The Correspondence Management Conundrum – Part 2

Avtex Helps Public Sector Agencies Manage High Volume Citizen Interactions

CRM to the Rescue

Agencies within the public sector face the challenge of addressing hundreds of inquiries and requests from other agencies or directly from citizens daily.

Fortunately, there are answers to these challenges, including correspondence management solutions.

What are correspondence management solutions?

At the basic level, correspondence management solutions, or CMS, are technology solutions that manage the process of accepting, classifying, storing and routing incoming requests throughout an organization. In many cases, these solutions are comprised of several pieces of technology, most often built upon a larger foundational Customer Relationship Management platform.

CMS solutions offer many benefits for public agencies, including:

• Streamlined correspondence: CMS solutions manage the entire lifecycle of a request. This includes alerting the agency to an inbound request and tracking the request’s movement throughout the agency. Rather than having to go through multiple on-premises applications and computer systems to retrieve a few documents, a CMS can streamline everything and everyone connected to a request in one platform. Additionally, a CMS can automatically remind teams working on a request about upcoming tasks so they can be completed in a timely fashion.
• Improved citizen experience: Many inbound requests directly impact an agency or citizen’s ability to conduct business, complete a project, obtain information or find key funding. The more efficiently requests can be managed, the faster agencies are able to execute missions, and the faster citizens are able to obtain the answers they need. Additionally, the more efficiently an agency can manage a request, the more satisfied citizens and partners are likely to become.
• Increased consistency: One detriment to efficient correspondence management is a lack of consistent handling or approval procedures. When each agent handles correspondence differently, the potential for roadblocks or delays increases dramatically. CMS systems create a consistent process for managing correspondence, improving the agent experience and citizen experience alike.
• Visibility to requests: Citizens expect consistency with responses to their inquiries. Regardless of whether a request is made through a phone call, email or web portal, an efficient CMS can help agencies handle requests consistently by providing all employees with a view of where requests are in the correspondence process and what has been said on the topic at hand. Additionally, constituents have the ability to track progress made on their requests.
• Regulatory compliance: Government agencies must make security the forefront of what modern technology adheres to. A CMS solution offers the ability to integrate with systems familiar to agency employees while still leveraging advantages of the cloud. Additionally, a CMS can accomplish this all while maintaining compliance with government wide laws and regulations.

Avtex focuses on providing services and products that can help government make meaningful interactions with citizens. Avtex CMS solutions can help agencies address the challenges of the correspondence process by streamlining and automating communications and IT platforms, helping employees better keep track of requests and deliver timelier and individualized responses. Ultimately, a CMS solution can help government maintain accountability with its citizens and deliver high-quality services.

How can your agency choose the right CMS platform for your unique needs?

An effective CRM platform is vital to the success of any organization’s correspondence management efforts. With that said, CRM platforms vary greatly in feature sets, flexibility and cost – it is important for an organization to understand its specific CRM needs.

In the third blog in our Correspondence Management series, I’ll offer some insight into the best strategies for understanding your unique CMS needs and the options available to solve them.

In the meantime, here's more insight into the challenges associated with correspondence management and they ways Avtex solves them: