Couldn't do a day in retail

For the last couple of months I’ve been working for MaritzCustomer Experience, an international market research firm. I’m glad to have the chance to work at home, doing work that I like. It’s been a little bit of an adjustment, switching from working for a very small firm to working for a very large firm. It’s been more of an adjustment in the topics I interview people about.

When I worked for Saperstein Associates I did polling about local politics and interviewed educators about educational materials. We moved from project to project. I’ve worked on the same project at Maritz since I started at the end of March. I interview people about their customer service experience after they’ve visited one of the client’s stores.

Respondents often tell me that I did a good job interviewing them, but that doesn’t always make me feel good. That’s because I remember getting a call as a supervisor from a respondent who told me that she appreciated that one of the interviewers I supervised did a good job explaining the questions. In case you don’t know, an interviewer should never explain questions to a respondent. It introduces bias to the survey.

Interviewing respondents about their customer service experience often reminds me of the time that I made a comment about one of Saperstein’s clients that “She couldn’t do a day in retail.” Those words taught me a hard lesson on the words of Jesus, when he said, “For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” (Matthew 7:2, KJV)

I like to keep this verse in mind when I interview cantankerous respondents who give low ratings to the people who work in the client’s stores. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to be the one to sell something to the cantankerous respondents, or deal with their problems.

If you apply to Maritz, please be sure to tell them that I referred you.

That's why they call it a career

There was a time when I worried about becoming too specialized. I loved the work, and my skill and confidence increased the more I did it. What I worried about was not enough demand for my particular skills in the marketplace.  I recently completed a project that called for these skills in conducting in depth interviews. I talked to educators about printed and digital educational materials. I find such projects interesting, and they help me feel as though I’m doing something to contribute to education reform.

One of the things that I liked about this project was that I had a discussion guide instead of a questionnaire. This meant that I could get a respondent talking with some warm-up questions. If I can establish rapport with the respondent, they will usually answer most of the questions in the discussion guide before I get to them. I just have to listen closely in order to ask appropriate probing questions and then wrap up by asking any questions that the respondent did not address.  

One of the challenges on this recent project was the timing of it. I may be overspecialized in my interviewing career, but the experience led to a job selling Common Core test preparation materials. I started that job last month. It was difficult for me to give each job the time and focus it needed. Before I worked in market research I did business to business telemarketing. I did not succeed in that endeavor as well as I had hoped, but the experience gave me some skills that allowed me to do well at conducting in depth interviews. I believe that the skills I learned as an in depth interviewer will help me be more successful at sales this time around.

Working in telemarketing got me used to making cold calls. It taught me how to deal with gatekeepers. It got me used to thinking in terms of getting paid for results instead of getting paid for putting in the time. Conducting in depth interviews improved my listening skills and taught me how to probe for information without being annoying. It gave me confidence in asking questions.

Some of the research projects I worked on had questions that were designed to help the clients find out if declining sales were due to the content of their programs or the sales representatives who sold them. This gave me some clues as to what to do and what not to do.

The complaints I have about the sales job are the same complaints you would hear from any sales representative you may know. One of the things I like about it is that we now have email and social media marketing tools that we did not have when I did telemarketing back in the 1990s. I am having fun imagining how to use these tools in conjunction with my voice on the telephone. I have a lot to learn and I look forward to learning it.

Artistry at Work

I saw a police officer directing traffic the other day. She had to alternate traffic through one lane because of some digging on one side of the road. Seeing her directing traffic reminded me of another officer I saw directing traffic in downtown Cleveland back in the 1980s. This guy impressed me. I saw him as I was walking back to my car during the afternoon rush hour. He had to direct four lanes of traffic in each direction, and looked good doing it.

This was before traffic officers wore green fluorescent vests. If people had cell phones in their cars in those days, they still called them “car phones.”  The officer wore his dress blues, complete with snow-white gloves and a white hat. He used grand, fluid motions to communicate how he wanted the traffic to move. I noticed that he made eye contact with drivers as much as possible, and seemed to know his whistle codes quite well. I enjoyed watching him work, and he seemed to enjoy his job.

It struck me that adding some artistry to his work made him more effective at his job. His stylized arm and hand motions caught the eye and made clear what the drivers needed to do. I wondered if he wore a dress uniform because he was black. A black officer probably needs something like that for motorists to respect his authority.

The traffic officer in Cleveland had a more difficult job than I do. I thought of him when I gave my blog the title “The Art of Interviewing.” Sounding smooth and authoritative on the phone usually results in higher productivity and better quality of information. Reading questions verbatim without sounding like I am reading from a script helps keep respondents interested in a survey.

