Constituent correspondence continues to be one of the biggest headaches facing the modern congressional office, and innovations in this arena have the greatest potential to free staff time for other activities and improve constituent satisfaction. This memo outlines the innovations CMF believes can address problems many offices face in (a) the workflow processes involved in responding to constituent mail and (b) the content of responses. Our recommendations are based on years of study and guidance to congressional offices, and were chosen carefully because they can be easily implemented and potentially have significant positive impact on constituent communications.

Desired Outcomes

1. Reduce staff time spent on constituent correspondence
2. Decrease staff frustration/burnout/boredom responding to constituent mail
3. Increase constituent satisfaction with responses
4. Improve turnaround time from receipt to response

Constituent Correspondence Innovations

Below are the innovations we recommend offices implement. In parentheses are the letters which correspond to the desired outcomes (above) each innovation seeks to address.

Innovations that address workflow processes:

• Engage differently with frequent communicators (a, b, d): All offices have constituents who communicate more frequently with their Member than other constituents. Every time you decide to respond, your office is utilizing resources. Some offices have found marked benefits in limiting the number of times they communicate with individual constituents. They accomplish this by responding only once per month per constituent and/or only exchanging one communication per issue rather than a prolonged back-and-forth engagement. Put more simply, they limit their responses to the so-called "frequent fliers" or "pen pals." One office estimates that this has reduced their overall volume of responses by 45%.
• Develop a two-track mail system for quicker turnaround (a, b, d): The first track involves a robust letter library – a bank of responses that have already been approved and can be sent to constituents participating in form advocacy campaigns without additional review, editing, and approval. At most, these responses get matched by one staffer and approved (but not edited) by another staffer, but a well-trained and trusted LC or Staff Assistant (or even intern) should be able to handle most of these independently, saving the rest of the staff's time. Obviously new letters and new campaigns come into the office on a regular basis, and those would be placed on another track for more time-consuming research, drafting, editing, and approval. The idea behind this approach is to ensure that you have a dedicated staffer who can separate all mail into two very broad process categories: one track for existing form letters that can be quickly assigned and sent out in batches (resulting in a fast turnaround for the bulk of your incoming mail); and the other track where new text is required, thus necessitating additional steps.
• Institute "mail zero" days (c, d): Many offices have a large backlog of mail and even more have slow turnaround times. The longer it takes to respond to a constituent, the more likely the response – no matter what it says – undermines constituents' views of their Members (e.g., "I sent you a note asking you to vote no on H.R. 1487 five weeks ago and didn't receive a reply until long after that vote took place"). During the kick-off meeting, Chief of Staff Kim Johnston outlined her office's approach – mail zero days. One day every two weeks, all staff spend the day writing, reviewing and sending mail until they have completely addressed any backlog the office might have.
• Ensure staff receive training (a, b, d): A few hours spent training staff can save hundreds of hours on mail management. Correspondence management system (CMS) packages (IQ, Fireside21, iConstituent, etc.) have many features to save staff time and make mail management easier, but CMF has found that staffers responsible for mail intake, batching, sorting, reports and assignments aren't using those features. As a result, they spend far more time than necessary on administrative tasks. All of the CMS vendors offer free training, and CMF recommends anyone involved in mail management participate, even Chiefs and LDs, if they are frequent participants in the review and editing process. In addition, CMF provides free training to House staffers through the House Learning Center that offers a strategic approach to mail that can decrease the headaches an office experiences. Taken together, these resources can significantly reduce the amount of time spent on mail and improve turnaround time.
• Call rather than write (a, c, d): Small campaigns and non-campaign messages from constituents cause a resource problem for offices. They require responses, but the ratio of the effort involved in a lengthy research and review process to the number of constituents served doesn't balance, so CMF recommends calling instead. Have an appropriate staffer familiar with the issue call constituents who have sent mail that are one-offs, part of campaigns that result in a small number of messages, or include too many issues to justify the amount of time it would take to craft a letter. Staffers must be trained in advance on how to handle the calls, but the time spent on training and making phone calls will save significant staff time, in the long run, especially when they simply leave a polite message on the constituent's voicemail. The office is viewed as responsive, and all it took was a few minutes of one staffer's time, rather than hours of office time.

