TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

Sources Sought – THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) IS RELEASED PURSUANT TO FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PART 10, MARKET RESEARCH. 

This RFI/Sources Sought is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as either a solicitation or the obligation on the part of Government. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts or quotations. This notice is for market research purposes only.  

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.

Respondents will NOT be notified of the results of the analysis. All data received in response to this Sources Sought synopsis that is marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be fully protected from release outside the Government. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with all applicable Government regulations. All documentation shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned.

BACKGROUND:  

The IRS is America’s trusted digital resource for taxpayers to find what they need to meet their tax responsibilities effectively and simply. Taxpayer behaviors are continuously changing.  The IRS must proactively adapt to identify emerging taxpayer needs, introduce online opportunities, implement strategies to capture lost revenue and increase taxpayer compliance. 

The Office of Online Services (OLS) was established in 2011 as an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) strategic initiative to lead business transformation efforts toward digital government and improve the taxpayer experience. OLS’ mission includes advocating for customers and driving digital transformation by aligning people, processes, and technology. OLS supports the IRS by (1) providing leadership across strategy, product/ program management, and user experience for IRS digital services by collaboratively developing solutions for taxpayer needs and (2) providing guidance for transitioning to the future digital government and long-term aspirational vision.

The Office of Online Services’(OLS) objective is to improve the taxpayer experience and bring best practices from both the public and the private sectors to achieve top results. OLS oversees the content for IRS.gov and works with its partners across the Service to publish, promote and update site information. IRS.gov communicates information from every IRS business unit directly to the taxpayer. The site hosts over 150,000 webpages, publications and other content items. It provides access to over 100 tools, web applications and services for taxpayers, business, charities, and tax professionals. This includes nearly 20,000 HTML-generated content items. OLS currently utilizes a survey tool on IRS.gov to access taxpayer satisfaction, measure website performance and improve the Customer Experience (CX).

OLS is seeking information on a FEDRAMP compliant Customer Feedback Management (CFM) cloud-based solution. The solution shall include customer satisfaction survey capabilities and text analytics technology in an omnichannel environment for a cloud-based survey collection of data. This RFI is intended to help OLS assess and identify latest technology innovations and best practices, including building, deploying, customization, tools, architectural, application, security, and governance considerations. OLS is looking for a solution that addresses four overarching goals:

1) Reduce the manual transitioning of data or report creation

2) Robust access to real time data analysis

3) Maximize the ease of interface with other IRS systems

4) Text Analysis

SUBMISSION INFORMATION:

OLS is requesting information on the technical capabilities of a FEDRAMP compliant Customer Feedback Management (CFM) cloud-based solution.

I.      Technical Capabilities - Responses may not exceed 10 pages, excluding the cover page. Each response should include the following information:

1. Company Name
2. Company Address
3. Company Point of Contact and contact information
4. Current Small Business Oasis, VETS and NITAAC Contract Number and Task Area(s) appropriate for this notice; including the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code.
   1. Identification of any contract vehicles (e.g. GSA schedule numbers and SIN category(ies)) they may possess or are aware of that would support this possible requirement.
5. Type of Company (i.e., small business, 8(a), woman owned, veteran owned, etc.)
6. Contractor holder’s technical capabilities that addresses organization and staff experience as follows:
   1. List three organizations to which similar types of services that you implemented a CFM survey solution within the last three years that are similar in size and scope.  Include contract number, description of the requirement, dollar value, contract type, name, and customer contact information. 
   2. Describe how secure data storage securities, including physical and electronic safeguards comply with federal government standards.
   3. Describe how encrypted data transmission complies with federal government standards.
   4. Describe how privacy policies comply with federal government standards.
   5. Describe how you manage and dispose of records.  
   6. Describe your ability to comply with federal accessibility guidelines (e.g., Section 508 compliance, requirements, and accessibility beyond 508).
   7. Describe how you control what survey metadata is collected, including IP addresses; survey access control options; how survey and data are protected by secure passwords and license assignment and user permission limitations.
   8. Describe how Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is collected, handled, and discarded.
   9. Describe your survey reporting capability to include counts of surveys completed, non-started, undeliverable, and started but not completed.
   10. Describe your platforms ability to create tables and graphs summarizing survey response data (custom visual data summaries), export of response data in various file formats (Excel, csv, text, etc.), download survey reports, printable and shareable reports.
   11. Describe if restrictions exist on the amount of surveys that can be created.
   12. Describe your capability to support multiple simultaneous surveys and multivariate testing between them.
   13. Describe your survey intercept options (e.g. pop ups via random sampling, feedback banners, etc. and intercept for digital, QR code and push notifications).
   14. Describe your ability to support user Interface Branding (UI) and UI customization. 
   15. Describe your multilingual abilities (e.g. within surveys text analysis; translation or related to custom UI elements).
   16. Describe survey question customization features (e.g., branching, conditional logic, required questions, etc.)
   17. Describe surveys as it relates to mobile application platforms.
   18. Describe how your solution will integrate with third party systems and data services.
   19. Describe your analytics capabilities and access to the data. 
7. Provide an estimated timeline to design, develop, test, and deploy your proposed solution.
8. Any other information that may be helpful.
9. Provide a rough order of magnitude (ROM) for a potential CFM solution. The ROM shall outline a pricing model that includes all the technical capabilities proposed in addition to consultative features that are included with the survey tool.  The ROM should be defined as one of the following:

1. 1. 1. Less than $1M
      2. Between $1M and $5M
      3. More than $5M

Questions in response to this Sources Sought Notice may be submitted electronically on or before April 9, 2021, 6:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The Government reserves the right to respond to some, all or none of the questions submitted. Vendors that meet the requirements described in this announcement are invited to submit their capability statements/RFI responses. 

The deadline for responses to this RFI is April 30, 2021, 5:00 PM EDT.  Responses should be forwarded via email to both the primary, [email protected] and "cc" to [email protected].

Responses shall not exceed 10 pages and shall not contain any brochures, advertising or any other type of extraneous, graphic literature or documents that have not been requested and are not relevant or essential in demonstrating the company’s ability to provide the required services.  Vendors may provide links to relevant websites, as appropriate.

Vendors shall reference “IRS.gov CX Survey RFI” in the subject line of their response, and any other e-mail correspondence referencing this notice.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest. 

Contracting Office Address:

Internal Revenue Service 

5000 Ellin Road 

Lanham, MD 20706

Primary Point of Contact: 

Courtney Smith, Program Analyst/COR

[email protected]