As we often tell new users of CampaignSidekick, we have sought, every step of the way, to make a simple, intuitive platform. On the app, we have tried hard to make it as “paper list like” as possible.
But in the end, it’s still technology and CampaignSidekick is a robust CRM for voter contact, syncing large data sets with individual actions.
With that in mind, I thought throwing a quick list of Do’s and Don’ts together could be good for users at all levels.
- Do not assume volunteers have devices needed to use CampaignSidekick. We have found a lot of folks face two scenarios: older devices with outdated operating systems and/or devices that cannot download apps, such as flip phones. In the former scenario, if volunteers do not have a current operating system on their device (or within the last two updates), they cannot even download the app. In either scenario, think about having them make phone calls on the desktop version of Sidekick, buy an Android device to download offline lists to or think about using paper walk lists.
- Do take some time to train volunteers and point them to our Support Hub. It’s loaded with all kinds of tutorial videos and step by step instructions. Help us help you!
- Do not get lazy and create large walk lists. We have helped you on that front by constraining walk lists to 150 home and 300 voters per list. Put yourself in a volunteer’s shoes. Even with other walkers on the list, no one wants to log in to walk and see they have 300 homes to hit. Take some time, make good walk lists and then update them in the future with our Dynamic List function.
- Do have a plan in place for what Permission Levels you want each member of your team to have. They should not all be Admins or if they are, with limited functions. For more on this, watch our tutorial video on Permission Levels.
- Do not forget to remind your team to update their app version as their first step in troubleshooting. We always code to the current operating system in an effort to provide the best voter contact app possible.
- Do not allow multiple users to log into the same account. Each user must have their own username and password. Plan ahead, Very soon we will also eliminate the ability to create generic accounts (Volunteer 1, Volunteer 2) so that we will have the ability to track each and every individuals actual voter contact numbers. Plan ahead.
- Do ensure that a fully built survey is active prior to assigning walk or phone lists. We see a lot of new campaigns want to pull data when they haven’t even created a survey with answers and tags. No answers and no tags means no data is being captured or stored. For more on building a survey, watch our tutorial on Survey Building.
- Do make sure you have enabled the Twillo phone bank and set up the Caller ID. For more on that, watch this video.
- Do make sure you have a Voicemail set up for your phone bank before making calls.
- Do not create thousands of tags-watch this video on how to create and upload tags!
And, as a bonus, make sure you set up your Voter Display so your volunteers can get a snapshot of the voter or voters they are about to engage with!
