RFP ATTACHMENT III: RESPONSE TEMPLATE

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR
Payment Gateway Services
RFP#TTX2016-02
CONTACT: Ricardo S. Cordero, , 415-554-4509

Responses received under this Request for Proposal(“RFP”) that fail to address each of the requested items in this Attachment III, Response Template, in sufficient and complete detail to substantiate the Respondent’s capacity and ability to satisfy the City’s requirements, will be deemed non-responsive and not be considered. Note that responses of “To be provided upon request” or “To be determined” or similar such wording, or that do not otherwise provide the information requested (e.g. left blank) will not be considered responsive.

Instructions are provided in blue and may be deleted. Please complete your Response in the template provided using as much space as needed. Indicate clearly where separate documents are provided. In order to receive the maximum amount of points, you should follow this format and thoroughly (but concisely) address each section and question.

A. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.Prime Respondent Information and Partner(s)

Prime Respondent’s Name
Prime Respondent’s Address (Principal Place of Business)
Location of Prime Respondent’s Lead Office to Perform Services under this RFP
Prime Respondent’s Website Address
Prime Respondent’s City Vendor ID, if available / Note: Possession of this number serves as partial verification that the Respondent has completed the City’s administrative requirements (see Attachment III, Section A for more details).
Prime Respondent’s Partner and/or Subcontractor Name(s), if applicable

2.RFP Contact

Identify the person who will serve as your firm’sRFP contact. This contact will receive e-mail notifications regarding and during the RFP process.

Name
Title
E-mail
Phone

3.Letter of Introduction and Executive Summary of Response

Attacha letter of introduction and executive summary of the Response.

Include a descriptionof your proposed partnerships or subcontracting, as applicable.

The lettermust be signed by a person authorized by your organization to contractually obligate your organization to perform the commitments contained in the Response. Submission of the letter will constitute a representation by your organization that your organization is willing and able to perform the commitments contained in the Response. In addition, please acknowledge any attachments to your RFP Response in this letter, if applicable.

B. QUALIFICATION QUESTIONS

This section is used by the City to determine whether the Respondent satisfies the qualifications required by the City. Any response that does not demonstrate the Respondent’s ability to meet these Qualifications by the response deadline will be considered non-responsive and will not be evaluated or eligible for award. Be sure to complete this section.

  1. RESPONDENT PROFILE
  1. Describe your business. What is the main focus of your business? What products do you offer that are relevant to this RFP? What is your primary “value proposition” and how does it differ from your competitors?
  2. Describe your firm’s capacity to integrate the RFP services into its organization.
  3. Please demonstrate your firm’s organizational (i.e. technical, managerial and financial) capability to provide the services described in this RFP.
  4. Describe any partnerships, joint ventures or subcontracting relationships that will be used to deliver the services required by the City. Who are your partners or subcontractors and what are the individual services and functions delivered by them? Will you guarantee the performance of your partners or subcontractors?
  5. Identify your key target customer categories and explain your competitive advantage to your key customers. Is the government sector considered a strategic customer vertical for your business?
  6. Please provide a minimum of three (3) relevant references (preferably a substantial municipal government), including the name of the reference, a brief statement describing the relationship between the Respondent and the reference, and the name, title and telephone number of a contact person at the reference. Please obtain prior approval for TTX to contact the references.
  1. PAYMENT GATEWAY SERVICES

Please note that your response to each of the following questions will apply to TTX and other departments unless otherwise indicated. The following service requirements require an answer to one Service Area need or multiple Service Area needs depending on the heading listed and/or Service Area listed below the requirement.

  1. ONLINE
  1. Please describe your firm’s web gateway payment service. Given the types of payments processed by TTX and other City departments, share examples of web payment pages that you currently operate to illustrate the workflow and navigation that a payor would encounter using your service.
  2. Describe the various software and hardware utilities to which your Online gateway payment pages can interface: Explorer, Chrome, Safari, etc.; IOS and Android tablets and smart phones. Are your IOS and Android applications able to support Responsive Design?
  3. TTX may bill payors for multiple obligations. The gateway payment page must be able to present multiple obligations to the payor and allow the payor to select one or more of the obligations to pay. The amounts of the obligations must be totaled and presented to the payor for authorization to pay.

Please confirm that your firm is able to execute this requirement and describe, in detail, (graphics will be helpful) exactly how you perform these functions.

