with 7-year retention, provides English and Spanish transcription of chats, integrates chat transcript information with Salesforce CRM, and offers customers the ability to receive special links via text or email to connect directly to a Live Agent Chat session

The USCIS Office of Information Technology requires comprehensive design, development, migration, configuration, testing, and optimization services for a FedRAMP Authorized cloud-based Contact Center solution (Contact Center as a Service). The solution does leverage advanced artificial intelligence capabilities to drive mission effectiveness, bolster public safety, and optimize operational efficiency while maintaining compliance with federal and DHS regulations pertaining to cybersecurity, information security, and AI compliance including Unbiased AI Principles.

The current USCIS Enterprise Call Center supports three business units, External Affairs (EXA), Verifications Contact Center (VCC), and Language Services Support (LSS), with unique intelligent call routing requirements. The contact centers handle approximately 15 million incoming toll-free calls per year plus routing of chats, with approximately 1,500 agents based out of 18 physical contact center locations across the United States, many of whom work remotely. The Interactive Voice Response System currently digitally contains approximately 70% of all incoming EXA calls, meaning these calls are not answered by a live agent. The agents include USCIS officers, translators, representatives, and contractor staff provided under separate contracts.

The current contractor provides a fully managed, cloud-based contact center solution that includes multiple service components. Core services encompass Toll Free Service (TFS), Contact Center Service (CCS), Service Related Equipment (SRE), and Service Related Labor (SRL) as defined in the EIS Contract sections C.2.2.3, C.2.3, C.2.10, and C.2.11 respectively.

The solution delivers multichannel communication support including voice calls, IP-TTY, web chats, email, SMS-text, and social media interactions with intelligent routing capabilities.

Advanced features include artificial intelligence and machine learning for self-service automation, agent assist, real-time speech analytics, and fully automated alerts, along with redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities.

Comprehensive reporting and program management services are also provided. The contractor must provide an online reporting tool that allows for different delivery formats and enables users to identify trends in call traffic, volume, usage analysis for billing, and SLA performance.

Required reports include billing adjustments, service level agreement reports, trouble management reports, network and system outage incident reports, maintenance reports, and monthly progress reports to the Contracting Officer's Representative. Additionally, the contractor shall provide dedicated program management support including quality assurance, risk management, transition planning, and ongoing operational oversight to ensure seamless service delivery throughout the contract period.

USCIS requires a service provider experienced and proven in terms of technology and IT in large enterprises.

4. Vendor Questions

A. Corporate Capabilities and Relevant Experience

1) Corporate Experience - Describe your organization's experience delivering and operating enterprise contact center solutions for Federal agencies or other large, highly regulated organizations. Include annual interaction volumes, number of agents supported, channels, technical complexity, and measurable performance results.

2) Comparable Implementations - Describe comparable contact center implementations in which your organization designed, configured, developed, integrated, or replaced an enterprise contact center platform. Identify the implementation duration, initial operating conditions, scope, staffing levels, and production outcomes.

3) Organizational and Technical Capacity - Describe the personnel, technical resources, commercial relationships, subcontractors, and delivery processes available to support the development, implementation, transition, and operation of the ECX Follow On solution within a compressed period.

B. Replacement System Architecture and Solution Development

1) Proposed Replacement Solution - Describe your approach for delivering a complete replacement ECX solution that can operate independently of the incumbent contractor's proprietary platform, tools, configurations, and infrastructure.

2) Commercial Platform Versus Custom Development - Identify which components of your solution would use commercially available products, existing configurable platforms, custom developed software, or hybrid architecture. Distinguish production ready capabilities from components requiring development, customization, integration, or testing.

3) End State Technical Architecture - Describe end state architecture, including telephony, IVR, intelligent routing, agent desktop, digital channels, knowledge management, workforce management, quality assurance, analytics, reporting, system integrations, security controls, and AI services.

4) Scalability and Capacity - Explain how your solution would support approximately 18 million annual calls and chats, including peak interaction volumes, concurrent sessions, call routing, system availability, and anticipated increases in automated interactions.

Identify the assumptions and capacity planning methodology used.

5) Modularity and Technology Independence - Describe how the solution would support modular components, interoperable interfaces, data portability, technology refresh, and the replacement or addition of AI models and third-party services without requiring complete system replacement.

