U.S. Postal Service, Headquarters Purchasing, Room 4541, 475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW., Washington, DC 20260-6230

R -- FULFILLMENT, CUSTOMER SERVICE/TELEMARKETING, AND DATABASE MANAGEMENT SERVICES SOL HDF-00-A-001 DUE 020400 POC Diane Fagan, 202-268-4123 or Lynda Zelnick, 202-268-3157 E-MAIL: www.purchasing.gov, hfagan@email.usps.gov. FULFILLMENT, CUSTOMER SERVICE/TELEMARKETING, AND DATABASE MANAGEMENT SERVICES IN SUPPORT OF THE EXPEDITED PACKAGING PROGRAM INTRODUCTION This is not a solicitation. The United States Postal Service (USPS) desires to pre-qualify commercial contract sources to provide services to support the USPS Expedited Packaging Program. The required support service areas are: 1. Fulfillment; 2. Customer Service/Telemarketing; and 3. Database Management. Potential suppliers will be permitted to pre-qualify for one or more of the required services. USPS encourages the use of partnering or subcontracting arrangements as long as they can assure USPS of performance accountability, quality, and specific value added contributions (e.g., greater technical efficiency or cost containment). Although USPS may award up to three contracts (one for each of the required support services), it should not be assumed that USPS has a preference for making multiple awards. The number of any resulting contract awards, including a single contract for all three support service areas, will be determined by the best interests of the Postal Service and the best overall value to be obtained from the performance arrangements proposed by pre-qualified suppliers. However, it should be noted that USPS does not desire to split awards supporting a particular service area. OVERVIEW The mission of the Postal Service is to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient universal mail, parcel and communications services at uniform rates for the American people and their businesses and institutions. Driven by the objective to meet customer requirements, the Postal Service has stepped onto a path of continuous improvement that leads to growth, greater productivity, effective cost management and unique customer value. This continuous improvement effort requires improvement in customer service performance, fulfillment services, and database management to capitalize on increased revenue opportunities. USPS' expedited packaging program provides packaging and mailing supplies (boxes, envelopes, mailing labels, stickers, forms, tape, and tags) for Priority, Express, and Global Priority Mail at no additional cost to customers. These packaging and mailing supplies are provided both directly to customers and postal facilities. Customers are offered a wider selection of packaging and mailing supplies than are offered to postal sites. Fulfillment order quantities totaled over 2.2 million in FY 1999, and are expected to grow approximately 30% yearly for the next 3 years. REQUIREMENTS 1. FULFILLMENT. The supplier will be authorized to process fulfillment requests generated from postal sites and Postal Service customers. The supplier must have a sophisticated distribution facility operation with an appropriate degree of mechanization. Competencies needed to meet critical requirements are: maintain and monitor inventory levels, pick and pack orders, assemble and prepare kits for shipment; ship orders and kits in an accurate and timely manner, maintain and post all transaction history to the customer record; generate communications and/or packing slip notifications. The several aspects of the fulfillment process include production of personalized letters, packaging and shipment, printing, inventory management system, warehousing, and on-line frequent reporting. 2. CUSTOMER SERVICE/TELEMARKETING. Telemarketing services consist of a mix of customer service representatives and automated services. Telemarketing includes all aspects of customer service: answering customer questions about products and promotions, resolving complaints, and promoting supplies. It is helping customers understand what they are seeking; coaching the customer; matching our products to customer needs, and taking customer orders. This requires a comprehensive understanding of all expedited packaging and mailing supplies. All calls come into 1-800 numbers. In addition, packaging requests are made through FAX, Internet, and Mail. The supplier will be required to: take all incoming requests for information and product orders, promote supplies to appropriate callers using comprehensive supply item knowledge and encourage customers have standing repeat orders instead of having order to call in and demand orders, track and recognize repeat customers and their ordering trends using integrated database technology, answer callers' questions and inquiries regarding the status of their orders, transmit all orders to applicable fulfillment sources on a timely basis, provide accurate, detailed and timely information to all specified parties as needed, access inventory information of products and promotional items on hand, receive and process orders from customers and the website, provide customer service (defined in paragraph 2.1.1), and update and maintain customer information database. Customer/telemarketing services shall be provided 16 hours per day, 6 days a week. 3. DATABASE MANAGEMENT. The supplier will be authorized to facilitate the creation/maintenance, execution and tracking of the Postal Service's expedited packaging program and customer services. The system database will be initialized by incorporating the current database. The data will include transaction history and customer information. The database will be used to continue to collect additional data from current and new customers. Expedited packaging is managed by Expedited/Package Services, a corporate HQ unit domiciled in Roswell, GA. User query, reporting, and analysis tools are required features of the database. Desktop access to the data is a must. The system will provide on-line analytical processing (OLAP) abilities to support report generation, ad-hoc queries, standard information requests, and list generation (including selection, coding, and recording). The database will be used for development and utilization of predictive response models, decision support, and customer care. The primary goals of Database management are to: understand the customer base, individually and by grouping; support the creation, tracking and evaluation of the Postal Service's packaging programs; identify the supplies customers are ordering and volumes ordered; aid in the customer relationship throughout the customer's life cycle, including building one-to-one relationships; and provide on-going analysis and segmentation based on customer behavior. HOW TO RESPOND In order to compete for one or more contracts, interested parties MUST first demonstrate that they are qualified