5 Ways Elected Officials Can Leverage a CRM System

As an elected official you lead by listening to your constituents, responding to their concerns, and proactively communicating your vision.

But communicating at scale is complicated. Legislatures and governments at every level have broad constituencies with diverse opinions and interests. In an increasingly digital world, constituents communicate with their representatives through a wide variety of channels including email, phone calls, and social media.

What is constituent relationship management?

Constituent management is more than just answering the phone or replying to an email. It’s the entire cycle of a constituent’s interaction with your office from start to finish; the experience they have along the way, the impact it leaves on the constituent, and the insights your office can extract from the weighted sum of all these interactions.

If you are looking for ways to more effectively respond to high volumes of incoming constituent messages, keep track of your interactions, and proactively articulate your vision, you may have considered adopting a Constituent Relations Management (CRM) system.

Tell-Tale Signs Your CRM System is No Longer Working

Constituents are reaching out to their elected officials at higher rates than ever before, at every level of government. The technology that constituents use to reach out is also outpacing the technology that governments use to respond.

Despite the herculean efforts of caseworkers and correspondents, most offices are simply unequipped to manage this level of engagement resulting in a noticeable impact on operations.

Does your office:

• Lose track of important messages from constituents in a sea of mass emails and out-of-district mail.
• Have constituent case requests piling up and being stalled, lost, or forgotten.
• Make constituents wait weeks (or longer) for a response to their message.
• Use cold, impersonal auto-replies just to keep up.
• Manage casework in spreadsheets, outlook, or google docs.
• Lack the ability to send targeted messages to key constituent groups like veterans or small business owners.
• Struggle to pull data or insights from aggregated correspondence.
• Have little to no visibility on how your staff is spending time.

Five Ways to Improve Constituent Relationship Management with a CRM System

#1 Respond to constituent messages quickly and accurately at scale

Constituents reach out to your office for a variety of reasons. They may be compelled to make their voices heard on a topic that they care about. They may need assistance with an issue that requires help from your office or another government agency.

The faster your office responds to constituent inquiries or resolves an issue, the more satisfied your constituents will be.

High volumes of incoming messages prohibit elected officials and their staff from responding to the messages that matter in a timely manner. With the right set of features, a CRM helps your organization triage incoming mail, sort similar messages, and respond in one click to common inquiries.

CRMs allow elected officials and their staff to sort all messages related to a particular topic into batches and respond to constituents with personalized pre-approved messages. Gone are the days of the automated “your message is important to me” response. It is now possible to respond to constituent messages in a manner that shows that you heard and understood their particular concern.

Key CRM Features for Faster Response Times

• Tools for drafting and approving commonly used responses to incoming messages
• Automatic and manual “batching” of incoming email with the same or similar text
• Options to personalize name, greetings, signatures and other fields

#2 Talk to constituents about the things that they care about

Many elected officials send periodic newsletters or emails to their entire district. This can be an effective way of sharing key updates and priorities, however constituents' expectations are changing. They want to hear from you on issues that they feel most strongly about and that personally affect them.

CRMs allow you to pull contact lists from a constituent database based on characteristics such as their profession or neighborhood. This allows you to reach out to them with an email or newsletter that speaks directly to their needs and interests. You can reach out to the veterans in your district, small business owners, or parents of school-aged children.

CRMs can also be used to deliver time sensitive messages to constituents affected by an emergency, like a storm, or public health issue, or to promote an event, like a town hall or fundraiser.

Delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time can make members of your district feel engaged, valued and heard.

Key CRM Features for Targeted Messaging

• A newsletter editor that allows you to quickly produce high quality newsletters and emails without the help of a designer
• A constituent data tool that lets you pull contact information for various segments of your district
• Merge fields that make it possible to address constituents by name and add other types of personalized touches

#3 Establish a cadence and check back when there is news to share

True engagement requires consistent communication over the course of months or years. You can send a Veteran’s Day message to your veterans every year, a message of support to small business owners on Small Business Saturday, or a message to parents before the first day of school.

If a large segment of your district reached out to voice their support for a piece of legislation or their concern about an issue, you will want to be able to reach back out when there is news to share or to tell them about what you are doing to resolve an issue.

Identify a CRM with a constituent database that gives you the option to tag and group constituents based on who they are (teachers or parents for example) or the issues that they care most about.

#4 Establish a single source for all constituent messages

Constituent engagement usually requires a lot of different tools. Elected officials often use some combination of email inboxes, spreadsheets, and calendar apps to keep track of casework, communication, and events. This requires a lot of work to maintain, creates plenty of room for error, and may not be the best long-term solution.

Each interaction with your constituents is an opportunity to build on your understanding of who they are and what matters most to them, but only if the information is captured, organized and easily accessible.

Constituent services software allows you to keep track of all constituent interactions and store your knowledge about each person over time.

Key CRM Features for Tracking Constituent Communication and Profiles

• The ability to create a unique record or profile for each constituent
• Fields for tags, contact information and notes relevant to that constituent
• A way to automatically track each constituent’s communications over time and across channels such as email, calls, and social media
• An easy way to search for constituents
• Tools to prevent or remedy duplication of your constituent profiles

#5 Know the status and history of all constituent requests

One of the most important things that an elected official can do for people is to help them navigate the government to quickly resolve an issue. Your constituents might ask about anything from street cleaning schedules to business permit applications.

But getting them help can be a juggling act that requires communication across agencies and departments. Your residents want to be in the loop about the status of their case while it’s in progress and after it’s resolved.

Choose a constituent management software that allows you and your staff to communicate with both the resident and other government departments that can help resolve the issue, and keep all of that information in a single, convenient record. This way, you can communicate the status of a case to constituents in real time. Imagine running into someone at an event and being able to tell them what actions you’ve taken and what’s next.

Key CRM Features for Managing Constituent Requests

• Organizes cases by status so that staff can easily access the cases that require immediate attention
• Logs all the activity and history related to each case
• Allows staff to tag or assign activity to collaborators
• Gives staff the ability to set reminders and alerts when the status of a case changes
• Is a cloud-based software that is accessible on any device

Adopting a New Constituent Relationship Management System

Adopting (or switching to) a new constituent services software can seem overwhelming. To staffers that have been doing it one way for a long time, it can be uncomfortable to learn a new way of doing things. But the reality is that constituents are starting to compare government service to their everyday experiences with Amazon or Grubhub and their expectations are changing.

Private sector customer service experiences are redefining what it means for an organization to be accessible and responsive. And for constituents, contacting their elected representative is about more than just changing an order or returning a purchase.

When a constituent reaches out to a government office it is almost always about something incredibly important to them.

In some situations, constituents turn to elected officials after exhausting all other options or after attempting to navigate other bureaucratic institutions without success. The bare minimum an office can do is quickly and personably let them know that their message was received and is being taken seriously.

The good news is, when partnering with a CRM provider like Indigov, you won’t be left to figure it out on your own. Your team can expect to receive hands-on, in-person training and implementation, as well as a dedicated client success representative to assist with goal-setting and strategy coaching.

How can we help?

Indigov is making it possible for elected officials to effectively engage and communicate with each and every one of their constituents. We work with elected officials across the country and at all levels of government.

We would love to learn more about your goals for your district and answer any questions that you have about CRMs!