General Assistance Housing Line Call Center Services

The vendor is required to provide for developing and operating a call center to work in collaboration with the department for children and families.
- Housing line call center
1. Contractor’s general duties
• Provide the state with housing line support, hiring and supervising employees (“housing line respondents”) who will operate under procedures developed and provided by the state for responding to inbound calls from state seeking support, or in response to voicemail or at the direction of the state. 
• This work is a vital piece of the state’s services, and both timeliness and availability of agents are of the essence in providing this support. 
• Providing professional services to the state to be available as necessary and as required by the state.
2. Contractor’s supervisors
• Provide supervisory staff sufficient to adequately manage contractor’s housing line respondents (“supervisor”), providing professional oversight generally similar to the state’s management of its housing line calling workforce. supervisors will be responsible for managing housing line respondents, ensuring housing line respondents follow the state’s procedures, and otherwise comply with applicable laws and regulations surrounding such calls.
o Contractor’s client services director will be the main point of contact for the state.
o Supervisors will be responsible for ensuring housing line respondents meet established quality control standards, adhere to state-provided training (including without limitation trainings related to data security), and otherwise comply with the state’s procedures.
o Contractor is responsible for setting work-schedules for all its employees, subject to the requirements of staffing levels and operating hours established under this contract and as required by the state.
o Contractor will coordinate with the state to ensure housing line respondents meet established quality standards and achieve key performance indicators (“KPI”). 3. Housing line respondents
• Housing line respondents available to meet the changing needs of the state. a
• These housing line respondents will respond to requests following the state’s procedures.
• Conduct and receive clear background checks for all supervisors and housing line respondents prior to that person performing work under this contract. contractor shall onboard staff as quickly as possible.
• The housing line respondents will have a role defined by the state that is designed to assist callers in registering for and entering data in the state’s registration database.
• Housing line respondents will follow the state’s procedures, under the guidance of supervisors.
• Housing line respondents are required to follow all designated scripts and call guides and comply with policies and procedures provided by the state regarding confidentiality and data security for the handling of sensitive state information.
4. Housing line respondents:
• The state’s procedure, including without limitation ensuring housing line respondents appropriately communicate with individuals, accurately input all necessary and required data, provide approved information and guidance to members of the public, escalate complex cases that are beyond the housing line respondents level of training, follow applicable data security standards, and accurately track all required data.
• Use a contractor-issued computer and phone with appropriate access to required applications, databases, and web-based platforms.
• Are trained in procedures and protocols for working with telephonic interpreters and ensure delivery of services in a culturally competent manner to all members, including english language learners and those with diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
• Contractor will use state’s language line translation/interpretation service for all translation needs.
• These services will be directly billed to the state as part of the existing contracts between the state and the translation and interpretation service provider.
- The staffing levels established herein during the shift schedules provided, subject to the staffing-level change procedures noted below:
• Sufficient number of dedicated agents to ensure increased capacity for the existing service at the start of this contract.
• A “dedicated agent” is an agent trained for, and assigned to work primarily as, a housing line respondent with no or minimal other assignments from contractor. 
• Sufficient number of dedicated agents trained to ensure minimum staffing levels of housing line respondents, providing a goal of 800 billable hours of phone support each week. 
• Sufficient number of supervisor hours to accommodate a 15:1 housing line respondent-to-supervisor ratio. 
• Supervisory staff will bill 50 hours per week. 
• Contractor will ensure agent-level efficiency (number of calls handled per hour and day; time logged in; percent busy).
5. Work environment and requirements
• Staff all hours of operation (meaning hours when the public can contact the call center) Monday – Wednesday from 8:00 am through 4:30 pm Est; Thursday from 9:00 am through 4:30 pm Est; and Friday from 8:00 am through 4:00 pm est.
• Supervisors and housing line respondents will generally work a standard eight (8) hours a day/40 hour a week shift. 
• Contractor may require supervisors and housing line respondents to work non-standard hours (i.e., evenings, weekends) if requested in writing by the state.
• Ensure housing line respondents and supervisors have access to technology (including without limitation a computer, telephone and access to secure internet connection) sufficient to meet their duties under this contract.
• Provide its own telephony platform, capable of handling call volume similar to the state’s system in place as of the date of this contract.
• Provided platform must provide the same level of services as the existing state’s platform, including without limitation call volume capacity (total number of ports/simultaneous calls), internal call routing capabilities and call escalation capabilities.
• Contractor expressly recognizes the capacity and functionality of this existing platform, hereby contractor will be solely responsible for all technical aspects of its telephony platform, including all necessary technical interfaces, all patches or other required hardware or software repairs or improvements and the state will have no such responsibility.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: July 9, 2025