R -- ACSI SURVEYS

Notice Date

March 14, 2001

Contracting Office

U.S. Department of Education, Contracts and Purchasing Operations, CPO, 7th & D Streets SW, Room 3616, Washington, DC 20202-4443

ZIP Code

20202-4443

Solicitation Number

n/a

Point of Contact

James Hairfield, 202 708-8529, Contracting Officer, Roscoe Price, 202 708-5685

Description

The U.S. Department of Education (ED), Student Financial Assistance intends to issue a sole source three year contract to Claes Fornell International Group (CFI) to perform American Customer Satisfaction Index Surveys (ACSI). This contract action will provide for logical follow services procured previously through CFI each of the last two years and allow SFA to continue to measure its success against its five year performance plan. The ACSI is the proprietary product of the CFI Group and other customer satisfaction measures would not provide consistent data and measurement. ACSI provides a mechanism to address the provisions in the Performance Based Organization authorizing legislation that SFA must be held accountable for results, is currently the only tool available that can successfully fulfill all of SFA's requirements. These requirements follow. -Must allow direct comparisons to other public and private sector organizations operating both within and outside of the financial and insurance sectors. -Must provide summary rankings, indices, and scores that are not only widely accepted by leading business organizations as a national and industry standard for measuring satisfaction, but are also presented in such a way, that entities can see how they are performing relative to others, including their own competitors. -The rankings, indices, and scores that result from this methodology must be consistent with the rankings, indices, and scores presented in a product considered by leading business organizations to be a national standard for measuring customer satisfaction. -Rankings, indices, and scores must be available through a web site and be accessible to any user, including the general public. -The information -- considered to be a national standard -- must be available for at least five years so that users can analyze and discern trends. -The rankings, indices, and scores must include separate scores for at least 150 public and private sector entities, so that comprehensive comparisons can be made. -The final score or ranking must be based upon the results of an econometric model that considers three factors: (1) overall satisfaction; (2) how well the service a customer received lived up to expectations; and, (3) compared to an ideal service provider, how well the organization stacked up. In addition, the methodology must employ a technique that allows for direct comparisons of customer quality components (facets of service delivery that matter to customers) to the overall score. Finally, the model must provide impact scores or weights for each variable and successive related variables, so that managers can determine which components and actions have the greatest affect on the customer satisfaction index score that is based upon the three factors mentioned above. The statutory authority for other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. 2304 (c) (1). See Numbered Note 22. * * * * *

Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010316/RSOL013.HTM (W-073 SN50G1K8)