Title
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Approving And Authorizing The Appropriate City Officials To Negotiate And Execute An Agreement With The Highest Ranked Firm, 22nd Century Technologies, Inc., For A Citywide Professional Answering And Informational Service.
Strategic Plan Focus
Communications & Civic Engagement
Body
Staff Recommends: Approval of the attached Resolution.
Explanation:
The City of Hollywood, Florida, is seeking to contract with a company to provide a turnkey Professional Call Center Answering and Informational Service. This service is needed to answer all calls to the City of Hollywood during the overnight hours from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. daily, holidays and during emergencies. The service will also deploy their AI-driven virtual receptionist with live agent support to serve as the first line customer service answering and call routing system during the City’s normal business hours, Monday through Thursday, from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and will be the primary answering service on Fridays, beginning at 7:00 a.m., through Monday at 7:00 a.m. The AI and live agent service will help answer and route all incoming calls to the City and is expected to receive approximately 31,000 calls each month. (The number of incoming calls is provided as an estimated demand level and is not a guaranteed call volume).
The City recognizes that incoming calls require immediate attention to provide for outstanding customer service, and to address the service needs of City residents, business owners, contractors and property owners as well as the general public. The required services to be performed are answering calls, responding to inquiries, providing interconnectional responses to questions and directions, entering requests for service into the City customer relationship management tools, transferring calls to the appropriate staff for resolution, directing callers to self-help options available on the City’s main website, accepting payments and/or sending payment options, and recording/documenting all calls in accordance with industry standards and City procedures/protocols.
In response to this need, the City issued Request for Proposals No. RFP-353-26-JJ on October 14, 2025, inviting qualified firms to submit proposals by the deadline of November 26, 2025. A total of twenty-six firms submitted proposals, which were evaluated based on the RFP criteria and resulting in the final ranking of the following firms:
|
Ranking |
Vendor |
Points |
|
1. |
22nd Century Technologies, Inc. |
10 |
|
2. |
Datamark |
12 |
|
3. |
Direct Interactions, Inc |
15 |
|
4. |
Daupler |
17 |
|
5. |
Tech Mahindra Americas Inc. |
21 |
22nd Century Technologies, Inc. was ranked the highest by the evaluation committee for these services. Additional yet to be determined costs for integration with the various software tools and 2nd party programs used by the City will be identified and prioritized after the vendor is approved and the project is initiated. Staff will return to the City Commission with requests for integration cost approvals following the functional design phase with the selected vendor.
Fiscal Impact:
The contract cost is unknown until negotiations are finalized and required funding will be determined at that time.
Recommended for inclusion on the agenda by:
Joann Hussey, Director of Communications, Marketing and Economic Development
Raheem Seecharan, Director of Information Technology
Jose Cortes, Assistant City Manager