6) Government Data and Configuration Ownership - Identify the data, configurations, source code where applicable, documentation, interfaces, and other technical artifacts the Government would need to access or retain to support continuity, maintenance, future competition, and transition to another contractor. Describe any licensing restrictions or proprietary dependencies.

C. Omnichannel Unification

1) Does your solution provide a unified agent interface that integrates voice, IP-TTY, web chats, email, SMS-text, and social media into a single workspace with persistent conversation history across all channels?

2) Does conversation context carry over seamlessly if a customer switches from live chat to a voice call?

3) Can the Workforce Management (WFM) tool attach chat transcripts for cross-reference and centralize reporting that pulls all agent handling data points (Average Handle Time (AHT), total calls, inbound/outbound calls/emails/chats/webforms) across all contact centers regardless of channel point?

4) Does your solution integrate forecasting and scheduling with scheduled voice, web callback, and queue routing for maximum optimization across any physical locations and remote agents?

5) Can supervisors monitor real-time performance across all three business units (VCC, EXA Tier 1 & 2, LSS) through a single-sign-on (SSO) enabled, Section 508-compliant dashboard with customizable key performance metrics?

D. Pricing and Total Cost of Ownership

1) What is your consumption-based pricing model for handling up to 15 million calls per year with approximately 2,000 live agents, and how does pricing scale up or down as business requirements change?

2) What are the costs associated with surge capacity deployment within 24-120 hours to support up to 100% remote/VPN workforce or disaster scenarios where USCIS may support other DHS agencies like FEMA?

3) Describe how AI services would be priced, including interaction charges, tokens, usage-based fees, concurrent sessions, licensing tiers, model hosting, and third-party services, as applicable. Explain how costs would change as AI adoption and automated interaction volumes increase.

4) Does your pricing include all required components: IVR with AI speech-to-speech enhancement, intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) chatbot, speech/text analytics, workforce management, quality monitoring, and 7-year chat transcript retention?

5) Describe how your pricing model would accommodate fluctuating interaction volumes, new AI use cases, changing technology, and increased automation. Identify measures that could prevent unexpected usage charges, vendor lock in, and disproportionate cost increases.

E. Technology and CRM Integration

1) Is your solution FedRamp Moderate compliant? If so, please provide the supporting documentation.

2) How does your cloud-based CCaaS solution (Amazon Connect or similar) integrate with Salesforce CRM using Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), including screen pop functionality for whitelisted attributes and embedded softphone technology?

3) Do you offer out-of-the-box native connectors or open APIs for custom developer builds?

4) Can all administrative changes be handled through a single, centralized tool rather than split portals?

5) Does your platform provide API integration capabilities to pass authenticated caller requests, receipt numbers, A-Numbers, and other data collected from callers to Salesforce prior to transfer to live assistance?

6) Does the custom IVR support custom voice service such as bring-your-own-TTS/voice models.

7) Can administrative changes be managed through a multisite administration portal that supports configuration of call routing, call management, and advanced AI/ML functions across USCIS business units with distinct routing requirements?

F. AI and Automation Capabilities

1) Describe your recommended strategy for introducing AI into the ECX environment.

Identify the highest value use cases, their relative implementation complexity, expected benefits, dependencies, and recommended sequence.

2) Explain how AI services would be incorporated into the replacement architecture, including conversational AI, generative AI, virtual agents, agent assistance, intelligent routing, automated interaction summaries, and AI enabled quality assurance.

3) Does your IVR solution with natural language processing achieve the required performance metrics: >95% accuracy in matching user intent, >75% containment rate (target >85%), response latency <700ms, and maintain 75% or better customer satisfaction?

4) Can your AI-powered IVR authenticate customers, use repeated capture attempts with

DTMF and phonetic playback, identify repeat callers, provide advanced dialogue management for multi-question calls, and send links via SMS-text and email with email address validation?

5) Does your solution include conversational AI capabilities for end-to-end appointment booking with reason identification, mutual scheduling checking real-time availability, and integration with USCIS systems (via Apigee) without transferring to live agents?

6) Does the system support custom Ai Voice to maintain a unique brand identity.

7) As new AI-based technology becomes available, can your contractor provide resources and skillsets to incorporate and enhance the FedRAMP moderate contact center environment while maintaining compliance with DHS Directive 139-08, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and Unbiased AI Principles?

