Improved Customer Experience - user centred design, self-serve support & better customer engagement

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is responsible for delivering all school and Further Education funding in England. We need to improve our customer experience, so that education / training providers can focus on delivering better educational outcomes. Customers want easier access to our services and information, the ability to self-serve when they need help and access to a customer engagement centre where they cannot self-serve. The bulk of this work needs to be done by April 2020. Problem to Be Solved Some customers find it hard to work with the ESFA. They cannot easily find our services, they struggle to understand all of the guidance/policies, they have to use multiple ESFA service desks for support and find it frustrating that the ESFA does not have a holistic view of them. We need to put customers at the heart of what we do by designing, building and running services to address these issues. Who Are the Users As a training / education provider, I need to use ESFA services so that I can access government funding to provide training / education to eligible citizens in England. As an ESFA internal user (business operations), I need a holistic view of training / education providers so that I can ensure we make best use of government funds and resolve any issues. As a training / education provider, I need a simple way of resolving queries so that I can focus on delivering better educational outcomes. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done The Service Design team started a discovery in January 2019 and will complete that in March 2019 to consider service design improvements, self-serve support software and business requirements for a CRM type system to give a holistic view of customers. This work will be prioritised and taken into alpha. The Customer Engagement team completed a discovery in January 2019 to understand the requirements for a single ESFA customer engagement centre to resolve straightforward queries. This work needs to be developed further in alpha. Existing Team The existing team is a Service Owner, a Product Owner and a Lead Content Designer who are all experienced in the agile delivery of GDS services. There are no other suppliers, but there is an expectation that the supplier will work with our in-house DevOps colleagues and the technical architect allocated to this programme. The new supplier will be expected to provide resources across user research, content design, UX design, software development, technical architecture, testing, business analysis, delivery / transition management, project support roles according to the business need for the initiative. Current Phase Not applicable Work Location Primary location will be Coventry or Sheffield. There may be travel to other DfE Office. Working Arrangments This will be a 5 day per week (Monday to Friday) commitment and detailed working arrangements, including team location, size and make-up, will be contained within each statement of work. Day to day delivery will be governed by standard agile delivery techniques. These could be either a Kanban or a scrum approach (depending on the work) but the standard agile ceremonies appropriate to those will be undertaken. These will be monitored by the Delivery Manager and the Product Owner will be responsible for prioritising backlogs in refinement sessions. Security Clearance Personnel from the Service provider need to have both BPSS and an enhanced DBS check. Additional T&Cs Expenses must be pre-agreed and comply with DfE Travel and Subsistence Policy. Any expenses shall be submitted in line with DfE standard T&S policy. Primary work location stated in SoW will not attract expenses. No parking is available on site. Skills & Experience • Experience in delivering GDS products/services, carrying out user research to capture and define user needs. • Experience in designing, prototyping and developing services to meet user needs • Experience in architecture services, ensuring products and systems are robust, scalable, open source and secure • Experience in running, improving and optimising applications • Experience in building cloud-based web applications (preferably Microsoft Azure) and developing front-end web applications • Demonstrable experience of working in multi-team agile delivery programmes • Experience of delivering business change and transitioning from one supplier to another • Experience of working with stakeholders at all levels to identify, define and document requirements • Experience of undertaking methodical technical analysis and proposing recommendations to senior management teams • Experience of working in the public sector and with systems or services to improve customer experience, such as CRMs, customer engagement / contact services Nice to Haves • Experience of passing GDS service assessments • Experience of developing and implementing customer experience programmes • Experience of transitioning from one service provider to another No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Demonstrate experience in researching, designing and prototyping digital products/services in line with Government Digital Service standards • Demonstrate experience in developing, testing and delivering digital products/services to meet Government Digital Service standards • Demonstrate experience of development, architecture and DataOps, ideally in the Microsoft platform • Demonstrate experience of using an agile project approach (Kanban, scrum or both) to deliver a digital product/service • Demonstrable experience of working alongside clients in co-located, integrated teams, together with representative CVs of key roles • Demonstrate approach to knowledge and skills transfer • Ability to scale up team and flex resource when needed on-site • Value for money • Demonstrate understanding of the challenges of implementing user centred design in a government agile environment • Demonstrate experience in developing CRM type services to meet customer / business needs Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team – Collaborate, establish good working relationships, generate team spirit • Innovate – Act on initiative, drive improvements, balance risks • Build capability – Encourage learning, share knowledge, address capability gaps, act on feedback Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers Budget range the budget could range up to a maximum of £2m per year consisting of multiple sows, but that scope could expand or contract. dfe does not commit to any minimum spend at this point. a pricing template will be given at the proposal stage to those suppliers we shortlist.