The Vendor is required to provide a modern customer relationship management (CRM) solution that can efficiently manage stakeholder communications, streamline internal processes, and foster transparent engagement with the public.
- Provide a CRM that is capable of recording, tracking, and analyzing all correspondence that enters and leaves the agency.
- The platform should provide an intuitive, user-friendly experience for both internal and external stakeholders and allow for rapid deployment and easy customization.
- Distinguishes between different types of incoming and outgoing correspondence, including:
• Direct mail;
• Online Chats
• Faxes;
• Email;
• Phone;
• SMS Text message
• Webmail;
• Web forms;
• Social Media;
• Conference calls/webinars; and
• Events.
- Allows for demographic, segmented targeting for outgoing correspondence, including:
• Announcements & Notifications;
• Event Invitations;
• Newsletters;
• Calls to Action;
• Media Advisories; and
• Stakeholder Engagement.
• Enables and automates responses to bulk form letters received by the agency;
• Organizes staff responses to constituent questions via email, phone and social media;
• Enables quick referrals to other agencies or staff regarding typical questions or issues;
• Allows web-to-lead functionality which enables the public to submit information, requests, and inquiries directly to the CRM via the agency website or social media;
• Automatically transcribes voicemails and routes them to the appropriate record in the CRM;
• Performs and tracks mass email marketing and has sophisticated tools to allow for diverse, timely, and segmented communications;
• Has a built-in HTML template and style builder for staff to customize and curate professionally branded email designs;
• Employs threaded communications that track the progress of the conversation, rather than treating each letter as a unique, independent, and unrelated communication;
• Employs a robust draft circulation and approval process;
• Provides drag and drop composition and editing functionality;
• Provides ample storage and a streamlined retrieval process for drafts and stored approved letters;
• Performs mass data merges from contact and account records to either physical print labels/letters or for mass email correspondence;
• Offers workflows for approval processes in the drafting, approval, and delivery of work product;
• Provides inbound workflows to help ensure external communications and inbound grant requests are routed to the appropriate staff member or business unit;
• Provides for collaboration and dynamic interaction on works in progress;
• Provides a comprehensive view of all activities related to specific records such as accounts, contacts, grants, events and customer service cases; and
• Captures interactions such as notes, appointments, emails, phone calls and tasks. • Provides for robust categorization abilities, including a customizable, in-house ability to add categories and tags as necessary;
• Automatically generates relevant tags based upon the text of a communication;
• Offers the ability to perform optical character recognition on scanned physical mail and faxes;
• Flags threatening or suspicious language for review by a staff member;
• Auto-populates template responses for common issues;
• Produces and formats ceremonial documents;
• Flags and notifies staff of duplicate entries to promote a clean database;
• Scans and flags outgoing drafts for grammatical errors or if the draft includes language identical to language previously sent to the same constituent in a prior communication;
• Identifies and flags users who frequently communicate with the Office; and
• Automatically store meeting details including recordings and providing a single repository or calendar where users can access and manage;
• Agenda and meetings can be created and updated directly within the CRM and published to the web and key information from meetings can be associated with relevant cases, projects, or stakeholder’s records;
• Can launch on any device and utilize low code options such as drag-and-drop or, point and-click to launch applications;
• Provides search and data retrieval capabilities that allows end user to search for data across workflows, business rules, documents, and case records; and
• Provides modular applications designed to work together seamlessly with shared data models and workflows.
• Employs an outbound/inbound communication tracking and tracing system that:
○ Tracks referrals from state agencies and other elected officials for reply and response;
○ Notifies staff when referrals are overdue;
○ Notifies staff when new grant applications have been received, or when the status of a grant application has changed;
○ Creates an automatic prompt for agency responses;
○ Tracks sent communications, open/click rates, engagement rates, conversion rates, and other pertinent information;
○ Provides ability to track interactions and mentions on different types of media, or can interface with other media intelligence tools to which the agency has access; and
○ Specifies the target audiences or constituent groups with which the agency is communicating as well as the method and frequency of such communications;
• Enables the identification and description of constituents, including the ability to:
○ Create composite information at the individual level;
○ List all contacts, responses, and activities with individual constituents;
○ Present unique demographic, employment, and industry information; and
○ Integrate GIS and location-services
• Identifies and tracks issue clusters, including the ability to:
○ Identify and prioritize emerging issues; and
○ Locate geographic clusters of emerging issues;
• Tracks input shared on social media related to selected issues and compiles public opinions about those issues;
• Track opinions of stakeholders as well as legislative trends and displays a complete audit trail of actions including comments and/or opinions.
• Customer support and service available 8 A.M. through 5 P.M., Central Time, on business days;
• Customer support and service available outside normal business hours (24/7) during the Texas Legislative Regular and Special Sessions;
• Both in-person and virtual training services for staff members on how to use the Vendor’s products including in-person introductory training, advanced training, role specific training, hands-on workshops, and continuous learning programs;
• Regular application update and upgrades;
• Support regarding the availability and reliability of third-party plug-ins and applications;
• Training services in response to updates and upgrades; and
• Receptivity to consumer and end-user input for enhancements and upgrades.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Pre-Bid Conference (optional) Date: May 05, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: May 07, 2025