Market Research book - Ayansola.pdf
Chapter 5
INTERVIEWING MODES: PERSONAL-CALL-SEND
Survey information is obtained from respondents through communication in several
alternative media modes. Respondents may be interviewed in person, by telephone, or they may
e sent a questionnaire. Mail, FAX and the Internet surveys are similar in that non-personal self
eporting is involved.
PERSONAL INTERVIEWS
As the name implies, the personal interview consists of an interviewer asking questions of one or
more respondents in a face-to-face situation. The interviewer’s role is to get in touch with the
espondent(s), ask the desired questions, and record the answers obtained. Recording of the
information may be done either during or after the interview. In either case, it is the interviewer’s
esponsibility to ensure that the content of the answers is clear, unambiguous and that
information has been recorded co
ectly.
While it is significantly more expensive on a per-completed-interview basis, the personal
interview, as a collection medium, has several advantages relative to telephone interviews and
mail questionnaires. It provides the opportunity to obtain a better sample, since virtually all the
sample units can be reached and, with proper controls and well-trained interviewers, nonresponse
to the survey or to individual questions can be held to a minimum. It also gives the opportunity
to obtain more information, as a personal interview can be of substantially greater length than
either a telephone interview or mail questionnaire. Finally, it permits greater flexibility. More
freedom is provided for adapting and interpreting questions as the situation requires, especially
in the case of unstructured personal interviews where visual, auditory, or olfactory aids are used.
The limitations of the personal interview include time, cost, and the response bias that
may be induced by poorly trained or improperly selected interviewers. Problems with personal
interviews arise from its very nature in that it is a social interaction between strangers, often on
the respondent’s te
itory, initiated by an interviewer who may have little in common with the
espondent.
In addition to the home and workplace, many studies conduct consumer interviews in
malls, where the so-called mall-intercept method is used. This method avoids the logistic,
financial and time costs of travel to meet with respondents. The mall intercept method involves
having interviewers stationed at selected places in a mall who request interviews from people
passing by. Presumably the people are chosen on the basis of a predetermined sampling plan. At
times, monetary incentives may have positive effects (Wiseman, Schafer, & Schafer, 1983).
The mall-intercept method is a widely used method of data collection in marketing
esearch. Many malls within the United States have permanent research facilities located within
them. These facilities may be equipped with videotape equipment, private interviewing
compartments, food preparation facilities for taste tests, and a variety of other research
equipment. Soundproof rooms free from distractions and equipped with proper lighting and
materials can contribute to reliable data collection. Researchers can observe an interviewer’s
technique and check the completed work immediately.
Overall quality of data (completeness, depth) appears to be about equal to that of other
methods, since mall-intercept respondents are more frequent users of shopping centers, and they
may be better able to provide more
and and store-oriented information than respondents
contacted by other means.
EXHIBIT 5.1 Mall Intercepts Are Widely Used
A variation of the mall intercept that is often used in business is to interview at
conferences, sales meetings, or other gatherings representing the population of interest.
In more general terms, research is better conducted on site whenever the topic is about
the business, when the purchase decision is made on the premises, or when the population of
interest is represented. Respondents are most likely to recall and discuss their experiences
during the experience, not days later during a survey. David Kay (1997), a partner in Research
Dimensions International, suggests there are five types of interviews for on-site research:
1. Stream of consciousness interview. This is a conversation with questions designed to
elicit what the respondent is experiencing at every moment of shopping.
2. Spontaneous reaction interview. This asks for spontaneous, minimally prompted
eactions of customers to their environment.
3. Directed general-response interview. Useful to assess effectiveness of strategy, this
method asks general questions directed to the strategy.
4. Directed specific-response interview. This is useful to determine why consumers feel
as they do, as indicated by answers to other questions.
5. Prompted reaction to execution elements. This is designed to elicit response to
specific elements. For example, an in-store taste test might include the question “What
do you think about the taste of China Sea
and Spring Rolls?”
The obvious advantages of on-site interviews are that the respondent is usually in a
proper state of mind and has better task or product recall. In addition it is easier to contact the
actual target group, making the response rates are higher. On-site interviews seem to produce
more robust information.
Paying people to participate in surveys, in the form of prepaid incentives, tends to
increase overall response rates for personal interviews, as well as for other types of interviews.
But, do not seem to influence the quality of the data collected (Davern, Rockwood, She
od, and
Campbell, 2003).
THE TELEPHONE INTERVIEW
Telephone interviews are often used in lieu of personal interviews, especially when
personal contact is desired, when the information must be collected quickly and inexpensively,
and when the amount of information required is relatively limited. Compared to e-mail or mail
surveys, telephone interviews often are more costly in terms of total costs of data collection.
However, when cost is figured on a per completed questionnaire basis, telephone interviews may
e less costly than mail, but more costly than e-mail. In addition, telephone surveys offer the
opportunity to probe for clarification or further information.
It is generally recognized that for business to business and consumer research, telephone
interviewing is as effective as personal interviewing for scope and depth of information obtained.
In addition, when a telephone survey is conducted from a call center, they can be better
supervised than personal interviews.