  1. A certain subset of payment transactions will be recurring for fixed amounts. For example, a payor may owe $1,200 and enroll in a payment plan that requires payment of $100 for twelve (12) successive months. Can your firm support this requirement by providing an enrollment process and authorization page to the payor and retain the payment instruction (credit card number or checking account details) to enable fixed amount recurring payments? Please illustrate, in detail (graphics will be helpful), exactly how you perform these functions.
  2. Please describe how your firm ensures an average response time of 1,500 milliseconds.
  3. Please describe how your firm identifies security patches and ensures they are applied within 24 hours of identification.
  4. INTERACTIVE VOICE RECOGNITION (“IVR”)
  1. What level of customization is available in your IVR service? Can you customize dialogues for TTX and other departments?
  2. Can a unique toll free telephone number be assigned to the TTX IVR service?
  3. CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE (“CSR”)
  1. Will a payor connect with your CSR by selecting an option from the IVR workflow or will the payor have a unique telephone number to dial? If you offer a unique telephone number, do you offer a toll-free number?
  2. What level of customization is available in your CSR service? Are the dialogues able to be customized to CCSF and TTX?
  3. Explain how you capture and store payor authorizations to initiate credit/debit card or ACH entries to the payor’s account(s) in accordance with card association and National Automated Clearinghouse Association rules.
  4. physical machines: point of sale devices with pin pads where appropriate, kiosks and parking meters
  5. Describe your firm’s payment gateways that support in-person transactions (please provide diagrams):
  1. At kiosks or similar devices
  2. At parking meters or similar devices
  3. Virtual Terminals
  4. Mobile payment devices
  5. Other
  6. Are your gateways certified with other firms’ hardware products? If yes, provide a list of the certifications.
  1. MULTIPLE SERVICE AREAS
  1. In addition to English, is your firm able to supply payment services in Spanish? Cantonese? Other languages?

Online
IVR
CSR
Kiosks
  1. Payment information must be able to flow between TTX and the web gateway provider (both directions) using APIs and web service calls. This is needed to update a payor’saccount and TTX tax tables. Please explain how your firm is able to support data exchange relying on APIs and web service calls in both directions. Also, please indicate if yourfile transmission is per Service Area or combined with other Service Areas.

Online
IVR
CSR
Kiosks
  1. For certain obligations, TTX is willing to accept partial payments but never over payments. Please explain how your firm can process partial payments and enforce a rule that over payment will not be allowed.

Online
IVR
CSR
Kiosks
  1. Certain TTX credit/debit card transactions must include a Service Fee (sometimes also called a Convenience Fee) established in coordination with the gateway service provider and the merchant card processor. Please explain how your firm can and will support TTX’s Service Fee requirement and that the following conditions will be supported:
  2. Service Feewill be computed, processed, and reported as a separate transaction for approval by the payor.
  1. ServiceFee will be processed as a transaction separate from payment of the obligation amount andRespondent will deposit service fees to a separate bank account.
  2. Respondent will deposit principal fee to a designated separate bank account other than the account designated for service fees.
  3. Each month, Respondent will send an invoice to the City for the cost of transactions processed for the month. The City would like a report broken down by application and by department of service fees charged totheCity.

Online
IVR
CSR
Kiosks
  1. Please explain your firm’s process for validating bank routing and transmit numbers for WEB &TEL automated clearinghouse payment instructions. Can your firm validate checking account numbers? If yes, at what success rate.

Online
IVR
CSR
  1. Can you initiate an e-mail or text notification to the payor to confirm a payment has been accepted and processed?

Online
IVR
CSR
  1. Can you initiate an e-mail or text notification to the payor if a payment is returned or declined?

Online
IVR
CSR
  1. TTX accepts Online payments for several obligations owed to the City by businesses and residents. The list of payment categories is provided in Section 1.3 -- Statement of Need and Intent of the RFP. Each obligation is maintained in one or more data bases controlled by TTX and that data must be accessed in order to successfully process payments through the gateways. TTX delivers obligation information to the payment gateways relying on two different methods:

Method #1: TTX hosts a webpage that allows the payor to locate the obligation and the dollar amount and the information needed to complete the payment is exchanged, relying on an API supplied by the gateway provider, with the gateway payment page;

Method #2: The payment gateway allows the payor to locate the obligation and dollar amount at the payment gateway payment page. The gateway facilitates this process by (i) receiving and retaining a file of obligations owed by payors (probably, daily updates) or (ii) through web service calls from the payment page to the obligation data base.

