Proper Inflection Can Reduce Refusal Rates

I received some free coaching on telephone presentation skills from a prospect during my telemarketing career.  He asked me, “Are you asking me or telling me?”  I was telling him about a service so that I could set an appointment for a sales rep to make a presentation.  I was inflecting up at the end of sentences so that they sounded like questions.  The prospect went on to tell me that this habit was extremely annoying and showed a lack of confidence.  

Anyone who sells anything needs confidence.  If a salesperson is not confident the prospect immediately doubts the product or service.

I remembered this free coaching when I started working in market research and public opinion research.  We are not selling anything, but the same principles apply.  If an interviewer does not sound confident when he reads an introduction to a questionnaire, respondents will doubt the legitimacy of the survey.  They will think that it is not really a survey but a sales scam.  An interviewer can sound more confident by reading statements as statements and questions as questions.  An interviewer who is not confident will read an introduction to a survey like this:

‘Hello?  My name is John Stevens?  I’m calling from Saperstein Associates?  A public opinion research firm in Columbus, Ohio?’

An interviewer who reads an introduction this way is rarely conscious that she is doing so.  She is asking the respondent a question, which is ‘May I continue?’  If an interviewer can be aware of this and overcome it, he will have a better chance of having respondents listen long enough to learn what the survey is about.  This results in lower refusal rates, which helps and interviewer to feel more confident, which can further reduce refusal rates.

John C. Stevens
Saperstein Associates
(614) 261-0065

jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com

Engagement

I have had some success at social media marketing since my earlier blog post.  The type of marketing that I do is different from most other types of marketing in that I do not sell a product or service.  I recruit interviewers for a market research and public opinion research firm.  Still, I am in the online marketplace offering something in exchange for something else.

My supervisor told me a few weeks ago that my recruiting efforts through Facebook and Google+ plus were a good idea, and that they had produced some good results, but that they were not enough.  We have several large projects that need to be completed by the end of the year.  So, I got busy again.  We were slow over the summer.  During that time I built my networks on Facebook and Google+ and worked at practicing engagement.  I Liked and +1ed comments and pictures.  I engaged in discussions about some of these posts.  I remember spending most of a morning arguing with Facebook friends about President Obama’s “You didn't build this” comment.

The engagement paid off.  I got my first Google+ referral as a result of sharing a blog post on Google+.  I sent emails to several Facebook friends.  Here is what I sent them:

Saperstein Associates recently started a very interesting and worthwhile project.  It must be done sooner than I expected so that we can start on several other interesting and worthwhile projects.

I need to recruit a few more people to fill our phones through the holiday season.

Please take a look at the link below and let me know if you can help out and make a little extra money over the next few weeks.  If not, please pass the link along to anyone you think might be interested.

Thanks for your help.

John

http://www.sapersteinassociates.com/default.asp?contentID=514

Not everyone responded, and not all of those who responded were able to become interviewers, but the email campaign resulted in several good hires.  I got a phone call from a Facebook friend about an hour after I posted my letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch.

We could still use a few more interviewers, especially for our Saturday and Sunday shifts.  Please give me a call if you are interested.

John C. Stevens

Saperstein Associates

(614) 261-0065

jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com

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