DE01--Enterprise Service Desk Managed Contact Center Infrastructure (CCI)

Description

{"description":"\nRequest for Information\nEnterprise Service Desk Managed Contact Center Infrastructure \nTAC RFI Number: 36C10B26Q0368\n\n1. Introduction \nThe Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Enterprise Command Operations (ECO) is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) in support of a planned future solicitation for its Enterprise Service Desk Managed Contact Center Infrastructure (CCI) solution. ECO is seeking feedback and engagement from interested parties. \n\nSee Section 3 for CCI Solution capabilities and anticipated future capabilities.\n\nThis RFI is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation nor does it restrict the Government as to the ultimate acquisition approach. In accordance with (IAW) Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.101(c), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The purpose of this RFI is to obtain market information on capable sources of supply, industry practices, and input specific to the information provided. The Government is not responsible for any cost incurred by industry in furnishing this information. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposals, if any is issued. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. Any proprietary/sensitive information must be clearly marked by the vendor. \n\n2. Disclaimer\nThe Government will not reimburse any costs incurred in responding to this market research request. Participation is voluntary, and non-response will not preclude participation in any future solicitation. The Government may use the information received to refine requirements, \nacquisition strategy, and solicitation structure\n\n3. CCI Solution Capabilities\nThe current CCI solution utilizes the NICE CXOne platform. Additional features and enhancements leverage Medallia and fill integration with VA s IT Service Management (ITSM) tool, currently ServiceNow.\n\n3.1 Current Capabilities\nThe VA operates in a multi vendor environment in which contractors must work collaboratively, using non proprietary materials and coordinated processes to ensure seamless, consistent service delivery. The CCI Contractor must fully cooperate with all stakeholders, participate in required joint activities, align with VA governance, share deliverables, and support coordinated handoffs and continuous service improvements across vendors.\n\nThe CCI Contractor will provide and maintain a fully integrated up to date CCI solution that interoperates with VA systems, supports multi channel contact handling, delivers intelligent routing, real time reporting, and secure access for both onsite and remote agents. They are responsible for designing and updating call flows and automated messages, ensuring compatibility with VA firewalls and change management processes, addressing security vulnerabilities, and staying current with OEM releases. The solution must include complete call management capabilities, service observation, required Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and support for operational disruptions, while also supplying all associated documentation and reports.\n\nThe Contractor must deliver comprehensive performance analysis and reporting across the CCI solution, ITSM, and ESD vendor operations, using automated monitoring tools, defined metrics, surveys, and trend analyses to assess service quality, Service Level Agreement (SLA)adherence, and customer satisfaction. The Contractor must also maintain robust data management practices, provide dashboards and reporting interfaces, support quality assurance reviews, and ensure continuity through coordinated disaster recovery, contingency, and escalation plans aligned with VA standards.\n\nThe CCI Solution has the following core capabilities:\nIntelligent Routing & Queuing\nIntelligent, skills based routing across modalities (voice, chat, web)\nUniversal queue; dynamic prioritization; overflow and default routing\nMulti vendor routing and support for Moves, Adds, Changes, and Deletes (MACD) on queues and routing configs\nReal time, rules driven routing (skills, availability, SLA, language, presence)\nWarm/cold transfers; conferencing; multi channel transfer capability\nAbility to use Interactive Voice Response (IVR) captured data for routing; omni channel context passing\nSimulation/testing tools for routing; emergency routing controls\nExpansion of ports and routing resiliency\nInteractive Voice Response (IVR)\nVisual IVR and speech/Natural Language Understanding (NLU) driven automated interactions\nElastic IVR ports for surges; configurable