DJSIR has a requirement to engage a suitable contractor to deliver contact centre services.

Whilst DJSIR does maintain an inhouse contact centre that ensures the department has the capability to delivery efficient, effective contact services, this function is deliberately kept small in scale to minimise resource and investment requirements. Scaled up requirements are intermittent and, in most cases, unplanned, making it inefficient to maintain full time resourcing on an ongoing basis. An external provider is required to ensure service delivery can be stood up for overflow or surge requirements, particularly in the case of emergencies.

As engagement circumstances for the scaling of resources will be for unplanned activities or events, exact resourcing requirements are unable to be forecast. Considering previous activities within the Department, capacity requirements have the potential for the scale up of up to 10 to 50 staff within small time frames (for example 48 hours for 10 staff members) depending on the resource requirement for a period ranging from one week to months. Work however cannot be guaranteed by virtue of its unplanned nature.

DJSIR’s inhouse team will act as the liaison between the Department and the provider, creating all briefings, onboarding and training content, scripting and templates, overseeing escalations and troubleshooting. Further, the inhouse team will manage the contract to ensure performance and efficiency is in line with requirements and contractual KPIs.

The external provider will use their own technology and systems, accessing DJSIR’s as appropriate and only when necessary.

External providers are encouraged to have the vast majority of their staff as remote workers which ensures costs are minimised while maintaining an Australian based workforce, and supporting priority cohorts, and people in regional areas.

Following this expression of interest, select respondents will be asked to provide a comprehensive response to tender, outlining service delivery, past experience, capacity, compliance with Service Agreement terms, and a detailed Rate Card costing.

Required services comprise provision of contact centre management and capacity including, but not limited to, ability to make inbound and outbound calls, emails and text messages, respond to webforms and LiveChat, conduct outbound campaigns, and other assistance as required. This capacity may be required across several internal department business areas for ongoing, or surge activity relating to BAU programs or emergency business support such as that required for a flood, bushfire or malevolent cyber incidents. The Department seeks to contract a provider who can offer a full suite of customer experience services and technology.

In addition, the Department requires a provider that can, if requested in exceptional circumstances, supply staff to work within the in-house contact centre to provide the same services outlined above. This would be for limited resourcing for the support of unplanned leave or minor temporary surges where small upscaling is required on a temporary, short-term basis and for which recruitment and onboarding would be inefficient and unwarranted.