Contact Centre Market Engagement

DWP’s existing contact centre is the largest across all UK government departments and is one of the largest contact centres in Europe, with more than 33,000 advisors (c.17,000 concurrent) in circa 200 locations and handling approximately 90 million calls per annum. The contact centre platform is delivered on behalf of DWP by a managed service provider. DWP is currently evaluating options for how to continue delivering services beyond the expiry of the current contract.

Any future omnichannel contact centre solution must incorporate the standard inbound and outbound voice elements of a modern contact centre, further including email & webchat, call recording and speech analytics whilst taking into consideration that there will be the development of other future omnichannel services.

DWP is undertaking a market engagement exercise to gather insights from suppliers to inform its future contact centre strategy. The market engagement activity consists of an initial webinar session taking place at 13:00 on 12th December 2022 to provide some background and context to the requirement. All documentation, including the webinar invitation, can be accessed via the DWP e-Sourcing portal dwp.bravosolution.co.uk ↗. The slides from the webinar will be published on the portal alongside a list of supplier questions and DWP answers from the session.

In addition, several Request for Information (RFI) documents are available via the DWP e-Sourcing portal as set out below to gather specific insights on key solution areas and options.

Suppliers can select any number of RFIs to respond to:

RFI 1 – Contact Centre Platform – DWP require a contact centre technology platform providing all core capabilities.

RFI 2 – Outbound Dialler Integration – An Outbound Dialler solution is required to integrate into the proposed contact centre solution.

RFI 3 – Presentation Layer for Historic Management Information (MI) - DWP require a data analysis and report authoring tool that can digest data from the contact centre platform and other sources.

RFI 4 –Workforce Optimisation – A workforce optimisation solution that will provide DWP with agent forecasting and scheduling capability along with real-time contact centre performance and agent adherence monitoring.

The following two RFIs will be added to the portal by 9th December 2022.

RFI 5 – Managed Service/Run Partner – An operating and support model that manages the proposed contact centre on behalf of DWP or an alternative method of support/co-operation.

RFI 6 – Survey Solution – Integrated into the contact centre platform a survey solution that citizens can interact with via their keypad or through voice recognition.

All information relating to this market engagement activity, including the RFI documents and webinar invitation, are available via the DWP eSourcing portal dwp.bravosolution.co.uk ↗. Please register as a supplier on this solution and express an interest in the “Contact Centre Market Engagement” opportunity to access the documentation. Further details are provided in the Additional Information section below.

The deadline for submitting RFI responses is 17:00 on 6th January 2023. Submissions are required to be made via the DWP eSourcing portal.

DWP reserves the right to clarify RFI responses or to enter into more detailed discussions with individual suppliers to gather more qualitative insights.

Please note that the market engagement activity will not be used to formally evaluate suppliers and any information shared will be used for information purposes only to provide insights and to inform DWP of market capabilities. Any information received or discussions held will not contribute or influence the evaluation of any potential future tender submissions.

Participation in this exercise is optional with all associated costs to be borne by the supplier. Any decision not to participate will not preclude any suppliers from participation in any subsequent procurement activity. Additional information: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. As the UK's biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of other working age, disability, and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.