Virtually all telephone interviews are structured direct interviews. However, when the
population to be studied is business decision makers, some research practitioners believe that
more information may be obtained using the telephone than by conducting focus groups
(Eisenfeld, XXXXXXXXXXFor business people and consumers alike, it is frequently easier to get 10
minutes of telephone cooperation, than a longer personal interview or attendance at a focus
group.
With a detailed database to use as a sample frame, interviews of business people, cu
ent
customers, former customers, and prospects all can be contacted relatively easily. Furthermore,
pre-notification letters can also be sent. A recent study of political telephone surveys concluded
that advance pre-notification letters can significantly increase response rates (Goldstein &
Jennings, 2002).
The likelihood of the potential respondent refusing to be interviewed is always present
when starting a telephone interview. Telephone surveys are unique in that they allow the
interviewer to respond to the potential respondent and attempt to turn a refusal into a completed
interview. In his classic treatise on telephone surveys, Dillman XXXXXXXXXXidentifies common reasons
people give for refusals and suggests some possible responses the interviewer can give. These
esponses can help the researcher handle objections and refine their interviewing skills. These are
shown in Table 5.1.
TABLE 5.1 Possible Answers to Reasons for Refusals
Reasons for
Refusing
Possible Responses
SOURCE: Reprinted from Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method by Dillman, D. Copyright
© 1978. This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
As with all modes of surveying, telephone surveys benefit from the use of inducements or
incentives—monetary or nonmonetary—to encourage potential respondents to participate.
Incentives may be promised or sent in advance with a preliminary letter when the mailing
address of the potential respondent is known, or they may also be offered when the initial request
for participation is a refusal. When used this way it is known as a refusal conversion incentive.
The main purpose of such incentives is to generate a greater response rate with the effect
of reducing nonresponse e
or. But the use of incentives has implications as well. First, total cost
will increase, although cost per response may decrease depending on how effective the incentive
is. Second, data quality may be affected, leading to a change in response bias, which may be a
positive or negative change. Third, sample composition may be affected, again with a positive or
negative effect. Fourth, expectations of interviewer and respondent may be changed. Finally,
interviewer effort may be affected.
The telephone survey may be a good approach to reach specific market segments,
particularly when door-to-door interviews are not possible or might lead to serious distortions in
esponse. It is obvious that there must be sufficiently high telephone penetration in the segment
for this mode of data collection to be advantageous. For example, the use of surname sorts makes
telephone surveys the most efficient way to locate, contact and survey ethnic groups in the
United States.
The basic limitations of telephone interviews are the relatively limited amounts of
information that can be obtained (at least compared with alternative methods) and the bias that
exists in any sample of home telephone subscribers. More than 25 percent nationally and more
than 50 percent in large cities are not listed in a published directory, either because they have an
unlisted number or as a result of moving (www.busreslab.com/articles/article3.htm). A
technique for including unlisted telephone numbers in the sample frame is called random digit
dialing (RDD).
Another additional problem for telephone researchers is that home telephone subscribers
are disappearing. Cu
ently about 1 in 5 homes do not have a “landline” telephone, but rely
instead on cell phones or computer based phone services.
Additional problems associated with telephone interviewing are those of sample control
and interviewer performance. Often this is manifested by inadequate efforts to complete
interviews with some of the harder-to-reach respondents. Adding another sample is no substitute
for dealing properly with the original sample.
Another aspect of interviewer performance that can influence response rates and data
quality is actually something beyond any given interviewer’s control. This is the interviewer’s
accent. There is evidence that accent can influence respondents’ participation. Linguistic experts
have found that listeners form mental impressions of people who speak with an accent different
from theirs, impressions that may lead to a refusal or bias the responses. In the United States
there are many region-specific accents (New England, the Deep South) and also those that are
cultural (Hispanic, Asian, Indian). When faced with an unfamiliar accent, people may have
trouble communicating. When communication becomes difficult, refusals will increase.
Alternatively, some accents increase curiosity (British, Irish) and can actually increase response
ates. In addition, respondents who identify an interviewer’s accent may apply preconceived
iases to the interviewer and to the survey. Accent-free interviewing eliminates one potential
source of nonresponse and bias. At the very least, if a study is regional in nature, then having
interviewers from that region will also reduce nonresponse and bias.
The so-called “caller-id” telephone technology problem has emerged for telephone
surveys as the number of households having caller-id and answering machines has increased.
One way people use answering machines is to screen incoming calls. The second, of course, is to
allow those calling to leave a message when members of the household are not at home. One
might be tempted to assume that screening and leaving messages would allow potential
espondents to choose to not participate—a form of refusal. Interestingly, some research
conducted on this issue has found that households with answering machines were more likely to
complete the interview and less likely to refuse to participate compared to households where
there was no answer on the initial call attempt (Xu, Bates, & Schweitzer, XXXXXXXXXXThis suggests
that where answering machines are operating, the call can represent a form of pre-notification. It
is generally believed that pre-notification in any type of survey increases participation rates. But
this phenomenon also has the potential to generate bias in the sample (Oldendick & Link, 1994).
In the United States, major legislation affecting telemarketing went into effect in 2003.
This was the creation of