CONGRESS[WO]MAN PLACE NAME HERE Constituent Communications and Services

Policy and Procedure Guide

[#]th Congress [Month year] Version [#.#] Section 1 Overview of Constituent Services Process

he purpose of the Policy and Procedures Guide for Constituent Services is to provide staff with a detailed step-by-step process of how to handle correspondence from T constituents as well as other constituent services our office provides. A primary means used by Congress[wo]man [Name] to convey [his/her] views and positions to [his/her] constituents is through the replies to correspondence that [s/he] sends out. Often, this may be the only interaction a constituent has with the Congress[wo]man. For this reason, this office makes every effort to respond to all incoming correspondence from [District] residents in a timely manner.

Due to the complexity of handling constituent services this office has purchased a constituent management system from iConstituent, LLC called Signal CRM, or “Signal” for short. With this product we are able to store detailed information about constituents, keep a record of the Congress[wo]man’s communications with each constituent, and leverage a technical solution for processing and answering constituent correspondence. It also provides a way to efficiently manage the information that is used to reply to constituents who contact this office. In addition, Signal manages other constituent services such as Casework, Flag Requests, and Tour Requests.

The goal of this office pertaining to constituent correspondence is to answer [#]% of the mail within [#] days of receipt and the remaining [#]% within [#] days of receipt. Incoming correspondence will either follow the Fast Track route or the Workflow Route [or name your procedures/processes]. The goal of this office pertaining to Casework is to [name your goal – get an initial response out in a certain number of days, close within a certain number of days, etc.] The goal of this office pertaining to Flag Requests is to [name your goal – accommodate every flag request received?]. The goal of this office pertaining to Tour Requests is to [name your goal – accommodate every tour received? Provide detailed tour itineraries and information to each constituent?].

Address Format Guidelines

[In general, your office should decide whether to follow formal addressing rules where street address information is spelled out or if abbreviations are acceptable. Below are two different sets of rules to use as a guide to create your own Address Format guidelines. Choose one of the methods and alter it to suit your needs.]

This office will adopt the following Address Format guidelines for entering new constituent address information into Signal. We have adopted these guidelines to maintain consistency in addressing our outgoing constituent correspondence. Consistent data entry also leads to a more comprehensive duplicate search and a cleaner database for our office. No alterations from these guidelines will be tolerated.

Constituent Name, Title, and Organization:

 For middle initials use First Name, space, middle initial, period, space, last name. o Example: Tom E. Smith  Whenever the preference of the constituent is known use Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Ms.  When the context and/or name of a constituent makes it clear that she is in fact female but does not make it clear within the piece of correspondence which title she prefers, use Ms. Use Miss if it is clear that she is below the age of 21.  When it is difficult to determine the constituent’s gender, do not use a courtesy title.  VIP = any elected official, someone that you think might be an elected official, or someone that you know the Congress[wo]man has a special relationship with or should be treated as a VIP due to their position. o If you have a question, please ask and remember it is better to have more VIPs then not acknowledge someone who deserves to be treated as such.  When you have a VIP, please make sure that you add their personal code VIP. If you need to know how to do this, please ask. o Quick Steps to add the VIP Personal Code . Click on the constituent’s name to open his personal record . In the top left corner, click “Edit Contact.” . Click “Add code,” and typ in VIP. . If you need another code, click “Search for code.”  When it is a VIP, Doctor, Servicemen, etc. make sure you change the salutation to reflect this. Below are acceptable examples: o Example 1 - Doctor . Correct - Dear Dr. Smith: . Incorrect - Dear Tom: o Example 2 - Mayor . Correct - Dear Mayor Smith: . Incorrect - Dear Tom: o Example 3 – Commissioners . Correct - Dear Commissioner Smith: . Incorrect - Dear Tom: o Example 4 – City Council Member, State Representatives . Correct – Dear Mr. Smith: . Incorrect – Dear Tom:  Company names, town names for elected leaders, etc. should be added as an “Organization” and linked to the individual. o Examples: . Office of the Governor . City of Wall . 3M Inc. . South Dakota State Senate  Titles should go on the “Title” line of the contact’s record. o Mayor o Commissioner o Senator

Address Formats: EXAMPLE 1: The following standards are a combination of United States Postal standards and what is commonly used in the House of Representatives when communicating with constituents. ALL constituent information must be formatted according to these rules.

