Anatomy of a Mobile Office Hours Program
BY ANNE MEEKER
One of the most interesting parts of compiling our Casework Navigator newsletter is reading through the Google alerts I have set up to ping me when something is published mentioning “Congressional casework” or “constituent services.” There’s a ton of interesting stuff here, from campaign questionnaires to software press releases to international research — much of which makes it into the “news about casework” section of the newsletter!
But one thing kept standing out for me: every single week, I was seeing local news stories from media outlets in Nebraska about mobile office hours for Senator Pete Ricketts [R, NE]. Not only was this team apparently figuring out the logistics and staffing to host weekly office hours in all parts of the state, but they were getting solid coverage from them as well.
After a few months of this, there was only one thing to do: cold call the Senator’s Omaha office and ask if I could chat with someone on their casework team about how they manage their program. And true to state stereotypes, they were very generous to share some thoughts on managing this program, gathering data to support their decisionmaking, and evolving in response to feedback.
So today, this is the first in a series of deep dives with casework teams that have really figured out some aspect of the complex business of constituent service.
If your team has also found a new or unique approach to a common problem, we’d love to talk with you! Reach out to anne@popvox.org to tell me all about it. And in the meantime, here’s my interview with staff from the office of Senator Ricketts.
Anne: Your team runs an incredibly organized mobile office hours program across Nebraska. Can you share a bit about the logistics behind your program? How do you schedule and staff these events?
Office of Senator Ricketts: Senator Ricketts previously served two terms as governor of Nebraska. We have a large state stretching 459 miles across with a total area nearly 20% larger than New England. Senator Ricketts built a reputation for being approachable by visiting every corner of the state regularly. Our Mobile Office Hours (MOH) program is an extension of his commitment to be available to Nebraskans in all 93 counties who need help with a government agency or simply want to make their opinion heard.
We have broken the state’s counties into regions based on our state office locations. We assigned counties to individual members of our state team. Teammates are then responsible for identifying communities in those counties that would make ideal communities to host MOHs. They use a multitude of criteria such as population, location, county seat, engaged community groups, etc. Then the teammate works with leaders in the community to identify specific locations to hold the MOH. We take into consideration criteria like location, foot traffic, availability, etc. We schedule our MOHs at least two weeks in advance to provide ample time to get the word out to constituents to strengthen attendance.
The key for us is familiarity and flexibility. Our goal is to host a MOH in each of Nebraska’s 93 counties at minimum twice-per-year, in addition to the regular outreach and programming our team does throughout the year. This builds relationships between constituents and our team and furthers understanding of the purpose of Mobile Office Hours. This familiarity allows us to receive helpful recommendations on times and locations to host future successful MOHs. Allowing teammates great flexibility to determine date, time, and location of the MOH is also important. This flexibility allows us to be creative in new MOH locations. For example, a recommendation we received in a rural county was a coffee shop inside of a local car dealership which turned out to be one of our best-attended Mobile Office Hours to date!
Anne: Although these are clearly constituent-service focused, any event program like this takes a lot of coordinating with other staff, including communications. Do you have any tips on how you coordinate between different roles in your office?
Office of Senator Ricketts: Communication is integral to quality constituent services and that starts with leadership. As we built our team, Senator Ricketts clearly communicated constituent services was a top priority of his. Each teammate, whether working in DC or the state, knew exceptional constituent services was something our office would prioritize. This made it easy for our state team to work with our communications team to build a variety of products that help drive attendance to MOHS, such as flyers, weekly press releases, and regular social media content.
Anne: How have your office hours changed who you reach for constituent services? Can you share any metrics on how these have impacted your caseload?
Office of Senator Ricketts: We are a data-driven office meaning we invest teammates’ time and resources based on an expectation the investment will create value. While a relatively new office, we saw immediately that time and location mattered in hosting Mobile Office Hours. Initially, our strategy was to host a MOH, work to drive attendance to our event, and end up with minimal turnout. The data said we were not getting enough return on our time investment, so we made a change in strategy.
Instead, we worked to identify times and locations where constituents would already be gathered, such as lunches at community centers, morning coffee clubs in small towns, or local chambers of commerce that would help us recruit community and civic leaders to attend our MOH. Meeting Nebraskans where they were proved to be a better strategy and has seen an increase in MOH attendance and service requests. To date, 18% of our total casework load has come from constituents meeting one of our teammates at an event like an MOH with hundreds of additional constituent comments being logged due to these interactions.
Anne: Do you have any advice for other offices looking to implement their own constituent service-focused outreach program?
Office of Senator Ricketts: Consistency is key to a successful constituent services outreach program. Consistency in message, sharing with the team the importance of constituent services, and why we invest significant resources into outreach programs. Consistency in being out in every corner of the state, building relationships and trust that our office is here to help. Referrals make up 44% of our casework load – Nebraskans trust that we care and can help because we consistently show up. And consistency in trusting local knowledge. Comparing 2023 to 2024, our average monthly request for constituent services has jumped 45%. We did this by using local knowledge and successfully flipping the script on our MOH strategy, enabling us to reach the greatest number of people in an efficient and meaningful way.
Thanks again to the Office of Senator Pete Ricketts for sharing these insights!
