CSG-WEST Discusses Constituent e-Relationships

By Mary Branham Dusenberry

State legislators can learn a thing or two about e-communication from the corporate world.

Julie Barko Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at George Washington University, brought some of that information to Western state lawmakers during The Council of State Governments-WEST Annual Legislative Training Assembly July 17 in Anchorage, Alaska.

But, Barko Germany said, much of what the corporate world is doing to build one-to-one relationships with customers comes from what elected officials have been doing for some time. Developing relationships with constituents has always been important for elected officials, she said.

“Whether in Tammany Hall or Congress today, a lot of what goes on and a lot of the success you have as elected officials depends upon how your constituents view you and the work you’re doing for their community and sometimes, on a local level, it depends very much on building those one to one relationships with people,” Barko Germany said.

In fact in the early 1980s, grassroots organizations began developing databases to organize get out the vote efforts or to manage political campaign organization. The difference today, she said, is that this information is digital.

Corporations are using their customer relations management tools to offer more customized information, which is becoming more important in the age of digital communications.

She cited a study by the Congressional Management Foundation, which studies what Congress does and whether those actions are positive or negative. The study looked at how elected officials in Congress interacted with constituents. Among other things, the study found:

• Around 44 percent of Americans contacted federal officials in the last five years.
• 92 percent of those people who had contacted an official had at some point visited the Web site of the person contacted.
• 43 percent of those people who had contacted an official used the Internet to do so.
• 91 percent of those people expected some type of response, but only 63 percent of those people recalled receiving a response.
• Only 46 percent of people who received a response were satisfied with the response, while 64 percent said the response didn’t address their concern, and 51 percent said the response was too politically biased.
• 55 percent said their elected official did not care what the constituent had to say.

Barko Germany also cited statistics about the way Americans are using the Internet. “The way we use technology in America is starting to change our expectations for our elected officials,” she said.

More than 161 million people go online each month, and about 40 percent of us go online to engage in political activity and to get news and information about politics, she said. And people have changed their patterns of media consumption. No longer is it limited to time of day or to certain types of media.

“It’s something that we’re all constantly involved in,” Barko German said.

In addition, people who contact their elected officials, she said, whether through letters, e-mails or phone calls, tend to be slightly more influential than everybody else and tend to be opinion leaders. In general, about 10 percent to 11 percent of people tend to consume a lot of information and become opinion leaders in their communities.

Barko Germany’s group focused research on Internet activity and word of mouth opinion leaders. Researchers found that about 13 percent of people who use the Internet are opinion leaders, but about 69 percent of people involved in online politics fall in the category of word of mouth opinion leaders.

That makes elected officials responses to those people even more important, she said.

She suggested elected officials develop and maintain an actionable database that can not only keep track of people who contact them, but also help to create and send outgoing communications, to store, manage and analyze constituent data.

But she also recommends elected officials come up with a data plan that establishes what is included in the database. It should include such things as origin of information (faxes, phone calls, visits or e-mails) as well as who will maintain and/or have access to that information.

And, she said, it’s important to have a plan about how the information is used. She said as an example, legislators could prepare brief talking points on issues that come to a vote and send an e-mail to constituents who have expressed an interest in that policy issue.

Barko Germany authored a report, “Constituent Relationship Management for State Legislators,” in coordination with CSG-WEST, which was presented to attendees at the ALTA meeting.