There are many requirements when submitting for a GSA Schedule. Of these requirements, one of the most important is the completion of the Past Performance Evaluation (PPE). The PPE is a report generated by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) c/o Open Ratings and is used by the GSA to assess a company’s history in successfully providing their products and services to customers. The report is valid for one year and is required for every GSA Schedule Solicitation.
As the GSA will be evaluating how these references rank your past job performance, it is imperative that you select references that will give the highest scores possible. While you will be able to see overall scores, individual responses will be kept anonymous. It is recommended that you contact your references prior to submitting their contact information. You should inform them that you are pursuing a GSA Schedule, and you would appreciate it if they would be reference. The survey will be sent via email from Open Ratings, and will be available for them to complete for three weeks, after which Open Ratings will then call them to complete the survey over the phone. While it is recommended that you list as many references as possible, only four need to respond for a report to generate. The survey questions are:
1) How reliable do you think this company follows through on its commitments?
2) How closely did your final total costs correspond to your expectations at the beginning of the transaction?
3) How well do you think the product / service delivered matched your order specifications and quantity?
4) How satisfied do you feel about the delivery of the product / service provided by this company?
5) How satisfied do you feel about the quality of the product / service provided by this company?
6) How easy do you think this company is to do business with?
7) How satisfied do you feel about the attitude, courtesy, and professionalism of this company’s staff?
8) How satisfied do you feel about this customer support you received from this company?
9) How responsive do you think this company was to information requests, issues, or problems that arose in the course of the transaction?
The PPE report is composed of several different parts of information. The first page of the report displays the company’s general information, such as DUNS number, contact info, number of employees, annual sales, line of business, and year begun. The second page of the report is comprised of three parts: Overall Performance Rating, Detailed Performance Ratings, and SIC Level Quintile. The Overall Performance Rating is scored from 0-100, and is comprised of the Detailed Performance Ratings. The Detailed Performance Ratings consist of nine categories: reliability, cost, order accuracy, delivery/timeliness, quality, business relations, personnel, customer support, and responsiveness. The last part of page two is the SIC Level Quintile which compares your PPE score to other companies’ scores within the same SIC. The third and final page of the report displays the breakdown of survey responses received. For each survey question, the responses, which are provided on a 0 to 10 scale, are categorized as positive (9 to 10), neutral (5-8), or negative (0-4).
For any negative feedback received on your PPE report, you must submit a letter of explanation to the GSA. The letter should detail why you believe you received the negative comments, and what measures you are taking to guarantee the issues do not occur again. The intent of the letter is to allow you to address the negative feedback and discuss the procedures your company has in place to provide for corrective action should it be necessary. It is also important to highlight your unwavering commitment to providing quality services on every project and for every client.
For additional information on the PPE please go to https://prod.openratings.com/spe/order or contact Winvale to assist you in the GSA Schedule submission process.
When submitting for a GSA Schedule, may we use past performance working on non-go’vt jobs (all of our past performance has been with non-profit/for-profit organizations; we are just now expanding into gov’t contracts. Thank you.