How to Develop a Phone Calling Tree
A phone tree, according to the American Association University of Women (AAUW), "is a prearranged, pyramid-shaped system for activating a group of people by telephone" (www.aauw.org.) Phone trees are especially helpful in saving time and confusion when a large family or organization needs to disseminate important information efficiently. It takes a little time and planning to coordinate a working phone tree, but for associations that depend on reaching many people quickly, they are worth the effort it takes to organize one.
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Instructions
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Choose a phone tree Coordinator. The Coordinator is responsible for organizing and initiating the phone tree.
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Make a list of all the people who need to be in the phone tree and their current phone number(s). This should be done by the Coordinator.
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Recruit a Key Group. The Key Group should be small, but the actual number depends on the size of your original list and how many calls each member of the Key Group is willing to make. Ideally, no member should need to make more than around five phone calls. The Key Group is responsible for contacting all other members on the tree so they should be chosen for their level of dependability.
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Divide the remaining list among the members of the Key Group. For instance, if you have 100 people on your phone tree, you may decide to have 10 members in the Key Group. When the phone tree needs to be activated, the Coordinator calls each of the 10 members of the Key Group. This leaves 89 people who need to be called. In this example, nine Key Group leaders would call nine people; the last Key Group leader would call eight people. Continuing with this example, an alternate way to format the tree is to have the Key Group call a group of five with one of those five being responsible for calling five more people and so on. This is especially helpful when your phone tree includes a large number of members.
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Practice activating your phone tree. When the Coordinator calls the Key Group members, he or she should read from a written script of the information that needs to be shared. The Coordinator should then ask the Key Group member to repeat the information, including the time frame within which all calls should be made, to be sure the information has been communicated clearly.
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Spot check the effectiveness of your phone tree. To do this, the Coordinator should call a few people from the list (not the Key Group) to make sure they received the information in a timely manner.
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Tips & Warnings
To get your phone tree started, have a "tree party" with all the members of the intended phone tree to explain the responsibilities and organization of the format.
If there is a chairperson for your group's membership make them responsible for informing the Coordinator of any new members of changes in phone numbers. etc.
Choose alternate Key Group members in case someone is unavailable when the phone tree needs to be activated.
