GSA launches revamped Vendor Support Center

The General Services Administration launched an updated Vendor Support Center on Wednesday to make it easier for current and potential government contractors to find the information they need.

GSA has modernized the core technology with security enhancements similar to GSA Advantage!, improved the user experience and made business process improvements so the website is easier to maintain.

The update comes as the agency discusses how it will assign multidisciplinary teams, like its Enterprise Digital Experience Team, to improve the customer experience (CX) of other agencies’ most important public-facing services.

“Now users will experience a beautiful design, clear navigation structure, easier access to the help desk from the home page, and current content that’s organized and easy to understand,” said Rich Carlson, GSA eBuy’s senior program analyst, in the announcement. “There is a tremendous amount of valuable content on the VSC; the problem on the old site was that it was really hard to find.”

Now the Vendor Support Center (VSC) is dynamically searchable, with results organized by navigation section for easy future use, and help desk information is on the homepage. Users can also access locators for their procurement and administrative contracting officers and industrial operations analyst.

The contracting life cycle is evident in the site navigation I Want a Contract, Managing My Contract, and Contract Sales options, and a new Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Project Center page contains resources for special projects like MAS Consolidation.

GSA published a request for information (RFI) in November 2020 asking for feedback on the VSC revamp, and respondents requested improved site navigation, help desk availability and plain language.

“We used the RFI responses, emails sent to the help desk, and site analytics to determine which major updates to make,” Carlson said.