Common Office Objections to Technology

Are you interested in making improvements to your mail system or website, but keep hitting roadblocks with your office? To help you address the concerns raised by your Member and staff, CMF has put together some of the most common office objections to technology-related issues -- and the reasoning for making changes.

Responding to Email with Email

"The text of our response will be altered if we respond with email."

Offices responding via email have never had that happen. Constituents may forward emails on to friends and family, allowing us to communicate with more constituents. Additionally, our CMS keeps records of everything we send. If there are still concerns, affordable technologies are available to help track and "guarantee" our email is secure.

"Email will increase our workload."

Email is actually more efficient. Automating certain parts of data entry will save us time, as will not folding letters and stuffing envelopes. No paper and envelopes will also save us money, and email responses are not expected to be as long as postal letters, so the review will be easier.

"People like letters – they’re more impressive."

Emailers prefer email and expect an in-kind response. To emailers, responding with a postal letter makes the Member appear out-of-touch.

"Constituents who write via email are not as important as those who write via postal mail."

Actually, emailers are some of our most important constituents: research shows that people who are politically active online and those who write their elected officials are far more influential in their communities than the general public. They're also far more likely to vote and participate in political campaigns. See “Profile of Emailers” or CMF’s Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping With the Surge in Citizen Advocacy report.

"We don't want to write shorter responses – constituents appreciate a good, quality response."

A quality email is not the same thing as a quality letter – it is a different medium with different expectations. Emailers place greater importance on response speed than on its length, and will view a long response as an unnecessary and difficult read.

"Answering email with email will encourage pen pals."

Email makes it easier for pen pals to contact us, but there are easy techniques to manage constituents’ expectations and limit the number of pen pals. For example, making our response policies clear on our website and in an email autoresponse can go a long way toward reducing pen pals. By sending an email we can link to our website, providing the constituent with much more information than can be included in a letter.

Improving Your Website

"We don't have the time/money to invest more in the  website” or “the websites not a priority."

To a large and growing body of constituents, the website is the first – and sometimes only – point of contact with the Member, and its quality will shape these constituents’ opinions of him/her. Research shows that the people visiting our website are among our most important constituents. They tend to be politically active and influential in their communities, so we want to impress them! See “Profile of Emailers” or CMF’s Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping With the Surge in Citizen Advocacy report. If we invest time in putting more information about the Congressman’s views, voting record, etc. on the website, then fewer people will email us looking for these answers. The website allows us to interact with more constituents directly – without the press playing the middle man.

Coordinating with Grassroots Organizations

"Why should we try to work with grassroots organizations? We don’t owe them anything."

Grassroots organizations are a common vehicle for constituents to get involved in issues that matter to them. They have an interest in making their views heard and we have an interest in reaching out to and building a relationship with the constituents they represent. They are responsible for generating a lot of messages to our offices. We can’t really ignore them, so we should probably try to work with them to make our work a little easier.

"Our office doesn’t have the resources to spend time reaching out to grassroots organizations."

Coordinating with the grassroots organizations can help to maximize the number of constituents we reach while minimizing the time we spend doing so.

Mail Process

"The involvement of the Member/senior management is important to responding to constituent concerns."

The involvement of the Member/senior management is important to formulating new responses to constituents, especially to VIPs, but a responsible Mail Manager can really get to know the letter library and can choose which form response is appropriate. Involving the Member/senior management in the selection of form responses delays the process, and many constituents will be annoyed by a slow response.

"Mail is not as important as our legislative priorities and must take a back seat if the two come into conflict."

With a well-managed system, we can get about 85% of our mail turned around quickly without interfering with legislative priorities. All we need to do is put our trust in a good Mail Manager.

 
Constituent Communications