If you HAVE done the hard work of phone surveys, then besides deeper research insights into your business, we expect you will have a deeper appreciation for this holiday survey, written by Mitch Pravatiner, which is written in exactly the format that telephone interviewers typically see.  We have worked with Mitch in the past, and he is a true pro when it comes to telephone interviewing. He recently shared this via aapor-net, which is a discussion group of research professionals who belong to the American Association of Public Opinion Research.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas . . .

Hello, this is [NAME OF INTERVIEWER] from [NAME OF ORGANIZATION], an opinion research organization. Tonight we’re calling people across the country to find out what’s going on in their homes on the night before Christmas. Please rest assured that this is not a sales call, and that everything you tell us will be kept confidential. Would you be willing to participate?

Yes (CONTINUE)
No (THANK AND TERMINATE)

Q1 First of all, have you noticed any creatures stirring in your house tonight?

Yes (SKIP TO Q3)
No
DON’T KNOW (SKIP TO Q3)
REFUSED (SKIP TO Q3)

Q2 Not even a mouse? (DO NOT READ LIST)

YES, NOTICED MOUSE STIRRING
NO, NOT EVEN A MOUSE
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q3 Have you hung any stockings by your chimney?

Yes
No (SKIP TO Q6)

Q4 How much care did you use in hanging the stockings by the chimney? Please rate it on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means “no care at all” and 10 means “extreme care.”

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q5 What would you say was the single main reason you hung stockings by the chimney? Was it:

In the hope that Santa Claus would drop in
To dry them after you had to walk home through a series of deep snowdrifts
They had developed runs, so there was no other use for them, or
Some other reason (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q6 As far as you know, what visions have your children experienced in bed tonight? (RANDOMIZE)

(NO CHILDREN)
Barbie dolls
GI Joes
Chatty Cathys
Sugar plums
Betsy Wetsys
Cabbage Patch Kids
Tickle Me Elmos
Easy Bake Ovens
Candy canes
Radio Flyers
Fruitcake
Red Ryder BB guns
Other (if “yes” go to Q6a, otherwise skip to q7)

Q6a What other visions? (PROBE AND CLARIFY)

DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q7 Have you tried to get any sleep so far tonight?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q8 Were you awakened from your sleep at any time tonight?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q9 What woke you up? (READ LIST)

A loud noise outside the house
A loud noise inside the house
Indigestion from something you ate at the office party earlier today
Something else (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q10 What did you do after you woke up? (READ LIST)

Got up to see what was going on
Shrugged it off and went back to sleep
Something else (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q11 What did you notice after that?

A sleigh pulled by reindeer parked on the front lawn
A UPS truck that overturned after skidding on black ice on the street in front of your house
Several drunks who passed out on the lawn after leaving the party next door
Something else (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q12 Was Santa Claus with the sleigh and the reindeer?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q13 How many reindeer did you see?

(RECORD NUMBER)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q14 Did Santa mention any of them by name?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q15 Which reindeer do you recall him mentioning? (DO NOT READ LIST; MULTIPLE ANSWERS PERMITTED)

DASHER
DANCER
PRANCER
VIXEN
COMET
CUPID
DONNER
BLITZEN
OTHER (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q16 (ASK FOR EACH REINDEER NOT MENTIONED IN Q15)

Did Santa also mention [NAME OF REINDEER] by name?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q17 Did Santa move the sleigh anywhere after that?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q18 Where did he move it to?

The roof
The back yard
The alley behind the house
Somewhere else (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q19 Did Santa enter your house after that?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q20 How did he enter your house?

Through the front door
Through the back door
Through the chimney
Some other way (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q21 Can you describe Santa while he was in your house? (PROBE AND CLARIFY)

DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q22 Did you and he speak to each other while he was in the house?

Yes
No
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q23 Which of the following best describes what Santa Claus did while in your house?

Filled the stockings and then left
Filled the stockings, then ate your Christmas cookies, and then left
Filled the stockings, ate your Christmas cookies, polished off your eggnog, and left
Something else (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Q24 How did he leave your house?

Through the front door
Through the back door
Through the chimney
Some other way (SPECIFY)
DON’T KNOW
REFUSED

Thank you. Those are all the questions we have for you this evening. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

The cartoon brings to mind three lessons worth pondering:

1. Customer satisfaction research is often “not fun”—but it can be
2. Internal data can be a goldmine of insight and there is often a lot of it lying around
3. Ethical considerations dictate that just because research can be done does not mean it should be done

1. Customer satisfaction research is often “not fun.” Why?  In our view it is because so many customer satisfaction surveys are done for the wrong reasons, focus on the wrong issues, and ask about the wrong people.  What could be more boring—and more unenlightening—than tracking the percentage of customers who like (or dislike) you month after month and year after year?