greetings and announcements\nDatabase integration for data retrieval, verification, and self service\nDual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF)/speech capture; transcription and reporting in English & Spanish\nNatural speech recognition (English & Spanish) with high accuracy\nSurvey capability; accessibility support (Teletypewriter (TTY)/ American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII))\nComprehensive reporting, real time caller activity visibility\nAbility to update messages rapidly; integrate with backend databases\nCaller authentication; self service transactions; multi language support\nQuality Management\nReal time monitoring of interactions, queues, agents\n100% or selective voice/screen recording; remote playback\nQuality Management forms, scorecards, evaluators; multiple scoring systems\nCall search, tagging, flagging; trend analysis across channels\nSpeech analytics; archive retrieval; Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliant encryption\nSupervisor monitoring, targeted recording, and evaluation tools\nIntegration of metadata, attachments, transcripts (including Spanish translation)\nRecording & Monitoring\nFull multimedia recording (voice, chat) with metadata capture\nArchive, playback, selective or random recording\nFIPS compliant encryption; configurable business rule recording\nSynchronization of audio + chat transcript; search across metadata\nExport and movement of archived data; masking of sensitive information\nAbility to pause/stop live recording; apply speech analytics\nStorage Requirements\nCapacity for 100% call recording + 20% screen capture\nNational Archives and Records Administration (NARA) compliant retention: 6 months online, 18 month archive\nElastic storage; ability to move data between archive and online\nAgent Features\nSoftphone/desk phone support with full call controls\nScreen pops with customer/IVR data; toll free/local dialing\nReal time visibility into blocked calls\nAgent state management (ready/not ready, reason codes)\nLocal/global phone books; voicemail; customizable buttons\nFree seating with preserved metrics\nRemote & End User Training\nTrain the trainer model; comprehensive system training\nGovernment approved curriculum; reusable training materials (videos, docs)\nVirtual interactive training; semi annual updates\nData analysis to identify training needs\nSupervisor Tools\nReal time team/agent status; silent monitoring; barge in/intercept\nAlerts on agent events; escalation handling; assistance tools\nReal time skill assignment changes; reason code management\nCustom dashboards; reporting across all channels\nBroadcast messaging; whisper coaching; filtering and alerts\nExtensive reporting, drill down, and permission based access\nAgent & Supervisor Desktop Tools\nSoftphone with call control, agent state changes, reason codes\nPerformance statistics; multi line appearance\nManager views: team status, forced state changes, reassignments\nWeb Chat Core Capabilities\nSecure chat integrated with ITSM; multi session handling\nTranscripts, history, attachments, pre defined responses\nRouting by business rules/skills; supervisor monitoring/coaching\nSurveys; chat bot escalation; KM integration\nQueueing, after hours messaging, browser compatibility\nWorkforce Management (WFM)\nForecasting (long/short term), scheduling, and what if modeling\nReal time and historical adherence monitoring\nMulti site, multi skill planning; scheduling templates\nIntra day management (reassign, overflow, call flow changes)\nReporting on adherence, staffing, agent activities\nVirtual Call Queue\nAutomatic callback with estimated wait times and retries\nMaintain queue place when caller opts for callback\nConfigurable triggers (queue depth, wait time, time of day)\nVoicemail message capability; multi timezone support\nReporting: successful/failed callbacks, usage, wait time accuracy\nAutomated Call Survey\nPost call and delayed call back surveys (DTMF/voice)\nRecording of comments; scoring, weighting, configuration\nReporting (15 minute segments to yearly); trend and statistics\nLinking results to interactions and agents; export tools\nText (SMS)\nSMS chat with live agent; attachments; automated replies\nRouting by business rules, keywords, and phone number\nAbility to shift from automated to live agent without losing context\nConfirmation texts; integration with VA Knowledge Base\nComputer Telephony Integration (CTI)\nScreen pops with caller and history data\nIntegration with third party systems via standard APIs\nSupport for intelligent routing, call control, reporting, blending\nScreen Capture\nCapture agent activity across multimedia