Patent & Trademark Office Buys Call Center Services

(MoneyWatch)  The US Patent & Trademark Office awarded a contract to V-Tech Solutions to provide call center support to their Contract Center. The contract is worth over $7 M and is for five years. TMCNet.com reports on the award. This is just another example of the wide variety of products and services that the Federal government purchases. The contract requires V-Tech Solutions to not only provide training, documentation and answer customer inquiries electronically and by phone, but also to man a walk-up station at the US PTO offices. The Contract Center received over 300,000 phone calls and emails last year as well as written communication.
This type of service is easily contracted out and probably at some cost savings to the government. In a way it is similar to CLS contracts in that it places the training, maintenance and supply costs onto a contractor rather then the government. Traditionally the government will have higher personnel and training costs then a contractor will provide.