We’re excited to announce the publication of a new Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) report that Fireside21 sponsored and helped produce, “Communicating with Congress: How Citizen Advocacy is Changing Mail Operations on Capitol Hill.” The report confirms the trends we have seen with our clients – offices on the Hill continue to experience exponential growth in correspondence from their constituents, between 200 and 1,000 percent growth over the last decade.
For those of us who work in the constituent relationship management (CRM) arena, this is not surprising news. E-mail, websites and social media have given voters new and easier ways to contact their representative, and as a result, the volume of constituent communications has grown dramatically.
The report reveals several important figures. The first is that responding to constituent messages continues to be an important effort in congressional offices. Of those surveyed for the report, 95 percent of Senate staff and 89 percent of House staff said responding to constituent communications is a high priority. There is a corollary in another recently released CMF report on social media that offices highly engaged on Facebook and Twitter “believe the Internet has improved the dialogue between citizens and Congress.” This is good news for both citizens and advocacy organizations.
The Internet has driven many good-government initiatives forward, such as increased transparency and accountability, but there has been concern that this influx of messages to elected officials would paralyze offices. This, however, has not been the case throughout Congress. The CMF reported that 58 percent of staffers said they spend more time on constituent communications than they did two years ago. Further, 46 percent said their offices have upped mail operation resources to handle the growing volume.
The second revealing figure indicates that many of the challenges offices face in responding to constituents can be solved with better processes and technology. Offices are increasingly using e-mail to respond to constituent correspondence. The CMF report notes that 86 percent of congressional offices answer all or most of their constituent e-mail with an e-mail. This is up from 37 percent in 2005. One contributing factor in this shift is that legislators and their staff are more comfortable using the technology, overcoming a past concern that “e-mail responses would be altered, which could result in the misrepresentation of the Member’s position.”
The senior managers and staffers surveyed for the CMF report all noted the same top challenges to responding more quickly to constituent correspondence. Senior managers and staffers concurred that mail volume is a major concern, but for the staffers whose primary task is answering mail, the “review and approval process” was indicated as an even bigger hurdle. The process for responding to a constituent inquiry or concern can be laborious and time consuming, requiring approval from multiple levels of the congressional staff hierarchy.
One solution to challenges with volume and approval is to adopt CRM technologies as quickly as possible. Technologies such as our Fireside CRM software make it easier for offices to interact with voters by bringing together all communications tools into a central hub. This means office staff spends less time managing casework and correspondence and more time serving constituent needs. It also means the arduous approval process can be streamlined. Fireside21 software, for example, offers notification alerts and better filters for more efficient viewing and approval.
Even in tough economic times and with office budget cuts, there are technological solutions available to Congress. To improve CRM capabilities, offices need not spend more but should spend smarter. The tools that facilitate constituent communications are available today, and as the CMF report shows, they can make all the difference.
Congratulations to all of our clients who won Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Mouse Awards for having the best websites on Capitol Hill! Year after year, more Fireside21 clients receive this recognition than any other vendor.
We hosted another great 