interactions\nSecure, FIPS compliant capture, storage, search, playback, export, and archival of interactions with full metadata\nConfigurable business rules controlling when and how interactions and screens are recorded\nReal time authorized monitoring of agent screens\nEnhanced Features\nWeb Callback functionality with agent availability based routing and full VA operating hours integration\nAI driven features including AutoPilot (voice assistant), Agent Co Pilot, and Supervisor Co Pilot\nFull integration with ServiceNow, Medallia, reporting tools, and major incident IVR workflows\nAdvanced authentication and security enhancements including one time passcodes (SMS/IVR) and voice biometrics\n\n3.2 Future Capabilities\nThe CCI solution requires integration, testing, and implementation of VA approved Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Speech/Sentiment Analytics or third-party applications into the CCI solution using industry standard APIs and repeatable, agile software and system engineering processes. In addition the CCI solution is anticipated to expand into the following future capabilities:\n\nConversational AI (Voice & Chat) \nNatural language voice bots and chatbots\nMultilingual conversational AI\nIntent recognition with contextual memory\nDynamic conversation flow generation\nVoice AI with natural prosody and interruption handling\nAI Intent-Based Routing \nRoutes contacts based on detected intent, sentiment, customer value and/or agent expertise\nPredictive Routing \nOptimizes for CSAT, FCR and AHT\nJourney-Aware Routing \nConsiders prior interactions, unresolved tickets, open incidents and channel switching\nProactive and Predictive Service \nProactive outreach notifying customers of outages, proactive service alerts and AI-triggered outreach when behavior indicates trouble\nPredictive issue resolution when detecting potential service failures and automatically opening tickets or contacting customers\nWorkforce Engagement Management \nAI forecasting of contact volumes\nAutomated scheduling\nSkill-based workforce planning\nReal-time adherence monitoring\nAgent coaching recommendations\nHyper-Personalized Customer Experience \nCustomer identity resolution\nInteraction history\nBehavioral signals\nReal-time personalization\nIntelligent Process Automation \nAuto ticket creation\nBackend task automation\nSystem integration workflows\nAutomated service fulfillment\nKnowledge Intelligence \nAI-generated Knowledge Articles\nKnowledge GAP detection\nAuto-recommendation during calls (within IVR and for agents)\nKnowledge effectiveness scoring\nAutomatic knowledge creation from resolved cases\nReal-Time Operational Intelligence \nReal-time service dashboards\nAnomaly detection\nPredictive workload forecasting\nCustomer journey analytics\nRoot cause identification\nIntegrated Service Management \nTicket creation from calls\nIVR context passed into tickets\nAutomated updates between systems\nIncident correlation\nService status awareness\nSimulation-Based Agent Training \nAI-generated training scenarios\nSimulated customer interactions\nAutomated feedback\nExperience Orchestration \nCustomer journey orchestration\nCross-system workflow execution\nReal-time decision engines\nAdaptive service workflows\n\n4.0 Submittal Instructions\nAll responsible sources may submit a capability statement in accordance with the information below. Interested parties shall provide a maximum of five-pages briefly addressing their recommended solution and approach. All responses should at minimum provide: \n\nRecommended approach to maintaining, enhancing, and/or replacing ECO s current CCI solution and associated benefits/risks to this approach\nFlexible cost-effective Firm-Fixed-Price licensing models for the CCI solution to support fluctuating helpdesk agents and other users\nStrategic opportunities for future capabilities and enhancements\nRecommended contract vehicle, \n\nIn addition, all responses should list your company business size and status.\n\nResponses are due no later than 10:00AM ET Monday, May 4, 2026 via email to Dan DiNocera, Contract Specialist, at Daniel.dinocera@va.gov; Andrea Caltabilota, Contract Specialist, at Andrea.Caltabilota@va.gov; and Evan Schlisserman, Contracting Officer, at Evan.Schlisserman@va.gov. Please submit all responses via email using the subject line ECO CCI Solution- Capability Statement and provide a Point of Contact, if needed.\n\n"} Solicitation Number: 36C10B26Q0368 Type: Sources Sought Base Type: Sources Sought NAICS: 541512 Classification Code: DE01 Response Deadline: 2026-05-04T10:00:00-04:00 Office Address: EATONTOWN, NJ POC: Dan DiNocera, daniel.dinocera@va.gov