To make customer satisfaction research far more interesting and useful, focus not on your products and not on you, but instead on your customers, what they need, and what will delight them.  Then assemble a team that is committed to thinking hard and adding value to every report they deliver.  Tracking studies can be fun if focused on the challenge of consistently providing an insightful story.

2. Internal data can be a goldmine of insight.  Organizations often send out survey after survey without ever taking stock of what they have already learned, and without considering the wealth of data they have internally.  Yet, the volume of useful, untapped internal data that most organizations have is astonishing.  You can learn a great deal about your customers and satisfaction, for example, simply by analyzing historical data.  Who are you losing or gaining as customers?  What segments, industries, or geographies characterize them?  You don’t always need surveys to answer these questions.

3. Ethical approaches to research are essential.  Data should never be collected and archived without the people supplying that data knowing about it and knowing how it will be used.  This is a fundamental ethical requirement all social scientific research, and it extends to all market research and public opinion polling as well.  We recommend that research teams adhere strictly to the strictest standards of ethics and privacy as outlined by The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).

Need help on any or all of these fronts?  Definitely stay away from Mordac the Preventer of Information Services, and give us a call instead.

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

So whatever you do, please don’t take Dogbert’s approach to conducting a survey:

Versta Research believes strongly in protecting the privacy of all research respondents.  We adhere to the strictest standards of ethics and privacy as outlined by The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO), the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and other industry organizations to which we belong.  The following two paragraphs nicely summarize our views and approach:

“Since individuals who are interviewed are the lifeblood of the Survey Research Industry, it is essential that Survey Research Organizations be responsible for protecting from disclosure to third parties–including Clients and members of the Public–the identity of individual Respondents as well as Respondent-identifiable information, unless the Respondent expressly requests or permits such disclosure.”  From the CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations) Code of Standards and Ethics for Survey Research.

“Unless the respondent explicitly waives confidentiality for specified uses, we shall hold as privileged and confidential all information that could be used, alone or in combination with other reasonably available information, to identify a respondent with his or her responses. We also shall not disclose or use the names of respondents or any other personally-identifying information for non-research purposes unless the respondents grant us permission to do so.”  From the AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research) Code of Professional Ethics & Practice.

In the spirit of tomorrow’s holiday, we extend warm thanks to the many people who participate in our research, and we pledge to continue our work to protect research from the likes of Dogbert.  We also promise not to call you tomorrow during Thanksgiving dinner, hoping that you’ll answer just a few short questions for our survey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

One of the tenets of rigorous market research is that respondent confidentiality is key.  Why?  Primarily because it benefits you as a client.  To make smart decisions, you need honest and thoughtful information from your customers and constituents.  In most cases, your customers want to give us that information (because they want you to do a better job) as long as it won’t come back to haunt them.

Versta Research adheres to the ethics guidelines for privacy as outlined by CASRO, AAPOR, and other industry organizations to which we belong.  The following two paragraphs nicely summarize our views and approach:

“Since individuals who are interviewed are the lifeblood of the Survey Research Industry, it is essential that Survey Research Organizations be responsible for protecting from disclosure to third parties–including Clients and members of the Public–the identity of individual Respondents as well as Respondent-identifiable information, unless the Respondent expressly requests or permits such disclosure.”  From the CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations) Code of Standards and Ethics for Survey Research.

“Unless the respondent explicitly waives confidentiality for specified uses, we shall hold as privileged and confidential all information that could be used, alone or in combination with other reasonably available information, to identify a respondent with his or her responses. We also shall not disclose or use the names of respondents or any other personally-identifying information for non-research purposes unless the respondents grant us permission to do so.”  From the AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research) Code of Professional Ethics & Practice.

If you need help deciding whether your research plan and approach appropriately protect the privacy of those participating in the research, we would be happy to advise.  We have deep experience with these issues in market research, membership research, political polling, and academic IRB (Institutional Review Board) mandates governing research under federal funding.

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

Keeping your survey efforts honest is critical.  Sincere efforts to document issues through rigorous surveys succeed, and when done correctly, people are influenced by numbers.  But trying to shock or manipulate with sensationalist, biased, and phony data gets you only so far.  For a great survey, keep it honest, rigorous, and valid, and carefully control for bias.  We, at Versta, can help you succeed with this.

-Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

You need to find out the who, what, where, when, and why they hate you.  Probe deeply with focus groups, in-depth interviews, social media monitoring, and survey research.  Rigorous research done right (our specialty) will give you valuable insight.  And if it is communicated expertly to management (our specialty) you can probably fix the problems.  Then, the next time you listen to your customers, you won’t need to duck and cover.

-Joe Hopper, Ph.D.