Telephone Answering Services

The vendor is required to provide the answering service is responsible for providing after-hours answering service for incoming calls for the four (4) site offices in the western district.
- The answering service shall be responsible for receiving telephone calls from 4:30 pm to 8:30 am Monday through Friday and 24-hours on Saturdays, Sundays, or any other time the office is closed e.g. government holidays, storm days or on an as-needed basis.
- The answering service shall be responsible for receiving telephone calls 24-hours/7days per week for 26 elevator phones throughout the district
- Try to have the tenant wait until the next business day, if possible, for non-emergency service.
- if Unsure of who to contact, contact on-call housing staff member.
- Urgent and non-urgent maintenance calls
1. Urgent maintenance calls:
• Fire – always contact housing after hours staff member.
• Flood- always contact housing after hours staff member.
• Lock out (please inform you there will be a chargeback from housing for lockouts)
• No electricity (unless utility issue. e.g., agency power outage/ storms etc.)
• No heat
• Sewer/broken pipe, toilet/ plugged toilet issues
• Water leak
• Other emergency- if unsure of priority of other emergencies, contact housing after hours on-call staff member for further guidance.
a. The following from the tenant’s call:
• Step 1. ask for first and last name
• Step 2. ask for the nature of emergencies (if not offered when answered)
• Step3. ask for the full address where they are located
• Step 4. ask for full phone number where they can be called back
• step 5. state that you are going to get in touch with someone right away and someone (answering service or on call person) will call them back.
2. Non-emergency calls:
• Document all personal information, full address, and maintenance concern.
• Then send the report to the housing agency office with all other after-hours calls.
• Inform them when the maintenance office opens (830 am), someone will be calling them back.
• Thank them for calling.
3. Elevator calls:
• Calls are to be answered immediately by an active attendant and responded to in accordance with the situation.
• Document all the information and send the report to the housing agency office with all the other after-hours calls.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: May 22, 2025