Finding time-saving solutions to your everyday tasks is essential as we all strive to Do More with Less. Adopting some of the automation features accessible in IQ can take on some of the load and make the CRM work for you.
Auto-Sending
IQ’s auto-send feature allows the CRM to do the heavy lifting of responding to messages for you. It can start and stop sending replies when you dictate, allowing you to set it and forget it so you can move on to other important tasks.
Auto-sending responses to batched messages means no constituent communication or request goes unanswered. Assign an auto-send rule for batches that have a form letter assigned to them that acknowledges their position and provides a meaningful response. You can assign a rule that will send messages in the batch a form letter response after a set period of time to avoid responding too quickly. The auto-send function can also be customized to only reply to messages received about an issue for a certain amount of time so you don’t have to worry about sending an outdated message, fully automating the process.
Leidos’ IQ Consultants can create rules for incoming messages that assign them to individuals in your office based on key words or phrases used in the messages. For example, all messages about a particular piece of legislation can be assigned to one specific staffer, streamlining the process.
Another convenient feature of IQ is the send later function, allowing you to plan messaging in advance and set a date and time for it to go out to your audience. Auto-sending outreach such as eNewsletters guarantees your message is delivered exactly when you want your constituents to see it. Schedule the exact date and time you want your outreach sent. This is especially helpful for outreach scheduled for federal and state holidays when you want your constituents to know you’re thinking about them, but your staff is out of the office. IQ can hit send for you.
When sending messages through IQ, it’s best practice to select the option to send them in the background, allowing IQ to take care of sending the responses while you do other work. Selecting the option to send messages in the foreground will mean you are stuck on one screen until the outreach has been sent, decreasing efficiency and interfering with your workflow.
Form Letters
IQ can generate new form letters for you named after the batch that can be edited by someone in your office to ensure it is on-brand for your messaging. This takes the time-consuming part of message responses out of the hands of your team.
IQ can ease your workload with the help of automatically generated form letters. By creating and assigning a form letter to respond to bill-related and campaign correspondences, you can respond to volumes of messages with less time and effort.
IQ can scan content of messages and automatically sort messages into batches or reply to them individually. Once incoming messages are batched, IQ can generate form letters named after the batch responding to the position of the messages within the batch. The messaging is generated from templates saved within IQ and the content of the incoming messages in the batch. The auto-generated message can be edited or customized by a member of your staff to ensure it is on-brand for your Member’s platform and is an appropriate response to the message. This takes the time-consuming part of message responses out of the hands of your team.
It’s best practice to enter issue codes for each form letter to support the effort to target your audience for outreach, as well as for your office’s reporting.
Managing Messages
If your office manages citizen messages, it’s best practice to manage those messages at a macro to micro level in IQ, starting with any legislative and policy-related messages, then moving on to advocacy campaign messages, and ending with individual messages.
Managing legislative and policy-related messages first will allow you to also manage all the advocacy campaigns associated with them, before moving on to the smaller campaigns.
Advocacy messages tend to have the highest volume of any message records in IQ. Start managing them by combining those that have similar messaging and themes. This can be done automatically in IQ and will decrease the number of campaign responses. Some campaign messages have unique wording. You can use the analyze text tool to find those messages within an advocacy campaign and address them appropriately.
Managing individual messages last is a best practice because they are the type of messages with the lowest volume of records in IQ and might require more time create a response. These individual messages can be responded to with a form letter or customized letter. Any non-advocacy messages with common information can be found using a text filter based on an issue code or subject. Those messages can be batched and assigned a form letter and response rule. For any messages that don’t fall into a batch with a form letter, custom responses are assigned and created.
Leidos’ IQ Consultants can create special rules and processes that best fit your office’s individual needs. Reach out to our team to learn how IQ’s automation can be customized for you.