Acceptable Format: Mr. John Doe 456 Magnolia St. Hempstead, NY 11550-1234 *the state abbreviation should always be capitalized

1.The # sign should not be used when using abbreviations such as APT, BSMT, BLDG, DEPT, FL, LBBY, STE, and UNIT. For example, APT 4. 2.City names should be spelled out whenever possible. For example, if West Blankenship is the name of the city, spell it out; but if space does not allow for this amount of characters, then simply put W. Blankenship. 3.Only Ave., Blvd., and St. are to be abbreviated. Alley, Road, Terrace and Drive are always to be spelled out. 4.PO Box - this is how we will write PO Box. We will not use periods. We will not spell it out, and we should never make the O a lower case. a. P.o. Box – WRONG b. Post Office Box – WRONG c. P.O. Box – WRONG 5.The eight directional’s [N, E, S, W, NE, NW, SE, SW] should always be abbreviated and should be capitalized. a. EXCEPTION: The exception to this rule is when one of these words is not being used as a directional but rather is part of the formal name of the street or area. For example, in West Blankenship Road, West is part of the official name so it would be spelled out, but when saying Potbelly Road, NW, NW is not part of the name of the street but simply a directional used to describe it, so this would not be spelled out but abbreviated.

Military Addresses 1. Overseas locations must contain the APO or FPO designation along with the two character “state” abbreviation of AE, AP, AA and the ZIP Code 2. Domestic locations use only the approved city name as listed in the City State File, along with the two-character state abbreviation and the ZIP code

EXAMPLE 2: This office will use formal addressing standards when corresponding with our constituents. ALL constituent information must be formatted according to these rules.

Acceptable Format: Mr. John Doe 456 Magnolia Street Hempstead, NY 11550-1234 *the state abbreviation should always be capitalized

 Spell out Avenue, Street, Boulevard, etc. These should never be abbreviated.  Use P.O. Box, RR, HC. Do not use another form of these address formats.  Apartments, Suites, etc. should go on the “Address 2” line o Please spell out apartment, suite, etc. No abbreviations are accepted.

[Some combination of the two of these addressing examples will probably work well for your office.] Section Interest Codes 2 [Interest Codes and their use are very office specific and reflect the relevant issues for an office, the type of information that an office wants to gather and track, the workload division of their Legislative staff, among other uses. It is imperative that your office consider carefully how they will use Interest Codes. Overuse can lead to an Interest Code table with thousands of entries. Under use can impact the ability to affectively report on issues in your office and perform targeted mailings. Below is one example of an office policy on Interest Code use.]

This office uses Interest Codes to organize assignments for each staffer involved in the correspondence process. We have [#] Interest Codes. Each code encompasses a broad category. They are assigned to the LA that handles that issue. (Example: HC (healthcare) - John Doe)

If a subcategory or more detailed code is necessary, it should begin with the same letters as in the general category. An example would be Stimulus Package which would fall under the category of Finance. The general interest code is FIN. The narrower interest code is FIN-STIMULUS.

When a new issue is identified by one of the mail processors, the processor addresses the issue with the LC in that subject area to determine if a new code is necessary. The LC is not only responsible for deciding if the volume of mail is great enough to warrant a new code but also what the code will be, and what description of the issue needs to accompany the code. This will then be added to Signal by [either the LC or the System Administrator]. The mail processor should also print the updated active code list and distribute to any interns or additional mail processors., and email a copy to the district. This is used for quick reference when doing data entry or mail management.

