Utility Billing, Printing, Mailing & Related Services.

Description of Services (Scope of Work) The City seeks a qualified and experienced vendor to provide comprehensive utility billing services, including physical bill production, electronic bill presentment and related services. Services may include, but are not limited to: Core Services • Generating and printing monthly utility bills (paper & electronic) • Folding, inserting, and mailing statements and notices • Processing returned or undelivered mail statements, updating customer addresses and corrections using the National Change of Address (NCOA) database, returning corrected address data to the City, and ensuring corrected bills are reissued or forwarded as appropriate • Maintaining data security and confidentiality for both paper and electronic billing • Providing customer communication inserts, notices, and messages as needed. • The vendor shall provide a dedicated section on the billing page to display Important Dates and City news, allowing the City to update content as needed. • Meeting strict production and mailing deadlines • Performing any other services reasonably required to complete the work Vendors are expected to offer electronic address updates prior to mailing, ensuring that customer records are current before bills are sent to the USPS. Vendors may describe any additional services or tools they offer to enhance address accuracy and support the bill printing and mailing process. The Vendor shall support flexible bill and notice design, including formatting changes, graphics, color, bar coding, and other enhancements as required by the City. Services not explicitly mentioned but reasonably required to complete the work shall be considered within the contract scope. The City uses Tyler Pro 10 for all utility billing. All services described herein that are part of the routine monthly billing process, including but not limited to printing, processing, mailing, electronic delivery, NCOA processing, household billing, outsort handling, and standard inserts, shall be deemed included in the Contractor's base pricing unless explicitly identified as a separately billable line item in the Cost Proposal. Billing Delivery, Reporting & Mailing Requirements File Transmission: • The vendor must have the ability to accept CVS bill files using an online upload or a standard FTP ( not encrypted) or SFTP(encrypted) transmission. Printing, Folding & Mailing Requirements: • The vendor must fold the 8½ x 11 bills, combine the inserts, a #9 windowed return envelope or #9 preprinted return envelope, and stuff these items into a #10 windowed envelope. The #10 envelope must have the preprinted return address for the City of Holly Hill. • The vendor must have the capability to suppress the inserting of envelopes for certain customers, based on City requirements. • The vendor must have the capability to print City logos and multiple page bills (also indicated with OMR marks). Multiple page bills are an exception, less than 0.025%. • Bills must be mailed via presorted first-class mail to maximize postal discounts at the postal rates for bulk mail. Bills are presorted in the daily PDF files sent to the vendor. • The City should be able to verify proof of delivery to the USPS on an as-needed basis. Invoice & Postage Requirements: • The vendor shall provide the City with a monthly invoice, broken down by each billing cycle or data/print file submitted by the City. Each invoice must detail the number of bills processed, postage costs, and any other itemized charges. All postage costs will be initially incurred by the vendor and billed to the City at cost. • The vendor must mail bills using the USPS 5-Digit Rate (or the lowest qualifying rate) to maximize postage discounts. Reporting & Quality Control Procedures: • The City should be able to track all files that have been sent to the vendor before, during, and after processing, such as a File Confirmation Report confirming receipt of file transmission. • Daily Production Confirmation Reports should be sent via email immediately after processing is complete. • Reports should include volume of bills received for processing, volume printed, and volume emailed. • Vendors should provide any history of weather delays for mail transportation from the vendor's facility to the USPS. • Vendors should provide details regarding quality control procedures, including: 1. Ability to pull a bill from production processing and the process for doing so 2. Procedures for ensuring that bill file transmissions are completed successfully 3. Procedures for correcting issues Customer Support & Data Security Dual-Channel Billing: • Support both electronic bill presentment and paper billing. • Allow the City to manage customer preferences for paper or electronic billing, including switching options during the contract term. Paper Billing and Mailing: • Generate accurate paper bills per City formatting requirements. • Fold, insert, and mail statements and notices promptly to meet deadlines. • Handle returned mail and update customer addresses as necessary, including National Change of Address (NCOA) processing. • Accept and process billing files transmitted via online upload, FTP, or SFTP from the City. • Provide proof of delivery and daily production confirmation reports for all mailings. Production & Delivery Standards: • Meet all agreed production and mailing deadlines for both electronic and paper billing. • Ensure bills and notices are delivered accurately and in a timely manner to minimize customer complaints and late payments. • Maintain procedures to track and correct any issues during bill processing, including the ability to pull bills from production if necessary. Data Security, Privacy & Confidentiality: • Maintain strict confidentiality of customer information for both paper and electronic channels. • Implement robust controls to protect against unauthorized access, data breaches, or loss of sensitive information. • Maintain appropriate backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity procedures to ensure uninterrupted billing operations. • Provide details about disaster recovery facilities, including locations, capabilities, and processes for continuing bill production if the main facility becomes inoperable. • Include a summary of the disaster recovery plan, including failover procedures and estimated recovery times. Customer Support: • Provide customer support during normal business hours of 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday through Friday. • Describe procedures for after-hours support, including response times and escalation procedures. • Include a list of company-observed holidays. • Provide a detailed process for customer service and issue reporting, including how issues are tracked, communicated to the City, and resolved.