Please confirm that your firm is able to execute both of these models and describe in detail how you perform these functions. Also, provide a diagram of the workflow and navigation that a payor would encounter using each service area.

Online
IVR
CSR
Kiosks
  1. Can your firm accommodate split payments in which a payor would provide two (2) or more payment types when completing a payment? For example, could a payor provide two different credit cards or pay one portion with a credit card and another portion with a WEB or TEL automated clearinghouse payment? Please describe (pictures, diagrams will be helpful).

Online
IVR
CSR
Kiosks / If applicable
  1. IMPLEMENTATION
  1. Provide a copy of all documents, agreements, and service terms that will be required to implement Online, IVR, CSR and Physical Machine payment gateway services.
  2. In a typicalproject of this scope, does your firm assign an implementation team? What is your estimate of the number and type of resources that necessary to timely complete the implementation project? Provide a detailed description of the recommended implementation process, including testing, as well as a sample implementation schedule and a description of the implementation team’s functions and qualifications.
  3. What is the average lead time required for a typical implementation? What are the critical factors that may impact that lead time?
  4. Describe support provided during a typical implementation, including technical assistance, user manuals, instructional and/or educational materials, on-site visits, and/or other assistance. Before TTX “goes live” with your services, what type of training is provided to City employees during implementation?
  5. Do your typical implementation plans offer the option of a pilot program or a staged rollout prior to full “live” implementation? If so, please describe.
  1. DISASTER RECOVERY
  1. Describe the procedures established for disaster recovery in the event of a systems failure or other disaster at your primary processing site.
  2. How often do you test disaster recovery procedures? When was the plan last updated and tested? What were the test results?
  3. Is there a “hot” backup processing site? Describe its location and capabilities. Is there an alternate backup processing site? If so, describe its location and capabilities.
  4. What occurs when you exceed the capacity of the backup site?
  5. What arrangements are made regarding service level agreements in the event of a disaster?
  1. SERVICE QUALITY

a.reporting

1.Describe the daily and/or monthly reconciliation reports available to TTX.

  1. Provide samples of standard reports, including detail and summary reports.
  2. What is the standard delivery time frame?
  3. What delivery methods are available (e.g., mail, e-mail, fax, transmission)?

2.How many data fields can your firm accommodate for payment reporting?

3.Using your reporting portal, describe ad hoc reporting capabilities and provide samples of these reports. If TTX needs reports from a previous period, or a specific time frame, are these readily available Online?

4.Can your reporting portal displayup to five (5) years of payment history by payment category?

b.Customer Service

  1. Describe your customer service organization. Describe your approach to assigning customer service resource(s) to our account.
  1. Will a dedicated customer service representative be assigned to handle TTX’sbusiness?
  2. For how many other accounts is this primary contact responsible?
  3. How do you ensure continuity of service when the primary customer service representative is unavailable?
  4. Describe the responsibilities of customer service personnel, including the chain of command and escalation procedures for problem resolution.

2.What are the hours of operation for your customer service unit? Please specify your time zone.

3.Discuss all methods (e.g., phone, fax, email, real-time messaging, etc.) TTX can use to initiate and track inquiries. Describe the security measures associated with each method.

4.Describe your firm’s procedures for processing inquiries that require research and/or adjustments. Are there established turn-around times for research? If so, specify. What is your record for meeting established response times?

5.Do you monitor the performance of services? If so:

  1. What is the key performance measures tracked?
  2. What is the reporting frequency and period covered for each measure?
  3. What are your last three performance levels for each measure?

6.Are the results of your firm’s performance measurements published or otherwise made available? Discuss.

7.Will you commit to scheduled relationship meetings with TTX to review service quality, customer service and any other meaningful relationship issues? At what frequency will you perform these relationship meetings?

8.What are your training commitments? Do you provide training to new employees and when new product features are introduced or implemented?

9.How often are service level agreements reviewed with your customers?

C. COST

The City intends to award a contract to the Respondent that is deemed to provide the best overall Response to the City, inclusive of qualifications and cost considerations. The City reserves the right to accept other than the lowest cost Response and to reject all responses that are deemed to be not responsive to this RFP.

Please complete Attachment IV “Pricing Worksheet,” and Attachment V “Professional Service Fees Estimate and Implementation Plan”.

Payment Gateway ServicesRFP Attachment III – Page 1 of 8(February 2016)