to perform the work in at least one of the three service support areas. Respondents are to provide, BY TWO O'CLOCK EASTERN STANDARD TIME ON February 4, 2000, for each service area for which they are seeking to prequalify, a SEPARATE Capabilities Statement that shall detail: 1. FULFILLMENT (1) your working environment supporting a typical pick and pack client and the quality assurance steps taken to produce "zero defect" shipments; (2) your software support capabilities, including access available to clients to order and inventory data, and your ability to produce variable text and personalized printed letters within a fulfillment pick and pack environment. (3) your operational environment and physical facilities; (4) your core and ancillary services; (5) your philosphy behind hiring, training motivating, and retaining your employees; (6) your minimum and maximum requirements in fulfillment; and (7) specific references (including project identifier and description, period of performance, dollar amount, client name and telephone number) for previous related work that your firm is currently performing or has completed within the last two years. 2. CUSTOMER SERVICE/TELEMARKETING. (1) your software support capabilities, including your ability to incorporate multiple scripts into a specific operational database system; (2) your switch and the technology that you support (i.e., ANI, DNIS, IVR, etc.) (3) your philosophy behind hiring, training, motivating, and retaining your employees; (4) your process flow (describe or illustrate) for two telemarketing programs you currently support; (5) your minimum and maximumrequirements in customer service/telemarketing; and (6) same at item (7) for Fulfillment capabilities. 3. DATABASE MANAGEMENT (1) your ability to develop and/or maintain a customer and postal site database system; (2) your methodology and experience in householding this type of unique environment; (3) your process flow (describe or illustrate) for two database clients you currently support; (4) tools you are certified on to support on-line multi-dimensional ad-hoc queries (OLAP), standard report formats, and passive and active data mining tools, and realistic turnaround times for generating each of those outputs; (5) your technical approach and capability for assuring real time or near real time database updates; (6) your technical approach and capability for handling multi-site data feeds and user access; (7) the communication protocols you can support; (8) your change/enhancement management process for system modifications and new capabilities; and (9) same at item (7) for Fulfillment capabilities. The Capabilities Statement should not exceed FIVE PAGES IN LENGTH (excluding the cover letter). The cover letter must be prepared on your firm's letterhead, must not exceed one (1) typed page, and must specifically identify: a) the USPS project title and one of the three service areas; b) the full legal name and address of your firm; c) the date of submission; and d) the name, title, telephone number, FAX number, and Internet e-mail address of your firm's principal point of contact. The cover letter should also indicate whether you currently have the capability to read Adobe Acrobat (i.e., PDF) files. The Capabilities Statement must be typed on 8 " X 11" (letter size) paper with a font no smaller than courier 10 pitch or equivalent, 1" margins all around. Printing on both sides of the paper will count as two pages. Pages should be numbered. Respondents shall submit their Capabilities Statement in original and four (4) copies to: Diane Fagan, Contracting Officer Headquarters Services Purchasing U. S. Postal Service 475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW Washington, DC 20260-6237 EVALUATION Your Capabilities Statement will be evaluated based on: 1) your ability to take on USPS as a client (full technical solution provided; established partnerships, range of services offered); 2) your history of successful completion of similar projects; and your history of delivering high quality services, on schedule and within budget; 3) technological flexibility, strength and leadership; and 4) currency, quality and depth of staffing, facilities and logistics. The USPS evaluation team(s) will review all responses and assign an overall "pass/fail" score. An overall passing score will indicate that your firm is qualified to compete for contract award for the particular service area evaluated. Your firm may be pre-qualified to compete for contract award in one or more areas. The contracting officer, as business leader of the purchase team, will make all final decisions concerning a respondent's qualifications. All qualified suppliers may not beplaced on the pre-qualified list if the purchase team determines (a) that a smaller group will provide adequate competition or (b) that some respondents are considerably more qualified than others, thereby precluding contract opportunities for the less qualified. The USPS decision to pre-qualify suppliers is a business decision of the contracting officer. Pre-qualification does not constitute contract award. It is in the intent of the USPS to award any resulting contract(s) using the pre-qualified list of suppliers. Upon completion of the pre-qualification process, all respondents will be notified of the USPS' decision. SELECTION Following review of all Capabilities Statements, a list of those deemed most qualified to perform the work in each of the three service area will be established and those firms will be notified and provided additional proposal instructions and contract requirements. USPS intends to award one or more performance based commercial contracts using PS Form 8203, ORDER/SOLICITATION/OFFER/AWARD. The period of performance of any resulting contract(s) will be five (5) years with two (2) two-year options. Successful contractors will be entitled to full payment for services that fall within the maximum allowable deviation from standard technical performance. Standards are based on commercial and industry practice. Performance below the acceptable limit will affect the price computation system, and may result in a payment of less than 100 percent of the maximum payment for services. The solicitation will fully describe the computation system. The resulting contract will also include Award Fee provisions for performance that exceeds the technical performance standards as well as for subjective rating areas, such as contract management, quality assurance, efficiency and continuing process improvement, and cost control. The principal purposes of the payment computation system and Award Fee provisions are to motivate the contractor(s) to make the best possible use of company resources and to improve performance. END OF NOTICE Posted 01/24/00 (W-SN418522). (0024)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0122 20000126\R-0007.SOL)