Intelligent contact center solutions assist enterprises in deploying automated and integrated communications infrastructure that is infused with digital labor. The contact center market has expanded as new advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible for enterprises to overhaul their business model and customer communications strategy by leveraging AI offerings. 

As virtual agents come online, providing a digital alternative to fundamental business processes usually fulfilled by human agents, new opportunities to augment and optimize the efficiency of the contact center are emerging. It is more important, now than ever given COVID-19 and the changes to the workplace, to find a dependable communications infrastructure that fits the scale of your enterprise. 

The RFP process is one of the best ways to ensure successful procurements. It gives all your bidders the same view of exactly what you want, so they can accurately calculate their costs and make their proposals responsive. By providing a common form and format for all the responses, with a consistent framework to compare them in, an RFP gives you more confidence that what you buy will actually meet your needs. 

Introduction

Aragon Research is publishing this guide to help buyers write effective requests for proposals (RFPs) and requests for information (RFIs) for sales coaching and learning (SCL). 

This book is divided into two parts. This section, Part I, is addressed to you, the buyer, who is setting out to write an RFP. It explains some of the ways you can use an RFP to make your procurement financially safe and technically satisfying. 

Because RFPs are legally binding and financially consequential, but can also be technically intricate, repetitive and tedious to create, we have compiled the content of a typical RFP for intelligent contact center software, which is contained in Part II. As an Aragon Research client, you are free to copy and paste this content into your own RFP template and then customize it to fit your specific situation. If you have never done an RFP before, work with your legal and financial staff to develop the rest of the necessary content. 

In Part II, everything that is not in italics is intended to be part of your actual RFP, and is addressed to the vendors you send it to. The material in italics is for you, the buyer. Be sure to remove everything in italics before sending the RFP to bidders.