I have to be authoritative with respondents without seeming like a jerk. On a recent project, some respondents had difficulty choosing from Agree Strongly, Agree Somewhat, Disagree Somewhat, or Disagree Strongly on a battery of questions. Instead of going into a lecture about how we need standardized answers to compare answers and keep the survey scientific, I just said “I need you to pick one of those four.”

Almost any job can be done better if the worker thinks of himself or herself as an artist. I do not mean to endorse “creative accounting,” though. Let us not get carried away.

I need your help to predict an election

One issue on the May 6 ballot in Franklin County will be for a levy for the Columbus Zoo. Saperstein Associates is neutral in this debate. We are not for or against the levy. We just want to predict the election.

We are now in our third week of polling on this issue. We are interviewing 400 people each week. We may be starting a poll on another ballot issue next week, so we will have more than one poll going on at the same time. This means that I need to hire more interviewers.

The job is ideal for moonlighters, retirees, stay at home parents and those who want to add skills to their resumes, or want to minimize gaps in their employment history. You can call me at (614) 261-0065 or email me at jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com

Ending the year by adding to the count

I always like it when I complete at least one interview on the last day of the year. It was especially gratifying this year because I interviewed a person on a project that I have been working on since July. I have conducted a good share of the interviews for the survey myself. The respondents have been difficult to reach and it usually takes 30 minutes or more to do the interview.

We have learned much while working on this project. Such a long interview presents opportunities to learn about nuances of establishing rapport and eliciting cooperation from respondents.We have talked to people from all over the world and have learned a little about their cultures. I am grateful that such a project came along to give me topics to blog about for a long time to come.Some of the experiences we have had will contribute to a sense of camaraderie for those of us who have worked on the project. I am grateful to have the work when things are slow otherwise.

I look forward to more telephone adventures in the coming year.

My Article Published in a Trade Publication

Steve Quirk sent me an email in late January asking me to write an article for his online newsletter.  He mentioned in the email that he had seen some of my posts on this blog and thought I might have something practical to contribute.

I am glad Steve asked me to write Back to basics:  Six essential skills for telephone interviewing.  Writing the article made me think.  I think it will help me train interviewers.

Slow Down!

I was out of town for several days while a telephone survey project was going on at my office.  When I got back to work and started editing the completed interviews I noticed some odd things in the data.  I cannot give too many details without violating the client’s confidentiality, but I can say that it was a problem that I anticipated before I left town.  I briefed our interviewers on the project the night before I caught my flight to Phoenix to visit my mother.

The survey was one that we have conducted almost every year for the last several years.  The sample for the survey is retired people and the questions with the weird answers can be confusing to people of any age.  We ask people to calculate percentages of their household income.  When I briefed the project last week I told interviewers to slow down, especially when reading these questions.  I reminded the interviewers that we are interviewing people in their 70s, 80s and 90s, so they might not hear or completely understand the questions if the interviewer reads too fast.  One of the interviewers, a man in his 70s, said in the briefing that he was offended by this.  I replied that I was basing the instruction on my experience with the project.  I knew that we would have problems if the interviewers did not slow down.

A good interviewer will mirror their pace to the pace at which a respondent speaks.  A good interviewer will also listen for when a respondent is not listening and re-read questions as appropriate.  Our questionnaires are written with certain words EMPHASIZED so that respondents have a clearer understanding of what we are asking.  When I brief and coach interviewers, I usually tell them to emphasize sibilant words.  Words such as “IF” and “BOTH” do not travel well over the telephone, so respondents sometimes do not hear them.  When this happens, respondents often become confused by the question or think we are asking a different question.

I held a meeting with the interviewers on my first day back at work, before we started the dialing shift.  I told them I was cutting off their coffee until they slowed down.

Establishing Rapport

Telephone survey respondents sometimes tell me that they will do my telephone survey, but they don’t usually do surveys.  Experience has given me some skill at getting people to answer survey questions, but my voice probably deserves most of the credit.  I have a deep and authoritative-sounding voice.

One reason that many people do not participate in telephone surveys is personal or hot-button questions.  We tell people when we read the introduction to a questionnaire that the survey is confidential.  We tell them that their responses will be reported in the aggregate and not individually.  Respondents often do not hear this.  If they do hear it, they perceive it more from the tone of voice of the interviewer.  Some respondents ask direct questions about the confidentiality of a survey.  If an interviewer can answer such questions without getting flustered, the interviewer can usually establish rapport with the respondent.

