Posts Tagged ‘phone surveys’
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
If you have never done the hard work of interviewing your customers (or potential customers) by phone for surveys or in-depth interviews, you should. It will give you deeper insights into your critical business questions than any expert analyses about buyer behavior, marketing trends, or business best practices.
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? (more…)
Tags: phone surveys
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Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
In Versta Research’s Winter 2011 Newsletter, published just this week, we describe a simple method for estimating how long it will take respondents to complete surveys.
Here we offer the “Versta Digest” version as a handy reference card. Once you get the hang of it, you don’t need the examples and explanation. You just need to know the rules. We recommend reading the full article first, so you know what we’re talking about when it comes to “points.” Then, when you need a refresher or a reference source, consult these rules: (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Online Surveys, phone surveys, research, Survey Design
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Survey Design | No Comments »
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Is it true that the Associated Press refuses to carry stories from online surveys? Yes, as odd as that seems nowadays. But news media face a difficult problem given how easy it is to conduct biased public opinion polling, especially now with online panels and social networks. So some news organizations like the Associated Press (AP), The New York Times, and ABC News have developed guidelines that specify for a survey or public opinion poll to be valid and reliable, it must be conducted by telephone.
(more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Internet, journalism, omnibus, Online Surveys, phone surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, Public Relations, Sampling
Posted in Data Collection, Omnibus Surveys, Online Surveys, Public Polls, Public Relations, Sampling | No Comments »
Friday, August 19th, 2011
The most recent government estimates of cell phone usage among U.S. households were released a few weeks back, and the pace at which landline usage is disappearing is astonishing. Here are just some of the numbers:
- Thirty percent of U.S. households do not have a landline telephone
- An additional 16% have a landline telephone, but never or rarely use it to receive calls
- The percentage of households without landlines is increasing by about five to six percentage points each year
- Half of young adults under age 30 have no landline in their homes
- Half of adult renters have no landline in their homes
- Nearly four out of ten Hispanic adults have no landline in their homes
(more…)
Tags: consumer behavior, Data Collection, Internet, Market Research, phone surveys, Public Polls, Sampling, social media, survey technology
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Public Polls, Sampling | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
These days most researchers agree that if you want to do a random sample phone survey of the U.S. population, you ought to include cell phones. More than one-quarter of the population do not have landline telephones at home. Those who do have landline telephones are less likely than ever to answer them, and less likely than ever to participate in surveys.
But it is not easy to include cell phones. The sampling protocols and the post-stratification weighting become more complicated. You need to account for a higher probability of cell phone owners being in your sample, because most of them also have landlines. You can’t use automated or predictive dialing to call cell phone numbers. You can’t target geography as well, because area codes and exchanges have become mobile. And people get mad at you if they have to pay for incoming calls, so you need to offer cash.
What’s the bottom line effect on costs for a survey that includes cell phones? A recent study sponsored by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) documents the following: (more…)
Tags: bias, Data Collection, Market Research, phone surveys, population, public opinion, Public Polls, research, Sampling
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Public Polls, Sampling | No Comments »
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
A new study presented by two professors from Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst was probably one of the liveliest and potentially disruptive presentations at least week’s annual meeting of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in Phoenix.
Why? Because their research challenges the beliefs of many AAPOR-ites who disregard most online research as being theoretically indefensible since it is not based on probability sampling. The research presented was based on parallel surveys conducted last year, designed to allow careful comparison of three survey modes: (more…)
Tags: bias, census, Data Collection, Internet, journalism, media, news, Online Surveys, phone surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, Public Relations, Sampling
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Public Polls, Public Relations, Sampling | No Comments »
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
One might think that with evolving technologies, the old-fashioned ways of doing research, like using paper and pencil, might disappear. But it turns out that paper surveys are not dead, and here is a nice example that dramatically illustrates their value.
As newly-appointed director of market research for the American Marketing Association in Chicago, I oversee efforts to develop and organize events related to market research. I also oversee efforts to measure, track, and analyze customer satisfaction for all other events and activities sponsored by the AMA. For the past few events, the AMA collected feedback via an online survey sent by e-mail immediately after the events. They were also using a less-than-stellar do-it-yourself survey tool that promises to deliver “actionable insights!” at the click of a button.
The results were abysmal. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Online Surveys, phone surveys, survey technology
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys | No Comments »
Thursday, December 30th, 2010
The latest data from the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey show that one quarter (25%) of U.S. adults do not have land-line telephones in their homes. So if you conduct a traditional random-digit-dial (RDD) phone survey, you will automatically be excluding one quarter of the population. Does it matter, given that surveys rarely interview everyone anyway? Probably. If those 25% are different from the remaining 75% in important ways, then excluding them will skew your survey findings.
(more…)
Tags: bias, Data Collection, data quality, ethics, Market Research, phone surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, research, Sampling, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Public Polls, Sampling | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
The idea that online panel surveys can replace telephone surveys ruffles feathers among my colleagues at the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). So what would they think of using Twitter posts as a substitute for phone surveys?
The idea seems crazy, but as reported in Science, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that certain kinds of twitter data can give them a good read on public sentiment. (more…)
Tags: phone surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, Sampling, social media
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Public Polls | No Comments »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
In the old days (decades ago), phone surveys had limited utility because many people had no phone service in their homes. When that changed, phone surveys became ubiquitous because they allowed researchers better control over the process. Data quality improved. Now increasing numbers of people have moved to cell phones only, which has been a significant challenge for the survey industry. The numbers are staggering:
The number of people without home access to landline telephones is increasing.
Almost half of adults under age 30 live in a household with only wireless telephone service.
(more…)
Tags: mobile surveys, phone surveys, Public Polls
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Methods & Tools, Public Polls | No Comments »