Innovations that address drafting content:

• Approach mail strategically with two tiers (a, b, d): Offices often respond to mail as if everything they receive is equally important. Limited resources leave staff scrambling to respond substantively to every message the office receives. Offices should instead determine which issues, organizations, and individuals are most important to the office's goals (because of Senator/Representative interest, committee assignment and district/state relevance) and implement a two-tier (as well as two-track) mail system to expedite the lower priority responses and spend time on the higher priority responses.

Tier 1: Communications from individuals, groups and organizations that are strategically important to the Member's goals or district/state receive the base response the office would send to constituents in Tier 1, as well as a little extra, such as a note about the legislator's activities on the issue, recent committee action, or a connection to something that happened in the district/state. (aim to have this make up no more than 30% of total output.

Tier 2: Communications that are less important (bills that never come to the floor, non-legislative priorities, people that disagree with you on non-strategic issues) receive a more generic, yet thoughtful, "I'm listening" response on the issue. If there is enough staff capacity, modify the form letter by referencing more specific detail about the issue. These letters should receive less stringent review. (this constitutes remainder, or 70%, of mail)

• Draft shorter letters (a, b, c, d): Offices often have significant backlogs and constituents may have to wait for quite some time to get responses to their mail. The reasons for this are myriad, but CMF has routinely identified two main drivers: the drafting process is slow, especially when the staffer is conducting extensive legislative research and providing an exhaustive overview of an issue; and the review process is slow, especially when long drafts must be reviewed multiple times by multiple people before they can be sent. One simple answer is to draft shorter replies. Shorter messages can still be responsive, and they take far less time to draft and review, enabling them to get out the door more quickly. CMF recommends no response be longer than three paragraphs.
• Construct value letters vs. process/policy letters (c): Most of the mail that reaches congressional offices is the result of organized campaigns. The people who send them generally support the organizations behind the campaigns, but they may not be thoroughly versed in the particulars of the issue on which they write, the Senator/Representative's position, or any other legislative activity on the issue. Offices often respond to this discrepancy by trying to "teach" the constituents about the issue – which committee the bill has been assigned to, its likelihood of passage, the history of the legislation in Congress, etc. Such "process" responses take a long time to research and draft, and they don't do a lot to build a relationship with the constituents. Moreover, constituents who participate in form message campaigns usually do not want or need such detail. They just want to express their views and feel they have been heard. CMF recommends responses always address these core questions: Does this convey that my boss is listening? Does it give the recipient a better understanding of my boss and/or my boss' values?
• Create issue pages on your website (c, d): If you feel the need for legislative detail on particular issues, create new sections of your website. For example, a constituent writes asking the Senator/Representative to sponsor H.R. 1487. The bill has been referred to a committee on which the legislator doesn't sit and is unlikely to come for a vote, but the legislator is a passionate supporter of wilderness protections, the underlying intent of H.R. 1487. The office can create a section of the website outlining the Member's views and activities in support of wilderness protections. The response to the constituent would contain the usual thanks for your views, reference the Member's general support for the issue, and a link to the support page.
• Eliminate pro/con letters (a, b, c, d): Value letters which seek to make connections with constituents rather than educating or persuading them can be shorter, easier to write, and more matter of fact than the letters most offices currently send. Many offices complicate their responses by crafting different messages for constituents who agree with the legislator's position and those who do not. This is a time-consuming practice that is not likely to increase constituent satisfaction. Writing one, short letter which makes a connection to the constituent, states the Member's position (if s/he has taken one), and/or conveys appreciation for the constituent's views can be much more satisfying to constituents than a long letter that tries to educate and argue.
• Identify the source (b, c): There is a frequent disconnect between the motivations of the sender and the response that they ultimately receive from a Member of Congress. As discussed earlier, most letters offices receive are the result of coordinated campaigns. Those campaigns most often have a source – an action item that motivated the sender to participate in the campaign. That action item is usually discoverable by entering a sentence or two of text from the letter the office receives into a search engine. Reviewing the action alert which motivated constituents to send their messages before drafting a response could make the drafting process smoother and result in a better connection between the response letter and the constituent.