TO: HONORABLE MAYOR FROM: Dolan Beckel
AND CITY COUNCIL
SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: April 4, 2022
Approved Date
4/6/2022
SUBJECT: MASTER SERVICE AGREEMENTS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE
VISION AND STANDARDS SERVICES
RECOMMENDATION
Adopt a resolution authorizing the City Manager to:
(a) Negotiate and execute master consulting agreements with the following vendors for customer service vision and standards services for initial one-year terms beginning on or about June 1, 2022 through June 1, 2023 with total maximum compensation not to exceed $400,000 for each agreement, subject to the appropriation of funds:
1. CivicMakers (San Francisco, CA);
2. BerryDunn (Portland, ME);
3. Guidehouse Inc. (Falls Church, VA); and
4. Keen Independent Research LLC (Denver, CO).
(b) Exercise up to two one-year options to extend the term of each of the agreements with the last option ending on or about June 30, 2025, subject to the appropriation of funds.
OUTCOME
City Council approval will allow staff to move forward on entering into Master Consulting Agreements to help the City of San José (City) develop a Customer Service Vision and Standards. This project seeks to improve the City’s one-on-one customer service delivered to residents, business, and partners in the delivery of City services and improve customer service delivered internally within the City, including to the City Council and City staff.
COUNCIL AGENDA: 04/19/22
FILE: 22-510
ITEM: 2.8
HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
April 4, 2022
Subject: Master Service Agreements for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services
BACKGROUND
As one of the City Manager’s priority areas, the Customer Service Vision and Standards initiative focuses on transforming the way that the City provides one-on-one customer service to residents, businesses, and partners in the delivery of City services in addition to the customer service delivered internally within the City, including to the City Council and City staff.
Given the City’s current staff shortages and constrained labor market, it was determined that external consultants were the best resourcing channel to pursue this initiative, as external consultants could provide additional project-based capacity and new cross-industry expertise related to customer service best practices.
To initiate this work, the City advertised for bids for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services through a request for proposal (RFP) process. The procurement requested proposals from qualified firms to provide the consulting services to conduct the discovery, design, planning, and initial pilots, as well as develop an evaluation framework.
ANALYSIS
On December 13, 2021, the City advertised for bids for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services through an RFP process. The City had an open question and answer period through January 14, 2022 where vendors submitted and staff responded to 46 questions. Vendor bids were accepted through January 21, 2022. Overall, the City received bids from six vendors, all of which were deemed by the evaluation panel (consisting of staff from the City Manager’s Office of Employee Relations, Information Technology Department, and Planning Building and Code Enforcement Department) to be responsive to the RFP. The evaluation panel scored the first- round evaluation and elected to conduct oral interviews with the top four vendors. Oral interviews were conducted on February 14, 2022. A Notice of Intended Award was issued on March 7, 2022, with a staff recommendation to enter into Master Consulting Agreements with the four vendors that participated in and successfully completed an oral interview. No protests were received by the City.
The RFP requested qualified consultants to assist with developing a Customer Service Vision and Standards with short-term to long-term improvement opportunities and a corresponding transformation plan. The five major tasks within the scope of services are shown below across multiple City departments and offices with varying City services and degrees of interaction with the public.
HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
April 4, 2022
Subject: Master Service Agreements for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services
Scope of Services and Requirements:
The scope of services included five major tasks summarized below:
1. Discovery - Use targeted interviews and data analysis to develop a better understanding of the customer experience across various City departments and offices, person-to-person customer service needs, and areas of focus for transforming the way that the City provides customer service.
2. Mapping the Current State - Prioritize and segment customers and identify personas representing key attributes, behaviors, and scenarios that differentiate their journey using City services. Use primary and secondary research to create journey maps that capture persona love points, pain points, and insights at key moments within City service delivery. This includes “active” delivery of services and “passive” general inquiries including emails and phone calls. Customer segments and personas should include, but not be limited to, non-English speaking customer and differently abled customer use cases for key stakeholders identified during the discovery phase.
3. Formulate a Customer Service Vision and Standards - Conduct strategic visioning and reporting sessions with City staff based on previous insights and the consultants’ external cross-industry customer service expertise. Develop a Customer Service Vision (future state) to capture and describe the ideal future of customer service within the delivery of City services. Develop a set of standards to give a foundation for and guide future implementation. Elements of the set of standards should include, but not be limited to, response time, empathy and resolution, creative problem solving, and compassion and sensitivity.
4. Identify Strategic Improvement Opportunities and Create a Transformation Plan - Conduct a current state gap analysis and create future state customer service journey maps that align with the Customer Vision and Standards. Identify recommendations for impactful opportunities including, but not limited to, people, process, and technology improvements and training opportunities to pursue over several years to transform how the City provides customer service. Also identify recommendations and improvement opportunities based on previous tasks including interviews, processes, policies, governance, and supportive technology to meet specific outcomes such as reduced cost, reduced time, improved quality, improved accessibility, and improved equity in City service delivery. Recommend quick wins and pilot opportunities. Develop and apply an evaluation framework to understand the desired outcomes and the degree to which improvement opportunities are impacting customer service within the delivery of City services based on an Agile Weighted-Shortest Job First method or similar prioritization approach. Create a multi-year transformation plan for implementing short-term, high- priority quick wins and pilots and long-term, at-scale opportunities. Upon approval of the transformation plan, work with City staff to refine high-level cost estimates.
HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
April 4, 2022
Subject: Master Service Agreements for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services
5. Pilot Initial Opportunities - Assist with piloting initial opportunities selected by the City from the previously approved recommendations. The initial opportunities will have a bias towards piloting quick wins to deliver impact and gain momentum and should be within the capacity and resources of the City to implement. Establish and update department training manuals based on improvement opportunities. Consultants may propose other pilots for initial opportunities based on the previous recommendations. This category of work may include other people, process, or technology pilots that are within the capacity and resources of the City to implement.
In addition to the scope of services, the City outlined desired qualifications, including firms that have experience working with diverse communities, communities of color, individuals with limited English proficiency, individuals with disabilities and accessibility needs, and other under-represented populations. Understanding how these communities interact with City services, and where customer service may help play a role in improving the experience, effectiveness, and equity, is a key objective of this work.
Based on the evaluation, the scores in Table 1, Score without Oral Interview, and Table 2, Final Score, were determined corresponding with the standard Finance Department consultant services evaluation criteria:
Table 1. Score without Oral Interview
VENDOR Civic-
Makers
Berry
Dunn
Guidehouse Keen
Independent
Research
Moment* Telecommunications
Development Corp*
TOTAL 7.20 7.15 6.85 6.67 2.62 5.87
*Did not proceed to Oral Interview
Table 2. Final Score
VENDOR Civic-
Makers
Berry
Dunn
Guidehouse Keen
Independent
Research
TOTAL 7.23 7.16 6.85 6.68
Based on the results, the staff recommends the award of Master Consultant Agreements to CivicMakers, BerryDunn, Guidehouse Inc., and Keen Independent Research LLC.
During the question and answer period and oral interviews, the most frequently asked question by vendors was with respect to the City’s fast timeline for deliverable completion of the scope of services. The fast timeline for the project was driven by the annual budget process, with tasks initially desired to be completed in early 2022 in order to inform a budget request that would enable the City to implement recommendations. Since the project will not be able to begin as quickly as originally planned, largely due to the limited available staff needing to pivot back to managing the City’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) response to the COVID Omicron variant, the City elected to shift the timeline of the project such that the same Scope of Services and same overall time duration should be completed within a July to December 2022 timeframe.
HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
April 4, 2022
Subject: Master Service Agreements for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services
In doing so, the City also believes that the timeframe will lead to a better outcome for the City and its customers.
It is expected that some quick wins will be implemented within the original allocated budget of $400,000. Additional funding is being considered for inclusion in the 2022-2023 Proposed Operating Budget to continue implementation of the recommendations from this project.
The recommendation to enter into four Master Consultant Agreements was based on a desire to preserve fairness for vendors, flexibility for the City, and to allow for scale of effort clarifications to be provided to all awarded vendors.
CONCLUSION
City Council approval will allow staff to move forward on entering into Master Consulting Agreements to help the City develop a Customer Service Vision and Standards. This project seeks to improve the City’s one-on-one customer service delivered to residents, business, and partners in the delivery of City services and improve the customer service delivered internally within the City, including to the City Council and City staff.
EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP
With the recommendations of this memorandum, the project will progress by entering into Master Consulting Agreements with the vendors, where the City will solicit cost proposals for service orders. The selected vendor(s) will commence project delivery based on the tasks of the scope of services. Updates on project delivery will be included in reports to the City Council through the Smart Cities and Service Improvements Committee.
Upon completion of the tasks, the Administration will receive recommendations for a transformation plan and corresponding cost estimates for City Council consideration in future annual budget processes.
CLIMATE SMART SAN JOSE
The recommendation in this memorandum has no effect on Climate Smart San José energy, water, or mobility goals.
PUBLIC OUTREACH
Staff utilized Biddingo to conduct outreach to businesses for this procurement. This memorandum will be posted on the City Council Agenda website for the City of San José Council Meeting to be held on April 19, 2022.
HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
April 4, 2022
Subject: Master Service Agreements for Customer Service Vision and Standards Services
COORDINATION
This memorandum and related documents were prepared in coordination with the City Attorney’s Office, and the City Manager’s Budget Office.
COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION/INPUT
No commission recommendation or input is associated with this action.
BUDGET REFERENCE
The table below identifies the fund and appropriation available to enter into Master Consulting Agreements to help the City develop a Customer Service Vision and Standards. Additional funding is being considered for inclusion in the 2022-2023 Proposed Operating Budget to continue implementation of the recommendations of this project. City Council approval of the 2022-2023 Operating Budget is scheduled for June 14, 2022 and adoption of the budget on June 21, 2022.
Fund
#
Appn
# Appn Name Current Total
Appn
Amt. for
Contract
2021-
2022
Adopted
Operating
Budget
Page
Last Budget
Action
(Date, Ord.
No.)
001 218T Customer Service
Vision and Standards
$400,000
$400,000 N/A 10/19/2021,
30682
CEQA
Not a Project, File No. PP17-003, Agreements/Contracts (New or Amended) resulting in no physical changes to the environment.
/s/
DOLAN BECKEL
Director, Office of Civic Innovation
The principal author of this memorandum is Erik Chiarella Jensen, Assistant to the City Manager.
For questions, please contact Dolan Beckel, Director, Office of Civic Innovation, at [email protected].