CMOR conducts the only industry-wide effort to understand, discuss, run workshops and conduct research on respondent cooperation. Our reach is wide and it is not uncommon for us to receive requests for information from all sources -- research companies, industry associations and university research centers. Recently, we received a request from “down-under” in Australia. The question is one that many of our members have likely thought about or meant to ask, and the answer we provided is an example of how CMOR, with its database of respondent cooperation research, is an industry resource for improving respondent cooperation.

The Question
I have completed a study of telephone survey field managers in Australia. We were interested in their willingness to use various persuasive appeals - such as social validation, scarcity and so on - to boost respondent cooperation to ad hoc telephone surveys. Many of these techniques would offend the Australian Social and Marketing Research Society's Code of Professional Behaviour (based on the ESOMAR guidelines) since they may involve deception. A copy of a conference paper we presented on the topic is attached.

I have looked at the MRA website and CMOR's and can find nothing that goes into this level of detail. Are you aware of Codes of behaviour in the US industry that would explicitly seek to regulate such practices? Any advice you could give would be invaluable.

I should note that I helped formulate the "Your Opinion Counts" guidelines for the Australian industry launched this year. I met your predecessor Jane Sheppard in 2002. CMOR has been very helpful to us in the past in providing copies of your research reports. These reports have been invaluable.

CMOR’s Answer: 
Avoidance Refusal Training

CMOR has developed a series of Avoidance Refusal Training modules. ART (for short) is an approach that trains interviewers to "read" the respondent’s tone of voice within the first few seconds of the interview, and respond to the respondent in a custom way. For example: an abrupt and upset "hello" might be followed by "I'm calling for a survey, but if this time is not convenient to you let me reschedule it." Actual types of respondent answers and interviewer responses have been identified. This approach allows the interviewer to "go off the script," which is a departure from commonly accepted practices that assume the interviewer must always follow a script.

All of these (and some more) are truthful to the respondent. Our belief is that we should not promise the respondent something that is

deceptive or exaggerated. Although doing so might have impact on Respondent Cooperation immediately, it might have the consequence of turning the respondent off for future interviews ifthe respondent feels the information is misleading. (Although, some social validation and scarcity comments could be stated in a non-deceptive way: "Your participation will help develop products that others like you will find helpful." or "You have been selected as part of a small sample representing thousands of people like you.")

Survey Introductions

CMOR has quantified persuasion techniques that involve the aspects of an introduction that have the greatest relationship to cooperation, such as: product class being surveyed, length of interview (important if short interview), sponsor of study (if possible), ability to call back if busy, subject of the interview, ability to change mode of interview if desired (and possible), etc.

Articles in past issues of our e-newsletter describe the details of Avoidance Refusal Training and its inclusion in both our recent Respondent Cooperation Workshop and our Interviewer Training Modules. Please visit www.cmor.org for more information.

With your help, CMOR conducted the Cooperation Tracking Survey. In this study, a wide variety of research companies post (to CMOR) the contact results of all of the studies they have conducted in various modes. At its most recent iteration, the study represented 1162 studies, conducted on over 1,000,000 respondents. We asked CMOR members and other cooperating companies to send -- to a confidential audit address -- the detailed contact records and other information on the study: mode of survey, type of survey, length of interview, product class, introduction content, type of respondent, etc. From this information, we are able to analyze and track, over time, how the industry is faring in terms of respondent cooperation. The table below was used to answer the question from Australia.

It is a simple equation: the more companies that participate, the more modes of interviewing we represent, the more we will know about cooperation and what makes people cooperate. This enables us to do a better job of answering your questions and identifying ways in which you can increase respondent cooperation and reduce your costs in dealing with cooperation issues.

This year, we will be restarting this Cooperation Tracking Study. Identify a reporting person in your company and join the group of cooperating companies!

Be alert to our request – your contact results count.

FTC CAN-SPAM Report

On December 20^th, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) submitted its report on the federal email law to Congress – “The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act” (CAN-SPAM Act). The CAN-SPAM Act was enacted in 2003 and, to a degree, pre-empts state laws that expressly regulate sales-related emails. For information on the scope of this federal law and its impact on survey research activities, please visit the Members Only section of the CMOR website here.

The FTC report, entitled “Effectiveness and Enforcement of the CAN-SPAM Act," notes in part, that “compliance by legitimate online marketers is high” and that “the Act has also increased the ease or efficiency of enforcement against spammers.”  The Report also says that filters have had an impact on the reduction of SPAM – but as we have seen, filters may block more than just "SPAM” (i.e. legitimate survey research emails).