Establishing rapport with a survey respondent is important not simply to get them to participate at all, but also to give honest answers to hot-button and personal questions.  If a respondent perceives that an interviewer is truly neutral the respondent will honestly give answers that may be considered socially unacceptable.  If we do a survey about household financial management, we want accurate information about gambling habits and credit card debt.  We ask demographic questions about age, income, marital status and education level so that we can make sure that we get a representative sample of a population.  We usually ask these questions at the end of the questionnaire.  An interviewer who can establish rapport at the beginning of the call is less likely to have a respondent refuse to answer these personal questions.

Sometimes it is too easy to establish rapport.  Some respondents love to talk.  Several years ago I worked on a survey in which we asked women about their experiences at the maternity center of a local hospital.  One woman went into great detail about childbirth, but was offended that I asked about her annual household income.  Some respondents want to talk about anything but the questions on the survey.  They view the call as an opportunity to get something off their chest.  The interviewer’s responsibility in such situations is to keep the call on track by continually bringing the respondent back to the questions.  This often requires tact and diplomacy, which is also part of establishing rapport.  

Robot Interviewers

A few years ago I conducted telephone interviews for a business-to-business market research project.  I called librarians to ask their opinions of a proposed new software product for libraries.  One woman told me very politely after I read the introduction that it sounded like an interesting topic to discuss and that she would not mind taking the time, but that she had recently agreed to do a telephone survey that turned out to be an obscene phone call.  She said that she was very sorry, but that she would have to decline.  I had been trained to overcome objections, but this was a new one for me.  I had to mark the response for that library as refused to participate and move on.

The very next day, on the same project, another woman told me that the survey I had called her about sounded interesting, but that she had recently agreed to do a survey that turned into an obscene phone call.  This time I was quicker on the uptake.  I asked the woman if we could have a female interviewer call her.  She told me “Well, since you asked that question, go ahead.”  I was able to complete the interview with her.  I guess some obscene callers have a thing for librarians.

This is one of many anecdotes that I need to keep in mind as I investigate the use of speech recognition technology to collect information for market research and public opinion research telephone surveys.  My motivation for this investigation is not to reduce payroll costs, although that is a consideration.  Nor is my motivation to eliminate the headaches involved in supervising human interviewers who either do not want to work or who do not pay attention to instructions.

My motivation for investigating the use of speech recognition technology for telephone interviewing is that I think robot interviewers could get more accurate information for our clients.  Some of the vendors of systems that use speech recognition technology for market research interviewing use this as a selling point.  They say that it is actually an advantage for a respondent to know that they are being interviewed by a robot because the respondent is more likely to give an honest opinion. 

I am thinking specifically about a survey we did earlier this year.  We called registered voters throughout Ohio to ask them their opinions of proposed legislation regarding animals.  The survey had questions about regulating the ownership of exotic animals, the treatment of chickens on factory farms, and whether the penalty for cockfighting should be a felony instead of a misdemeanor.  I wondered at the time whether people would give honest answers to these questions or if they would give what they considered to be socially acceptable answers.  Who is going to say that they are in favor of cockfighting?  A person might say that if they knew that their answers would be kept confidential and if they did not have to say it to a human interviewer.

We will most likely not use speech recognition technology for telephone surveys until the technology advances quite significantly.  The technology can now be used for simple surveys that have yes/no or agree/disagree questions.  It can skip a question based on an answer to a question if appropriate.  It can record answers to open-ended questions, but cannot probe those responses.  A robot interviewer would not know when and when not to ask “Why?”  The speech recognition systems used in customer service applications can understand what a customer is saying well enough to route a call to a human CSR and can even schedule a reservation, but cannot actually help a customer resolve a billing discrepancy.

Another consideration as I investigate this issue is that researchers and their clients may rely less on telephone polling in the future.  Google claims that its Google Surveys can provide data that is statistically representative of a population.  If so, this will remove an obstacle to doing more research via the Internet.

These are my impressions of speech recognition technology so far.  I would like to find out if I am incorrect.  Future posts on this blog will cover what I learn about speech recognition technology and artificial intelligence as well as successful interviewing techniques as they apply to concepts in market research and public opinion research.  I will also be looking at how big  data can beused for market research and public opinion research and more generally about how automation replaces human workers.  Please feel free to direct me to sources of information or share your own stories about interviewing.

John C. Stevens
jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com