Customer Care Call Center Service Partner

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Customer Care Call Center Service Partner to provide comprehensive staffing and operations for a centralized customer service hub serving approximately 34,000 students, 6,000 staff members, and community stakeholders across 63 instructional sites in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The call center must operate Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., excluding district holidays and calamity days, and handle approximately 5,000 calls monthly during regular periods with capacity to manage up to 12,000 calls monthly during peak periods (July, August, and January). Required deliverables include staffing of customer service agents and administrative support personnel, bilingual English and Spanish customer service capabilities with consideration for Arabic and Swahili, comprehensive all-inclusive cost proposals covering agent salaries, administrative support, and all operational costs, and successful completion of background checks for all staff prior to engagement. Key objectives include elevating customer service delivery aligned with CMSD's "Communicate with H.E.A.R.T." model, strengthening community engagement, and ensuring stakeholders feel informed, respected, and supported. Evaluation criteria include responsiveness to submission requirements, understanding of district needs, demonstrated experience and qualifications, scope of services offered, and cost. The deadline for written questions is April 17, 2026, at 2:00 p.m., with proposals due May 13, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. via the District's e-Procurement Portal; service provider selection is scheduled for May 27, 2026, contract negotiation for June 9, 2026, and the contract start date is July 1, 2026.

The contract term is three years from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2029, with two optional one-year renewal periods (July 1, 2029 through June 30, 2030, and July 1, 2030 through June 30, 2031), subject to mutual agreement and satisfactory performance. A 30-day discovery and implementation phase will occur at no cost to the District prior to the effective contract date. The vendor must comply with all federal, state, and local regulations, including Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) for federal grant-funded purchases, maintain Commercial General Liability insurance of $1,000,000 per occurrence and Automobile Liability insurance of $1,000,000 per occurrence with the District listed as an additional insured, and bear all background check processing costs. Current performance data from the existing call center operations indicates baseline metrics with 62,175 total calls handled over a 13-month period (February 1, 2025, through February 28, 2026), with the English queue achieving a 95.30% service level and the Spanish queue achieving an 85.35% service level, demonstrating operational benchmarks the selected vendor must maintain or exceed. The RFP document does not specify set-aside designations for disadvantaged enterprises or identify an incumbent vendor; however, cost proposals must be structured using specified tables for agent costs, administration costs, and total contract costs, though specific budget ranges or award values are not explicitly stated in the available documentation.