The US Department of Agriculture, Office of Customer Experience (OCX) has a requirement for CX Design Support Services.

The mission of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on public policy, the best available science, and effective management.

USDA has a vision to provide economic opportunity through innovation, helping rural America to thrive; to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans while also helping feed others throughout the world; and to preserve our Nation’s natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved watersheds, and healthy private working lands.

USDA’s Office of Customer Experience (OCX) was established to drive forward Department-wide improvements for customer experience. OCX partners closely with USDA’s Mission Areas, agencies, and staff offices in understanding the perspectives of customers and supports them in executing customer improvement projects that are responses to customer feedback and input. Additionally, OCX aims to build a workforce and provide USDA with access to design service support as needed, that is adept in customer service standards and identifying and executing projects that improves customer experience (CX) and employee experiences (EX) and building a culture of collaboration and innovation in a human-centered way.

A key component to the success is access to skilled CX Design Support Service team(s) supporting the USDA to providing support at various levels across USDA Mission areas and Offices. Continuous support to help USDA mission areas better understand their customer-needs via strategy prior to implementation. The CX Design Support Service team will work with USDA mission areas, with agencies, and department-wide initiatives to apply human-centered-design to ensure that these projects are focused on their customer’s needs, and not just product features or solutions without research and insights from employees and customers. The CX Design Support Service will develop and apply resources, tools, training, measurement instruments, and best practices throughout USDA to modernize and integrate customer design practices into department initiatives. The CX Design Support Service team will also leverage OCX’ coherent USDA measurement framework that prioritizes innovation for continuous improvement.

• The contractor must provide professional support services via a CX Design Support Service Team(s) which supports any office at USDA. The contractor must provide all resources necessary to accomplish the tasks and deliverables described inthis SOW to help establish the CX Design Support Service team and perform the following:
  • Deliver USDA’s CX Strategy into all new projects in alignment with policies and resources made available by the USDA’s Office of Customer Experience
  •  Embed the latest CX Methods into USDA’s initiative projects leveraging industry best practices (i.e. modernization efforts, cross agency projects, policy projects etc.)
  • Assist the Government to create strong CX Design Support Service Team(s) within USDA
  • The contractor must also provide re-skilling services to enable USDA staff to assume the full responsibilities of the CX Design Support Service Team.