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Moving Towards a More Personal Research Methodology

By crooky | March 19, 2008

I had a fascinating chat with Mark Cameron from Techneos on Monday afternoon where he enlightened me to the fact that here in North America, we do very little face to face surveying (~2%) and in the UK (and probably the rest of the EU), they do almost a third of their research face to face. This is a shocking statement. I have noticed personally that the response rate I’ve been able to garner from telephone surveys and online surveys has declined in recent years but I rarely think to look to face to face surveys as an alternative.

Instead, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what I can do to increase the response rate of online surveys. SFU’s University Advancement office has had a similar problem with their Alumni Annual Appeal in which students call alumni to ask for charitable donations that go to student bursaries and the like. They’ve updated to a better phone system and while the average gift they’re receiving this year is breaking records, their ability to reach folks has dropped year over year. They feel that alumni are screening the call after checking their call display.

I can sympathize with people who are tired of phone surveys and internet surveys. I don’t participate in them myself because I “work in market research”, making me inelligible for participating. However, if I wasn’t in market research, I wouldn’t want to hear from me most of the time.

The Devil!!!

Because results are slipping, companies are also putting pressure on their research providers to be more efficient and cost effective. This has impacted the quality of the calls that get through. Here’s an example of one that really pissed me off last year:

Monday:

/answers phone

Market Researcher (MR): Hello sir. My name is XXX. I’m calling you because you are on our list of people who own small businesses and we’d like to talk to you about office equipment.

/note that the MR person is obviously in a call centre in India. Very think Bangalore accent and I can hear others in the background doing similar work.

Me: Is this for some kind of market research?

MR: Yes sir. We’re interested in your opinion on .

Me: Let me save you some time. I am a business owner but my business is market research. I cannot participate in this study.

MR: Thank you sir. Sorry to bother you.

Me: No problem at all. Have a nice day.

Tuesday:

/answers phone

MR: Hello sir. My name is (it’s the exact same guy that called yesterday). I’m calling you because you are on our list of people who own small businesses and we’d like to talk to you about office equipment.

Me: Ah. You called me yesterday. I think we established that I cannot participate in this survey because I work in market research.

MR: I’m very sorry sir. What kind of firm do you have?

Me: A market research firm.

MR: And what kind of computer equipment do you have?

Me: I don’t think you understand me. I’m not going to do this survey.

MR: But sir.

Me: No. Did they tell you that you can’t interview market research people? It messes up the results of your survey. That’s industry standard. I know because I do what you do. You cannot interview me. I want you to take me off your call list.

MR: But sir…

Me: I’m going to hang up now.

/click

Thursday:

MR: Hello sir. My name is (it’s the exact same guy that called Tuesday). I’m calling you because you are on our list of people who own small businesses and we’d like to talk to you about office equipment.

Me: You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

MR: Sir?

Me: You’re the same guy who called me two times already this week. I’m not doing the survey.

MR: But sir, if you could just…

/click

Friday:

MR: Hello sir. My name is (I bet you can’t guess who). I’m calling you because you are on our list of people who own small businesses and we’d like to talk to you about office equipment.

Me: Let me talk to your manager.

MR: Is there a problem, sir?

Me: Yes, there’s a problem. This is the fourth time in five days that you’ve called and I’m not doing the survey. I want to talk to your manager.

MR: Okay. Hold please.

/15 minutes later, Mr. Manager (MM) is on the phone.

MM: What’s the problem, sir?

/I explain the situation including the number of times I’ve been called, why I can’t complete the survey and wanting to be taken off the list.

MM: Well, I understand your concerns sir but if we could just ask you a few questions about…

/I totally lose my shit at this point.

Me: STOP! FUCKING! CALLING!

MM: Sir. Don’t you talk that way to me! You have no right!

Me: I sure as hell do have a right! Your employees are calling my business, harassing me, refusing to stop calling. This is harassment and I’m really angry!

MM: Your attitude is really poor. I’ve never been spoken to so rudely.

Me: Well, there’s a first time for everything. Are you going to stop calling?

MM: We just need to talk to you about…

Me: Die in a fire.

MM: What?

Me: You heard me. Die in a fire.

MM: Are you threatening me?

Me: Yes.

MM: I’ll call the cops.

Me: Oh yeah? What are they going to do? You’re in Bangalore and you’re harassing me in Canada. Are you going to go to the Bangalore police and tell them that an angry Canadian has threatened and abused you?

MM: Fuck you.

/I hang up at this point.

I found out later that this calling centre was doing research for Canon Canada and they’d gotten my name from my warranty card for a printer that I’d bought a few years ago.

The moral of the story? This is why people don’t want to do phone surveys anymore.

The guys are Techneos are convinced that face to face surveys are going to be the wave of the future here in North America because, let’s face it - web surveys and phone surveys have lost much of their effectiveness.

The downside with face to face surveys is that they are very costly. I think the writing is on the wall though - companies and organizations are going to have to start talking to people where they live and work more and this is going to require some really hard thinking about the way we do research.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on face to face research and how it can be handled.

*********************
Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Research Methodologies |

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