TourTrackr
Developed by: TourTrackr
Used by: Member offices in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate
Public link: https://tourtrackr.com/
TourTrackr allows congressional offices to digitize the constituent tour booking process, send confirmation emails, track upcoming tours, and see analytics for previous tours.
While in business school, former congressional staffer Melissa Dargan identified one area of the industry she previously worked in which could receive some much-needed updating and modernizing — Capitol tours. TourTrackr was designed to streamline the process of coordinating, scheduling, and organizing Capitol tours in congressional offices. The product also provides easy-to-use means for constituent engagement in the form of user-friendly email communications that can be sent by office staff. Rather than arduously keeping track of tours manually using a multitude of spreadsheets and individual emails, TourTrackr allows users to save staff time by consolidating the entire process into one application. Since its launch in 2019, TourTrackr has had many updates to address feedback from current congressional staffers. As Co-Founder Melissa Dargan says, TourTrackr is “built by staffers, for staffers.”
If you would like to listen to the full Q&A with TourTrackr Co-Founder Melissa Dargan, click play above. You can also find more content from Melissa about personal finance, entrepreneurship, and more on her YouTube channel.
Development and Approval Process
The first version of TourTrackr, the minimum viable product, was built over the course of eight months of research into how to best address offices’ tour needs through a single product. It was then beta-tested in a small group of Member offices for four months to garner more feedback before an eventual full launch in March of 2019.
Like any digital product seeking to be used in the House and Senate, TourTrackr had to undergo security risk assessments in both chambers. A House or Senate office needs to sponsor a product for it to be submitted for review. If a product passes the risk assessment, it gets suggested to the Committee on House Administration in the House and the Rules Committee in the Senate to be authorized for use. After completing this process, TourTrackr was approved to be purchased by congressional offices.
Functionality
TourTrackr not only focuses on optimizing the tour process for the staff in congressional offices, but the constituents who request tours as well. Staffers can create itineraries automatically and track status of different tours that are being booked, but also easily correspond with constituents through things like multiple tour reminder emails.
TourTrackr is also continuously taking feedback from users to update the product and make it as convenient and user-friendly as possible. The development of new features is largely based on what users want to see. Since launch, many of the new features that have been developed were originally user suggestions. There is normally a product update that goes out every few months with new features geared towards addressing any feedback that staffers have given.
Adoption
On launch in March of 2019, there was a lot of interest in TourTrackr among congressional offices. However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the sharp decline in in-person tours at the Capitol, the number of offices deciding to purchase TourTrackr decreased. The ones that had already purchased it, though, stuck with it.
Since congressional tours resumed in April of 2022, TourTrackr has grown to be used in about one-fifth of congressional offices. Co-Founder Melissa Dargan also expects many new Member offices will look for a streamlined digital solution to booking tours, rather than using the older method of Excel spreadsheets and handmade itineraries.
“What was good was we held retention. So even though COVID hit, people who started with TourTrackr, pretty much 98% of them kept TourTrackr throughout.”
For more information on TourTrackr, contact Melissa Dargan at melissa@tourtrackr.com