8) Describe how you would measure successful AI containment and distinguish genuinely resolved inquiries from abandoned interactions, failed transfers, repeated contacts, or customers unable to reach an agent.

G. Reliability, Security, and Support

1) Explain how AI services would be incorporated into the replacement architecture, including conversational AI, generative AI, virtual agents, agent assistance, intelligent routing, automated interaction summaries, and AI enabled quality assurance.

2) Does your solution provide 99.99% software application availability with allowable maintenance windows only between midnight and 0600 local contact center time for no longer than 30 minutes, and do cloud provider SLAs apply?

3) Explain how you would validate system capacity, concurrent sessions, peak volume handling, response times, routing accuracy, integration performance, and resilience before operational acceptance.

4) What specific uptime guarantee or financial credits are backed by your Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

5) What is your approach to providing 7x24 system monitoring with immediate notification to USCIS of any service degradation, and can you provide 7x24 help desk support for IVR issues plus 8:00AM to 8:00PM local time support for CCS including holidays?

6) How would your solution integrate with USCIS ServiceNow (SNOW) ticketing system to accept, respond, update status, and resolve issues, and what is your process for providing network and system outage incident reports within 2 business days after ticket closure?

7) Can you provide a dedicated full-time Program Manager for on-site support, if required, at USCIS Camp Springs, MD location, and optionally a dedicated full-time Information System Security Officer (ISSO) to work with USCIS Security team on POAMs and FedRAMP Moderate authorization requirements?

5. Proposal Evaluation Factors

USCIS is interested in the ideas, experiences, and suggestions of contractors on the Evaluation Factors to be used for contract selection and award, these can include pricing, costs, labor, sizing, contract types, work measurements, experience, etc.

a) Related, Relevant Experience

Describe any recent (within the past three years) and relevant (similar scope) experience as a contractor (specify prime or sub). Specifically, discuss projects for which your company led the modernization of any of the four areas of focus listed in Section 3 above. The experience should demonstrate experience with real world production environments, not development or experimental in nature. Writing white papers is not the experience USCIS is seeking. If providing information regarding an IDIQ/BPA, please only report on task orders and call orders that have been awarded. The list should include the following information:

o Organization/Agency that awarded the contract/task order o Contract/task order number Description of the award, to include a short synopsis of the scope/statement of work.

o Period of performance o Solicitation type (i.e. set aside small, SDVOSB, full and open competition/MOBIS

RFQ, open market RFQ or RFP, etc.)

o Type of award (i.e. firm-fixed price with a SOW/PWS/SOO, or hourly staffing) o Name and contact information for the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR)

Response Instructions

Interested parties should provide the following information:

a) Vendor Profile: Please provide the following information:

Company Name and Location

Indicate if you are a large or small business, socioeconomic category, and size of company (number of personnel and annual revenue).

Name of contact person responsible for this RFI response, including telephone number and email address.

Any US Government contract vehicle which USCIS can use that your company currently has a contract with.

b) Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI with responses to the questions in Section 4 and provide the information in Section 5. Responses should be submitted in Adobe PDF format via e-mail only to the Contract Specialist Brittany Willette, at Brittany.B.Willette@uscis.dhs.gov, and are due no later than Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 8:00 am ET. Responses should be no more than fifteen (15) pages in no smaller than font size 12. Please do not include charts, graphs, or inserts with smaller print to fit more information into the fifteen (15) pages.

The subject line of the email must read RFI Response for USCIS Enterprise Customer Experience 2.

Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and must be clearly marked. To aid the Government, please segregate proprietary information. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

Reminder: In accordance with FAR 15.101(c)(3)(i), the Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of the RFI or otherwise pay for the information requested; and in accordance with FAR 15.101(c)(3)(ii) responses will be treated as information only and not as a proposal.

That government may, at its sole discretion, contact responding companies after submission for clarifications.

Failure to respond to this RFI may be viewed as non-interest/non-capable in performing this future requirement. Should there be any conflicting information between this RFI and the final solicitation that the requirements in the final released solicitation will take precedence.

Questions: Any questions can be submitted via email to Brittany Willette, Contract Specialist at Brittany.B.Willette@uscis.dhs.gov.