Solicitation for Answering Services at the U. S. Consulate General Toronto

Date:  April 14, 2025

Dear Prospective Quoter:

Subject: Request for Quotations number 19CA7025Q0003 for Call Answering Services

Enclosed is a Request for Quotations (RFQ) for Call Answering Services for the United States Consulate General, Toronto. If you would like to submit a quotation, follow the instructions in Section 3 of the solicitation, complete the required portions of the attached document, and send it to torontoprocurement@state.gov.

The U.S. Government intends to award a contract/purchase order to the responsible company submitting a technically acceptable offer at the lowest price.  We intend to award a contract/purchase order based on initial quotations, without holding discussions, although we may hold discussions with companies in the competitive range if there is a need to do so.

The United States Consulate General, Toronto intends to conduct a pre-quotation conference virtually on April 23, 2025 at 2:00 pm. Prospective offerors/quoters should contact Akhnoor Ali, email: torontoprocurement@state.gov for additional information by Monday, April 21, 2025.

Quotations are due by 4:00 pm on May 14, 2025. No quotations will be accepted after this time. Proposals must be in English and incomplete proposals will not be accepted. Your quotation must be submitted electronically to TorontoProcurement@state.gov.  The submission must be made in pdf file format, not to exceed 10MB.  If the file size should exceed 10MB, the submission must be made in separate files and attached to separate emails with less than 10MB each.

In order for a quotation to be considered, you must also complete and submit the following:

1. SF-1449

2. Section I, Pricing

3. Section 5 Representations and Certifications

4. Additional information as required in Section 3

5. Proof of SAM Registration

Offerors shall be registered in the SAM (System for Award Management) database at https://www.sam.gov prior to submittal of their offer/proposal as prescribed under FAR 4.1102. Failure to be registered at time of proposal submission may deem the offeror’s proposal to be considered non-responsible and no further consideration will be given. Therefore, offerors are highly encouraged to register immediately if they are interested in submitting a response to this requirement.

Sincerely,

Jay Daniliuk

Contracting Officer

RFQ NUMBER: 19CA7025Q0003 , SCHEDULE OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES, BLOCK 20, DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/WORK STATEMENT

1.  Objective:  The purpose of this procurement is to provide telephone answering service in support of the U.S. Consulate General Toronto.

U.S. Consulate General Toronto POC: This information will be provided at the time of the contract award.

2.  Scope of Work:  The contractor will provide 24-hour telephone answering services for the U.S. Consulate General Toronto (Consulate).  The contractor will provide responses, as indicated in the script, to all non-emergency calls received at any time.  During business hours, emergency calls received by the contractor will be transferred to the American Citizen Services (ACS) Unit at the Consulate.  Emergency calls received by the contractor during non-business hours will be transferred to the U.S. Government Duty Officer.  Twice-daily logs of all calls will be provided to the ACS Unit as well as separate, individual logs of any emergency calls.

Hours of Service:

• Business hours:  Monday – Friday 7:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., except on Local and U.S. holidays
• After hours:  All other times including weekends and local and U.S. holidays.

2.1 Estimated number of minutes: 2000-3000 minutes per month.  This estimate presumes 500-800 calls per month.

2.2 The U.S. Government will provide the contractor with a comprehensive script indicating responses for all calls and defining what qualifies as an emergency call necessitating transfer.

2.3 All emergency calls received during business hours will be transferred to the ACS Unit.  All emergency calls received after-hours will be transferred to the Duty Officer.

2.4 The contractor will provide a twice-daily call log (7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. local time) with details of all calls regarding U.S. Citizens.  Each log will include the following:

• Time of call
• Date of call
• Name of caller
• Contact phone number of caller
• Contact email address of caller (if available)
• Confirmation that caller or subject of call is a U.S. Citizen
• Summary of the reason for the call
• Confirmation of transfer to ACS line or Duty Officer (the name of U.S. Government employee who received the transfer) if applicable.

A sample call log will be provided upon award of the contract.

2.5 Individual call logs for emergencies transferred to the ACS Unit or the Duty Officer will also be sent immediately to the U.S. Government contact emails for time-sensitive follow-up.

2.6 For U.S. Government statistics tracking, the contractor will also include in the twice-daily logs, a data summary of the total number of non-U.S. Citizen calls received.  For calls regarding non-U.S. Citizens or that do not have a nexus to a U.S. Citizen, details of the calls are not required for the reporting period.  The data summary should include hangups and disconnects.

2.7 The monthly invoice will begin on day one of the contract start date and include the days until, but not including the same date of the next month.  For example, an invoice that begins 14 September will include all calls until 13 October. 

2.8 The monthly contractor invoice will include two parts:

• A clear breakdown of talk-time minutes charged per call. 
  • Any additional charges per call beyond talk-time must be approved with the U.S. Government before the initiation of the contract. 
  • Patch time minutes will not be included.
  • As this contract is for 24-hour service, holidays are included in after-hours and will not incur a separate fee.
  • Technical requirements for creating the daily log reports will not be a separate fee.
• The monthly invoice will be accompanied by a detailed log of all calls received during the invoice period, including the outcome of each call (i.e. caller hung up, call transferred to Government employee, etc.).

2.9 When available, the U.S. Government will provide the contractor a list of the holidays recognized by the U.S. Consulate for the coming year.