The contract is for one year with four one-year options and has a funding capacity of US$150 million over the next five years. E-Government Extends to Call Centers
The GSA contract is part of the USA Services initiative, which was launched exactly a year ago by the procurement agency, in part to make it easier for federal agencies to purchase single or multi-dimensional contact-center services. The initiative also maintains the National Contact Center, which answers misdirected e-mail, postal mail and telephone calls for 11 agencies and one bureau.
ICT Group's new contract was a re-compete for the National Contact Center services vendor, the company said.
"We are extremely pleased to be named one of the GSA's contact-center services providers in this unique government venture," Chairman and CEO John J. Brennan said. "This contract represents a significant opportunity for ICT Group to apply our customer-service expertise and commercial best practices" in the government sector.
Centerpiece of the Initiative
The larger mission of USA Services is to streamline the process by which people interact with the government, enabling all sorts of channels besides the call center Latest News about call center. These include e-mail and postal mail for example.
But the role of the National Contact Center is at the heart of the initiative.
"When an agency gets a phone call or e-mail that should go to another agency, we take care of the misdirected communication," said M.J. Jameson, associate administrator with GSA, in recent Congressional testimony about e-government Latest News about e-government initiatives.
"Citizens often don't know which agency to call or e-mail with their questions or problems. When they reach the wrong agency, we can either give them the information, or -- if the question is more complex -- direct them to the right office."
USA Services currently has 14 agencies signed up to send the agency misdirected calls and e-mails, and its goal is 20 partners by the end of FY 2004, Jameson said.
"In some cases, agencies come to us for an even higher level of support. USA Services personnel can respond to citizens' frequently asked questions with information that's been cleared through agency experts. We call this our "Tier 1" service. This is a reimbursable service that we provide to six agencies. Our goal is 10 Tier One partners by the end of FY 2004 and 15 by the end of FY 2005."
Bureaucracy on a Customer-Service Mission
The government at both the federal and local level has been interested in and investing in CRM technologies for some time, Beagle Research Group principal Denis Pombriant tells CRM Daily. At the municipal level, the current hot investment is in 311 services. State and federal governments, for their parts, have been focusing on better automating channel communications.
"In the past -- say the last two to four years -- we saw an initial push for governments to get as many services online as possible," Steven Rohleder, group chief executive of Accenture's government practice, told CRM Daily. Now, e-government is moving into a new stage -- "one that is focused on customer satisfaction."
Autor: Erika Morphy
Quelle: CRM Daily, 04.08.2004