This document needs to be constantly updated by the LCs. Each LC is to review the printed list every Friday and report any changes at the weekly staff meeting. This is to ensure that the correct response letter is currently listed on the sheet, that the letters that are on the sheet are active and that any codes that have become inactive no longer appear on the sheet.

[The idea of exporting the Interest Code table to a spreadsheet that staff have displayed at their work area came about because an SA found that if the spreadsheet is viewable and if LCs are required to update the spreadsheet weekly and report any changes at the weekly staff meeting, the tables and Letter Library are always up to date.]. Section 3

Constituent Correspondence: Incoming Communications

This office will respond to constituents who contact this office by webform, third-party webform email, fax, postal mail, postcards, petitions, phone calls, or office visits [add or remove incoming avenues as necessary]. The staff will make every effort to collect the necessary information in order for a response from Congress[wo]man [Name] to be sent to them.

The diagram on the following page visually and graphically depicts the correspondence process for this office for each means of incoming communication.

[Begin to detail your process for processing incoming correspondence. You may choose to visually represent your office’s process via a flow chart, but new users can always benefit from written guidelines. Below is “best practice” for correspondence management you can use as an example or guide to develop your process.]

The incoming communications will be divided for processing into two categories: those that do not require manual data entry (automated processing) and those that do require manual data entry (to include digitizing the mail).

Incoming Correspondence – Automated Processing The communications that do not require data entry are email from our website, third-party webform e-mail, and scanned faxes. The technical instructions for using Signal can be found on iConstituent’s Help Center website: https://helpdesk.iconstituent.com. Below is a brief description for managing mail for each of these incoming avenues.

Processing Email Constituents can email Congress[wo]man [Name] via our website. Our website captures biographical information about the constituent that is automatically transferred into our CRM database. Constituents can also email through a third-party website. This is an email form letter submitted by constituents through an email campaign. Therefore it will arrive in large groups with an in type of “CWC.” The technical instructions for filtering through mail in the CRM can be found in the Help Center article “How do I sort new email in the inbox?” located here: https://helpdesk.iconstituent.com/hc/en-us/articles/202876190.

The following are the basic procedures for processing email: Step 1. Email is imported automatically on a daily basis at which time it goes through a Duplicate Constituent Search and Combine and Duplicate Message Check. Step 2. Group by Duplicate Message (Dup) and view the batched records to sort through similar messages; assign appropriate Interest Code, Group Code, Staff ID, and Mark As Open. Step 3. Create Filtered folders that reflect hot topics based on the results of the Duplicate Message Check. This will decrease the number of message you must manually sort in the future. Step 4. Add any IP addresses from form mail campaigns to the “IP” Filtered Folder. Step 5. With remaining email, begin to process individual correspondence. Use the search field in the mail viewer to filter out similar constituent messages (not duplicates).

Processing Faxes Electronically Through HIR, we receive faxes electronically in an Outlook account. From Outlook, we forward faxes to staff members if they are private and import constituent faxes into Signal for processing a response. When faxes are imported into Signal, they are “OCR-ed,” which means that the image of the fax is interpreted as text. We can use the text version of the fax for quicker data entry.

Step 1. For any constituent faxes in Outlook, right-click on the .tif attachment to save the image to the “Faxes” folder on the Z: drive. As you’re saving give each image a unique name (i.e., “Doe_J”). Step 2. Import the faxes into Signal. The technical instructions for importing faxes can be found in the article “How do I import scanned mail?” located here: https://helpdesk.iconstituent.com/hc/en-us/articles/202266834. Step 3. In the Scan Import Viewer, click on each contact’s name and view the OCR-ed version. Step 4. Add name and address information and assign the appropriate activity values, including assigned staff. Step 5. Select the desired records and click the “Create Activity” button to create activities out of the documents and send them to the assigned staff member’s Mail folder.

