The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is preparing to spend almost £160 million on a new digital platform to support its contact centre.
It has outlined the plan for a cloud based Digital Channels Contact Centre (DC3) as part of its Contact Centre Modernisation Programme (CCMP).
The department has published a market information notice indicating that it is looking for a new managed service provider for DC3 over a term of at least five years, and up to seven, with a value of up £159.2 million.
It wants capabilities including the ability to make and receive calls through a softphone programme, workforce optimisation, webchat, interactive voice response, and call routing, recording and transcription.
Integrations
The platform is also expected to integrate with others that provide capabilities for non-geographic numbers, video, payment card operations, automated customer experience and integration into the business group customer relationship management and call routing strategies.
The contract will be based on the Model Services Contract (MSC) developed by the Cabinet Office, amended in line with the DWP MSC Toolkit.
The CCMP is part of a broader service modernisation programme at DWP, which also includes its Modernising and Transforming Telephone Project. This is looking at how new technologies can improve its future telephony, with the first change expected to be the introduction of a virtual agent.
In April, Minister for Employment Mims Davies MP responded to a parliamentary question on the project with a statement that the project is aimed at modernising telephony technology in the department over the next three years.
