CMOR’s 6th Annual Respondent Cooperation Workshop
Patrick Glaser, CMOR, Director of Respondent Cooperation
September 2007

For the past six years, survey research professionals have gathered to discuss and develop best practices at CMOR’s annual Respondent Cooperation Workshop. This year’s workshop will be held at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency from October 22nd -24th, and registration is available now!

The Workshop continues to grow and feature excellent content from speakers who are both knowledgeable and passionate about improving research methods and practices. Speakers come to the conference specifically to deliver information, techniques and practices that attendees can implement immediately in their own organization.

What Did Attendees Take Away from Last Year’s Event?

Facts and recommendations from last year’s workshop include:

1. Telephone (M. Callegaro):
1. What you transmit via Caller ID is not necessarily what the respondent receives.
2. Caller ID may be used as a form of pre-notification letter. But, it may benefit or hurt response rates, depending on particulars.
2. Multicultural (P.Wells): Hispanics & African Americans are more geographically mobile than other groups. Plan a tracking system if performing a longitudinal study involving these populations.
3. Qualitative (S.Tuttle): A critical component of respondent cooperation and data quality in research is the enthusiasm and attitude of the researcher/moderators, as well as the environment. Respondents will be invested in the research if they are in a pleasant & cheerful place with passionate staff. It’s important to consider these details in the physical environment in which the research is conducted
4. Internet (D. Rogers):
   1. Incentives for Internet panelists can be tailored to the respondent & the survey burden in order to keep them satisfied and maintain their participation. (C. Stevens)
   2. Allowing the pre-notification Email to come from the sponsor email; adding a contact name in the Email or sending a pre-notification card via mail can help online survey cooperation.
5. In-Person (T. Clark): Legitimacy can be communicated to respondents through details in in-person surveys- an interviewer’s badge, ability to answer respondent’s questions, body language and visual cues. This can be enhanced with role-playing and training.
6. Mail Surveys (D. Rogers):
1. Token cash incentives result in higher cooperation where the topic interest or sponsor affinity is low.
2. Using a stamped reply envelope can also increase cooperation (vs. business reply).
3. Use social exchange to help secure cooperation.
4. Lotteries are highly variable in their effect on cooperation.

More information about last year’s event is available on the CMOR Website at http://www.cmor.org/rc/rcArticle8.cfm and http://www.cmor.org/rc/evtpubs.cfm.

2007 Workshop

The RC Workshop has grown overtime and its format has changed. But, its core features and mission remain the same:

• Supply programming to attendees that offers immediate, take-away solutions for improving respondent cooperation,
• Provide group-discussion brainstorming sessions so that attendees can discuss and determine how to apply best practices in their own organizations, and
• Offer program content relevant to all attendees by addressing pertinent issues across all methodologies & all modes of data collection.

The CMOR Workshop Committee members have arranged this year’s program content to focus on leading-edge issues that affect the entire survey research profession. A few highlights include presentations that look into multi-cultural and multi-language studies, potential legislative threats to research in 2007-2008, respondent cooperation and data quality and the issue of the " professional respondent."

To learn more about this year’s Workshop, please email Patrick Glaser, CMOR’s Director of Respondent Cooperation.