Processing Scanned Mail through House Digital Mail For some offices, postal mail is scanned and OCR-ed (creates a text version from the scanned image) through the House Digital Mail service prior to being received by the office. Scanned mail is deposited into a folder that Signal is configured to automatically pull. The following are the basic procedures for processing scanned mail:

Step 1. Import the digital mail into Signal. The technical instructions for importing digital mail can be found in the article “How do I import scanned mail?” located here: https://helpdesk.iconstituent.com/hc/en-us/articles/202266834.. Step 2. In the Scan Import Viewer, click on each contact’s name and view the OCR-ed version Step 3. Add name and address information and assign the appropriate activity values, including assigned staff. Step 4 Select the desired records and click the “Create Activity” button to create activities out of the documents and send them to the assigned staff member’s Mail folder.

Incoming Correspondence – Manual Processing The communications that will require data entry will include the postal mail, faxes, postcards, petitions, phone calls and office visits.

Postal Mail Our office will [will/will not] scan incoming postal mail. Below are the steps used for mail that will not be scanned after it arrives in the office of Congress[wo]man [Name]:

Step 1. Mail is sorted and placed into different stacks based on issue. Step 2. Each batch is entered into the CRM via Contacts module and the “Create Activity” function. It will be assigned an Interest Code, Response Type and Letter (where applicable), Group Code (where applicable), LA’s Staff ID, and Out Type of “Mail.” Step 3. Assign the Interest Code, Group Code (if necessary), LA’s Staff ID, and Mark As Open. Step 4. After a response has been transmitted, the letters are discarded.

Faxes Faxes that are not received electronically are handled in the same manner as Postal Mail.

Post cards Postcards come into the office via Postal Mail and are entered see below

[Decide how your office will capture postcard campaigns. Postcard campaigns can either be entered manually through the Contacts module using the “Create Activity” function and saving defaults or via an Excel spreadsheet which can be sent to iConstituent to import into the CRM.]

Petitions Petitions are treated in the same manner as post cards.

Phone Calls and Opinion Gathering When a constituent calls the office, if a constituent is calling to express an opinion on a current issue, the front office staff gathers the constituent’s data and enters their information in the CRM’s Anonymous Polling module. It is the policy of our office to respond to constituent opinion calls only if the constituent requests a written response. Otherwise, the polling entries are anonymous.

[Some offices use Anonymous Polling in conjunction with the “Create Activity” function in Contacts as described above. Other offices will only use the “Create Activity” function in the Section 4 Contacts module since this ties the opinion to a constituent for future searching. They will still be able to capture constituent opinions they have set up their interest code OR group code table to contain both PRO and CON codes per topic. In this way, they can run reports on constituent opinions. Your office must decide which method you feel will best serve your front office staff needs as well as your reporting needs.]

Office Visits [Some offices log office visits manually into the CRM via the “Create Activity” function in the Contacts Module in order to create an instance of correspondence to later follow up with the visitor.]

Outgoing Correspondence: Fast Track Route

The goal of this office is to answer [#]% of incoming communications by Fast Track. A piece of mail will take the Fast Track route if the office already has an approved letter that addresses the questions or concerns raised by the constituent. When that is the case, the correspondence processor will assign the appropriate letter and send/email out the correspondence.

There are [#] correspondence processors who will handle incoming correspondence. They will decide if correspondence can take the Fast Track route or if it needs to be assigned to the appropriate LA for response generation. The correspondence processors will be responsible for determining the route based on viewing the message in the Inbox.

