4 Steps to a Virtuous Cycle of Constituent Engagement

There is an ever-expanding digital divide between the tools that constituents use to communicate with their elected representatives and the tools that elected representatives use to respond.

This results in a frustrating experience for constituents as overwhelmed office staff struggle to keep up with correspondence. In Congress, it takes an average of 45 days for a constituent to receive a response.

Effectively and consistently communicating with an entire district is a major challenge. But leading elected officials are looking to confront communication breakdowns head on and show constituents that their questions and concerns are being taken seriously.
There are four main components to a successful communications cycle, each of which are rooted in solving common challenges to government offices.

1. Your website is the first stop for constituents. Help everyone find what they need.

Challenge

Websites are the primary public facing tool in 2022 and are almost always the first place that constituents visit when they are looking for help or information. If the website is difficult to navigate or does not contain up-to-date content relevant to your constituents, your office risks being perceived as out of touch or outdated.

Solution

The first step to building a stronger connection with your constituents is to ensure your website offers people the services and resources they need in a clear and accessible format. When your constituents can quickly locate the information they need through the website, you can organically cut down on minor inquiries and strengthen your office’s reputation in the process.

An accessible and easy-to-learn website builder can be an incredible asset for teams of all sizes. Ideally, your website will tie directly into your Constituent Relations Management (CRM) platform and offer clear and direct channels for constituents to connect to your office or send your staff a message.

2. Constituents are reaching out at unprecedented rates. Process messages efficiently.

Challenge

Most elected officials have not yet adapted their systems to account for modern communication methods. Meanwhile grassroot campaigns and advocacy groups have widely adopted digital channels and use them to bombard overwhelmed office staff with mass messaging campaigns.

Representatives in Congress for instance, receive an average of 5.1 billion messages every year from constituents, lobbyists, and interest groups. With all that volume, it can be easy for staff to miss an email from someone in need if they don’t have a way to efficiently process incoming messages.

Solution

Strong communication truly begins when offices can efficiently receive, sort, identify, and batch correspondence from multiple sources and channels. Leading offices often rely heavily on Constituent Relations Management platforms like Indigov for features like:

• One inbox. View, respond, and manage all incoming communication, regardless of channel, in a single, easy-to-use inbox.
• In-district sorting. Instantly separate the messages that are coming from outside your district from those of your actual constituents.
• Batched responses. Save time and manpower with software that batches together cases that will likely receive similar replies.
• Tracking trends. Easily track commonalities across inquiries or petitions and gather information on what issues are important to your residents.

3. Your constituents want to feel heard. Respond to them in a timely and personal fashion.

Challenge

Once staffers have collected and organized all the incoming questions, concerns, complaints, and cute cards from kids, the work is still only half-done.

Constituents have higher expectations for government communication than ever before. Not only do they want to receive a timely reply but they also want to know that their concerns are being taken seriously — not just being auto-replied to.

Solution

Staffers can save countless hours by automating batch replies to mass email campaigns. For unique messages, Indigov’s pre-built templates include custom banners, signatures, and social links that help staff quickly draft responses while still personalizing fields like names, greetings, or signatures. In this way constituents receive a personalized, professional response that makes them feel valued and lets them know that their message was seen.

4. Data helps you understand your office and your constituents. Are you collecting the data that matters most?

Challenge

We’ve heard from countless offices of elected officials that a major problem with many legacy or ad-hoc communication systems is that so much time is spent processing and responding. This means staffers have very few opportunities to capture and report back on engagement metrics.

Solution

The clever legislator understands the value in knowing what issues are getting talked about the most, and also how their staff is responding. A top CRM like Indigov grants visibility into the types of cases staffers spend their time on, as well as insights that improve time to resolution.

Public officials can take what they’ve learned from their constituents and use that data to build targeted content that meets people where they are, and directly addresses their concerns and interests.

Don’t Put Democracy on Hold

Indigov is the leading voice in constituent relationship management with experience working with elected officials across the United States. Learn more about the practical applications of a Constituent Relations Management system and reach out to our team to see how Indigov seamlessly bridges the gap between representatives and their communities.