Congressional Tours Hack: How to work smarter, not harder

Melissa Dargan: Political mentors and colleagues always tell me to work smarter, not harder. Given that mantra, how would you answer the following question? If your Member of Congress asks […]

by | Jul 28, 2022 | Blog Posts

Political mentors and colleagues always tell me to work smarter, not harder.

Given that mantra, how would you answer the following question?

If your Member of Congress asks you to drive to the next work event, would you pull out a paper map and manually chart the driving route or type the address into your phone or browser to get the directions?  Most people would choose the more modern solution.

Typing an address into a digital map is faster, more efficient and more effective than charting your own route using maps and highlighters

Similarly, organizing Congressional tour requests can be hard or simple: manually with excel spreadsheets and individual outlook itinerary emails, or digitally with TourTrackr, a tour management system that makes organizing constituent tour requests easier and quicker.

When I first came to Washington D.C., I started as a staff assistant and dreamt of attending briefings, working on policy, and drafting memos for the Member of Congress. In reality, serving as a staff assistant required more administrative constituent responsibilities – one of which was booking DC tours for constituents.

You see, I was a tour coordinator in 2011 (over a decade ago), and was working harder (vs. smarter). I booked Congressional tour requests using printed papers, excel spreadsheets, and individual outlook itinerary emails. Sound familiar?

This was a fragmented, time consuming, and inefficient process. Depending on the demand of tours, providing high quality constituent tour correspondence (i.e. DC welcome packets, itineraries, reminders, etc.) took anywhere between 10-20 hours a week! On top of booking tours, I had multiple responsibilities in the Congressional office. Juggling everything in an efficient timeframe was difficult.

That’s why I created TourTrackr. It is something I wish I had back then so I could work smarter when managing tours. TourTrackr enables you to enhance constituent tour correspondence while also freeing you up to do the job you came to Washington DC to do! Fully integrated into Intranet Quorum (IQ), you’ll be able to streamline the tour booking process under one platform.

With DC tour sites reopening and demand for tours increasing, now is the time to work smarter. Because although you can manage tour requests by using a color-coded spreadsheet, folders in outlook, and email itineraries, why would you do it manually when you can digitize the process?

TourTrackr helps you work smarter not harder.  The Leidos-Tourtrackr Team helps you get the job done with a minimum of effort.

To learn more about TourTrackr or get a demo, contact us today!

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