Assigning a Form Letter When making the decision, mail processors need to ask if there is an existing form letter that will answer the constituent’s question. If so, o For a response to one constituent: . Assign the correct form letter from the Letters Module. . View the letter to make sure all the information is correct and fits the constituent inquiry.  Sometimes the form letters need to be personalized slightly to make sure it is addressing the specific constituent question/concern. You should change the Response type to Quick but choose a form letter and then edit and save it, and check it in. . Print the letter and close the activity. o For a response to a group of constituents who have written in on the same topic (part of an email/postcard campaign, petition, or a group of constituents that have written in on the same topic and can receive the same response letter): . Assign the correct letter from the Letter Library that addresses the scope of concerns expressed in the letters.  From the Inbox, select all the constituents by clicking on the first row, scrolling through the list, and then holding the “Shift” key and clicking on the last row of the activities who have written in about the same topic.  Select the “Assign” option that appears on the toolbar.  In the Assign box, select “Email” or “Mail” in the Out field; “Form” in the Response field; and then type in the appropriate letter name in the Letter field.  Click on “Assign and Send to Job.”  Select the appropriate print job based on the Out Type of the correspondence, and click “Send and Transmit” for email or “Send and Merge” for print.  If it is a print job, click the “Show All Folders” icon, select “Print Jobs,” click on the name of the job, click “Select All,” and click “Print.” [You could choose to use the “Send” button in the toolbar, but this feature is designed for small numbers of correspondence. Print Jobs are a faster and more efficient alternative. As an office, you must decide how you will coordinate outprocessing response letters.]

Assigning a General Letter (Gen) [General Letters are used by many offices to keep standard “thank you” responses. You may or may not decide to use this type of letter. With the Fill-in Field feature, this can be an easy way to respond to constituents quickly, while still keeping it personal.] There are a number of letters stored in the Letter Library that begin with the three letter code “GEN” that are used in the below circumstances. They should be assigned accordingly: o GEN-CONCERN “thanks for your concern” . If you can’t read the letter. . The letter doesn’t make sense. . Letter shows no thought or effort. . Letter is hostile or irrational. o GEN-THANKS “thanks for your kind words” . If the letter is a general thanks to the Congress[wo]man. Section 5 o GEN-THANK “thanks for writing in about …” or GE-NONCMTE “thanks for writing about H.R. XXX [status of the bill]” . If the letter is not part of a big group and is about a piece of legislation that is not an office priority, assign it with a “Gen-Thank” or “Gen-Noncmte” letter. . The determination of importance is usually made in consultation with the appropriate LA. These letters usually reference bills that are in Committees to which the Congress[wo]man doesn’t belong, in the Senate, or on topics where a position has not been developed. . For these letters, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and search the legislation to check: 1) the bill number and title referenced by the constituent match; 2) the status of the bill; and 3) to see if the Congress[wo]man has cosponsored the bill. . Then go to the activity line, and select the appropriate form of reply: “Email” or “Mail.” This can also be done in the Mail Module using the Assign button. . Select “Quick” under the Response field and then type in the letter name in the Letter field. GEN-THANK and GEN-NONCMTE both have form fill-in fields associated with them. Input the information from Thomas into these fields. . Process as described above.

New Form Letters and Individualized Responses

Not all incoming correspondence will have a form letter already prepared in the Letter Library. When this occurs, a new form letter needs to be created or an individual response needs to be written for the constituent. The mail processor needs to determine if the incoming correspondence is unique to that constituent or is regarding a topic that will receive numerous letters from constituents. In the case of the latter situation, a new form letter needs to be drafted and stored in the Letters Module.

