APPROVE spending authority in an amount not to exceed $945,300.51 for sole source purchase of Aspect Voice Center Products and Professional Services for the Department of Public Works & Engineering, awarded to MICROAUTOMATION, INC - Enterprise Fund

APPROVE spending authority in an amount not to exceed $945,300.51 for sole source purchase of Aspect Voice Center Products and Professional Services for the Department of Public Works & Engineering, awarded to MICROAUTOMATION, INC .

Specific Explanation:

The Director of the Department of Public Works & Engineering (PWE) and the Chief Procurement Officer recommend that City Council approve spending authority for the purchase of Aspect Voice Center products and professional services from MicroAutomation, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $945,300.51 for PWE. 

In 2011, Utility Customer Service (UCS) began efforts to upgrade its 30 year old legacy customer information system with a web based user interfaced solution; Infor Public Sector (IPS). Implementation of IPS required integration with an interactive voice response(IVR) technology which could be implemented consecutively with the new customer information system and maintain and/or enhance the existing level of customer service provided to the customers within the City of Houston. In 2013, HITS advised UCS that the entire City was migrating to the Cisco platform for phone and IVR services. An alternative IVR solution was sought by UCS for its IVR solution due to:

• The CISCO IVR migration timeline would not meet the implementation timeline requirements of IPS
• The CISCO IVR did not have feature parity with cloud based IVR solutions.
• Enhancement of the Avaya IVR functionality and configuration for integration with IPS was complex and costly.

Voxeo (Aspect Voice) was chosen as the IVR solution for UCS as it was cloud based and provided enhanced self-service features for the customers that could be launched at implementation of IPS.  The self-service by phone options include balance inquiry, payment by phone, account status lookup, permit center payments, and payment arrangements. MicroAutomation also provided the capability to send text alerts regarding constant flows of water and leak alerts. For the four months ending April 2016, the IVR facilitated an average of approximately 16,550 payments representing $1.99M in revenue.

The annual costs for the Voxeo IVR were estimated at $360,000. In late 2015, in order to decrease expected operating costs, UCS in collaboration with HITS and PWE-IT, decided to migrate to the CISCO IVR solution. Transition to the CISCO platform would reduce UCS's annual operating costs for IVR technology by approximately 60%. HITS forecasted the migration would require 3-6 months to complete once started. CISCO migration prior to Go-Live would complicate and/or delay the IPS rollout, therefore, UCS decided to leverage the Voxeo solution to bridge IVR capability beginning on the Go Live date through implementation of the CISCO IVR. The IPS customer information system and the new Voxeo IVR were implemented on May 2, 2016. 

Funding is needed to bridge UCS's IVR capability until HITS completes deployment of the CISCO IVR solution. The amount of the funding requested is based on historical IVR data and includes three months of contingency funding to ensure continuity of service to customers in the event the target completion date of the CISCO IVR is not met.

Lack of IVR capability would adversely impact the customer experience due to loss of self service options. Without self-service options all calls would be routed to an agent resulting in longer wait times, hold/busy signals, dropped calls, and potential delay of customer payments.

This item will be reviewed by the TTI Committee on Monday July 18th.

Hire Houston First:

 This procurement is exempt from the City’s Hire Houston First Ordinance. 

M/WBE Participation:

M/WBE Zero Percentage Goal document approved by the Office of Business of Opportunity.

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John J. Gillespie, Chief Procurement Officer           Department Approval Authority Signature

Finance/Strategic Procurement Division