2003 Fall Conference Wrap-Up
Fall Conference Session:
Telephone and Web-Based Survey Research
Chris DeAngelis Survey Sampling, Inc.
• In 2001, the U.S. market for marketing and opinion
research totaled $6.2 billion. This represents about 40% of
the worldwide research market. The top areas of research are:
market measurement (31%), media audience research (19%), customer
satisfaction (90%), new product/service development (8%),
and attitude (6%).
• Changes in telephone technology such as cell phones,
multiple household lines, and personal communications services
have impacted the survey process. Since 1988, the pool of
possible residential telephone numbers has increased more
than twice as much (64.5%) as the target population of telephone
households (23.7%).
• There have also been other technology changes that
affect the sampling perspective. These changes include the
fact that respondents can replace their providers and keep
their number; respondents can have two numbers through local
exchange carriers and not know it; and in the months ahead,
respondents can change to wireless service and keep their
copper wireline number. Other challenges include the fact
that the called party pays when you are sampling wireless
populations, and that service coverage is still spotty in
some areas.
• Legitimate researchers have become confused with telemarketers,
which has caused cooperation rates to decrease. In 2001, 44%
of the population said they had refused to participate in
a survey in the past year, compared to 19% in 1980. Just 30%
said they strongly agreed that research firms can be trusted
to protect their privacy, down from 51% in 1995.
• The advantages of Web-based surveys are that respondents
are anonymous, respondents can answer at their convenience,
there is no interviewer effect, it is nonintrusive, the response
time is short, and it can be less expensive. The primary limitation
to Web-based surveys is that the online user is much different
from the U.S. population, and that is it necessary ton pay
attention to minors or teens.
• Ethical guidelines for conducting online research
include the following: respondent cooperation should be voluntary,
researcher identity should be disclosed to respondents, respondent
anonymity should be safeguarded, privacy policies should be
posted online, data security should be maintained, and reliability
and validity of findings should be disclose.
• The most common forms of online sampling methods are
e-mail databases, panels, and random Web intercepts.
Additional information about telephone and online marketing
research can be obtained by contacting Chris_DeAngelis@surveysampling.com.
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