New Form Letters If a letter does not already exist and is a serious inquiry about a legislative matter on which future inquiries are expected, the [Who will write the first draft? The mail processor? The LC?] will need to research and write a new form letter. The constituent activity will be assigned to [the writer] and be held in their My Mail folder while the letter is being written and approved. o Background . If the letter is about a specific piece of legislation, go to Thomas and print the Bill Summary and CRS Summary. This will help draft a paragraph explaining the intent and purpose of the legislation. (SI) . Check the CRS reports and the GOP Trunkline to see what sort of background materials they have on the subject/bill. . Congressional Quarterly, LIS, and Committee websites are also other great sources of information. . Once enough background has been collected, talk to the LA about the tone of the response. o Creating the New Text Letter . Go into the Letter Library and begin a new letter by clicking on the “New” button. . Type in a name and fill in the appropriate description of the letter. Our office uses a naming convention for all letters: [Here you should illustrate the naming convention. The last two years of the Congress, the first two letters of an Interest Code, a Bill Number, and “C” for Con or “P” for Pro are all good ideas. For example, “12_AG_2345C”.] . It’s always a good idea to attach an Interest Code to letters for easy searching.  Open the new Interest Codes spreadsheet and enter the Child Interest Code, Issue, Keywords, and Letter Name to keep the spreadsheet up to date. . If the header and footer for your letter are not already displaying, click on the “New Narratives” button, and click on Search. When the results are displayed, select the [name] header and the [name] footer, our standard header and footer for our correspondence. . If “Usage” does not already display, click on the “Add Usage” button, and click in the field to select “Correspondence.” . Click “Save” to save your changes into the database, and then select “Edit Letter” from the toolbar. Once a letter is opened begin to compose the reply. o Combine all research. o Try to keep letters to 1 page. o Don’t be too technical or detailed. o Try to give a good solid, concise summary of the topic/bill that addresses the constituent concern or answers the question. o Include the Congress[wo]man’s position and rationale for the position. o While having a strong background in each subject is important it is also important to express your response in a clear, concise, general manner. If the letter is too technical it can be extremely confusing for the constituent to understand. Once the draft letter is drafted, we will use Workflow to approve the letter.  Save and close the letter in Microsoft Word. On the Letter Detail screen, click on the “Check –In” button to save your version of the letter into the database. Then, click on the “Workflow” button in the toolbar. . Choose the appropriate workflow process from the available list; you may choose to add comments for the next person in the Workflow. . Click the “Initiate” button to begin the Workflow. You will know the letter has gone through the approval process when the letter is again assigned to you.  Check your “Workflowed” folder to view draft letters assigned to you.  Open and review the letter in the Letters Module. Make sure to check it in after review! Click the “Approve” button to close the Workflow. Change the letter status to “Final.”  Retrieve the pending correspondence items in your “My Mail” folder. . Select all the records awaiting the response, assign the response, and assign the items to Print Manager. [Your office may choose to draft Form Letters as Quick Letters and initiate Workflow an individual piece of correspondence. When the letter has gone through the steps for revision, the last step of the Workflow requires that the letter be created in the Letters Module and assigned to the batch of constituents that are awaiting that response. The benefit of using Workflow on a piece of correspondence as opposed to the Letter Library is that staff members can easily see an example incoming message attached to the activity that prompted the response to be drafted. Speak to an iConstituent representative to learn more about Workflow.) Section Processing Outgoing Correspondence 6 [Many offices choose to have one individual responsible for out processing the mail. This individual is proficient in both the Mail Module and Print Manager functionality. Each office builds a print queue differently. Review and discuss which one is best for your environment with an iConstituent representative.]

There will be [#] staffer responsible for processing outgoing correspondence once it is ready to print or email. The only exception to this rule is in the case of an individual piece of correspondence. In this case, the LA who wrote the letter can print the response directly from the constituent record or Mail Module using the “Send” button.

All completed response letters should be [assigned to the staffer in charge of outprocessing? Placed into a print queue? This needs to be decided by the office.]

[The below text assumes that completed response letters have been assigned to the staff member in charge of outprocessing.]

EMAIL All constituents with assigned response letters and/or response letters that have completed the steps in the workflow will be emailed to those constituents that have not already received that letter. Outprocessing of emails will be done through Print Manager by creating a “Daily Email” Print Job into which all staff should send their outbound email responses. The LC will transmit the Print Job at the end of every day and create a new one every morning.

POSTAL MAIL Similarly, completed response letters that should be printed are assigned to a “Daily Print” Print Job and printed through Print Manager. When a staff member assigns a response to a batch of correspondence, they should also assign the activities to the “Daily Print” Print Job. The LC will print responses in the Print Job every Friday and create a new “Daily Print” every Monday morning. After all letters have been printed, the letters are reviewed for the correct addresses and formatting. Multi-page letters are stapled. Section Form Letter Review Process 78 [Many offices choose to have one individual responsible for the upkeep of their CRM system. This individual is not the System Administrator but may be the LC, a combination of LAs working together, or someone who has been charged as the Correspondence Manager for the office. Maintaining up-to-date form letters would be one of their tasks.]

