How to Carry Out Telephone Surveys

So you have to carry out a good, old-fashioned telephone survey for your marketing job. Well, prepare to handle rejection. Most people do not like strangers cold-calling them at any time of day. You will probably get a 10 percent response rate, 20 if you're lucky. But the feedback of that small percentage is still valuable to you and your work.

Instructions

1. Open your phone book to a random page.

2. Make a pen mark next to every 10th name until you have about 40 or 50 names. You may have been asked to provide less, though it depends on what project you are working on.

3. Now call those numbers that you marked. These are the people you're going to survey.

4. If someone picks up, apologize for bothering them (because you are) and ask if they would be willing to answer a few easy questions regarding your issue. Tell them their feedback is very valuable and you would not take up more than a few minutes of their time.

5. Ask your questions clearly and provide the respondent a chance for both closed answers ("on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most...) and open answers ("How do you feel about...?"). This can help your respondent not feel bored.

6. You last few questions should be demographic in nature (age or ethnicity) but allow the respondent the option of refusing some or all of this information.

7. When you are finished asked your questions, thank the respondent and wish them a nice day. You are now ready to repeat these steps until you have met your quota.

Tips & Warnings

• If no one answers a number, move onto the next number after it, and so on. If all the following nine numbers after a marked number are busy or go unanswered, mark the next 10th number after the last one you marked.

• If anyone hangs up or gets cut off in the middle of the survey, you have to disqualify their answers.

• People may be rude and may use foul language. When dealing with rude people, just thank them for their time and hang up the phone. You don't want to waste your time.