The Letters Module will hold all of our approved outgoing responses to constituents. Each letter in the Letters Module will be assigned to the LC responsible for that subject area. Each LC is responsible for maintaining up-to-date form letters.

The Correspondence Manager oversees all form letters in the Letters Module. Once a year [during the Holiday recess, for example] the Correspondence Manager prints a list of the current letters, and a review process to clean up the Letter Library begins.

1. A copy of each active form letter is printed and distributed to the appropriate LC. It is the LC’s responsibility to review each letter and indicate which letters are obsolete and which letters are okay to continue using. 2. All letters that the LC feels are okay to continue using are given back to the Correspondence Manager. 3. The Correspondence Manager then distributes these letters to the appropriate LA who oversees that topic area/LC. The LA also indicates which letters are obsolete and which letters are okay to continue using. 4. Based on feedback from the LC and the LA, the Correspondence Manager updates the Letter Library, making old letters obsolete and, when necessary, archiving the old letters.

Follow-up Letters

In an effort to be proactive in the communication with constituents it is our goal to send follow- up letters whenever possible. We will send follow up letters [Insert your policy on sending follow up mailings. Follow-up mailings are created in the Constituent Gateway CRM or in the Constituent Gateway eNewsletter utility. If you choose not to have a policy that mandates a follow up letter, delete this section.] SectionSection 109 Balancing Staff Load

he purpose of the Policy and Procedures Guide for Constituent Communications is multi-fold. First, it’s important that all staff members in the office understand how mail T is processed, particularly for staff members that share the responsibility for that process. Understanding the standards of operation helps to maintain continuity of procedures, minimizes knowledge and procedural degradation, and helps to engender a seamless, stress-free mailroom.

Second, knowing how to consistently sort mail, log data, draft and transmit timely responses, and work with and create various codes is integral to maintaining a clean and efficient database. The degree to which constituent data is useful is based on how readily we can access information and proactively reach out to our constituency.

Third, when everyone in the office follows the same standard procedures, it is much easier to assess work load and productivity. The CRM tracks all of the correspondence that is assigned to and sent by each staff member in the office. If there are variances in the way that different staff members work with correspondence, we cannot accurately account for the types of issues that are most being addressed in the database nor the number of new or existing responses required in each issue area.

Analytics

Analytics are an effective tool for our office to determine our efficiency in responding to our constituents. It also allows us to determine and shift staff workloads when and where necessary.

Reports will be distributed to all staff prior to our [weekly? Specify exact day of the week, if desired.] meeting. The report will be delivered [at this point you can choose to either manually run and distribute the report or use Reporting Services to schedule reports to run and be emailed to the appropriate staff.] The reports will reflect our policy on mail turn around times and highlight individuals exceeding the allowable limit. The report will be reviewed at the staff meeting. Each staff member is required to bring a copy of their report to the staff meeting. Section 1112

Incentives/ Penalties

One purpose of our Policy and Procedures Guide for Constituent Services is to outline our office procedures on responding to our constituents. In the introduction we have determined that the goal of this office pertaining to constituent correspondence is to answer [#]% of the mail within [#] days of receipt and the remaining [#]% within [#] days of receipt. This office has put in place both incentives and penalties for staff that work within these parameters.

Incentives The incentives…

Penalties Unfortunately there are penalties for staff that cannot work within these parameters.

Mail Process Review Procedures

It is imperative that we maintain an organized and efficient process for managing our incoming and outgoing constituent correspondence. In order for us to accomplish this goal, we need to review our current processes on a [annual? Every six months?] basis. We will do this at a special staff meeting.

Once our current procedure has been reviewed, any changes that arise from the meeting will be documented. The Correspondence Manager will update this Manual with the changes. A new copy of the Manual will be distributed to all staff.