case : Citizens’ annoyance with phone calls from salespeople prompted Congress t
ID: 365016 • Letter: C
Question
case :
Citizens’ annoyance with phone calls from salespeople prompted Congress to pass a law setting up a National Do-Not-Call Registry. The registry was soon flooded with requests to have phone numbers removed from telemarketers’ lists. By law, salespeople may not call numbers listed on this registry. The law makes exceptions for charities and researchers. However, a recent poll suggests that even though phone calls from researchers may be legal, they are not always well received. In late 2005, Harris Interactive conducted an Internet survey in which almost 2,000 adults answered questions about the National Do-Not-Call Registry. About three-quarters of the respondents said they had signed up for the registry, and a majority (61 percent) said they had since received “far less” contact from telemarketers. In addition, 70 percent said that since registering, they had been contacted by someone “who was doing a poll or survey” and wanted them to participate. But apparently, respondents weren’t sure whether this practice was acceptable. Only one-fourth (24 percent) of respondents said they knew that researchers “are allowed to call,” and over half (63 percent) weren’t sure about researchers’ rights under the law. question :case analysis ?
Explanation / Answer
A] Yes an online survey was the best medium for conducting a poll on this subject. The poll was regarding the National Do-Not-Call Registry which was set up as citizens were not much interested and also annoyed in taking calls other than their personal ones. This implies that a poll conducted on telephone about a subject which itself involved phone calls not important to the citizens, may not have received responses as good as the online survey.
[B] Below are some of the pros and cons of conducting the poll online:
Pros –
1] A poll survey gives better results if the number of respondents are large. Internet can reach to a large audience in less time easily and same is evident in the case as 2000 responses were received in the online survey.
2] A survey on phone or by other traditional methods require spending a substantial amount of money to achieve optimal results. Online survey facilitates minimal cost and fast data collection reducing the survey per person and time costs.
3] Data handling and analyzing is easy and automated in online surveys with minimal human intervention required. Hence the results can be interpreted in many ways as is evident by the number of statistical facts presented in the case.
4] Online survey attracts more number of respondents as there is highest level of convenience and comfort for the person to respond as per his chosen time, pace and preferences.
Cons :
1] Online survey can have respondents only from a certain segment of population and not include others like the elderly and people from remote areas who do not have access to the internet.
2] Since there is no interviewer to conduct face to face survey, the respondents may not give responses sincerely and may perceive it as fun or may interpret the questions differently.
3] Technical glitches may occur in data collection or analysis which can alter the results.
[C] If the poll had been conducted by telephone, the number of respondents might have been less compared to the online survey as the citizens are not too willing in taking calls other than their personal ones. In poll surveys, the relevance of the results or findings is more with high no of respondents. Hence, a survey by telephone might have given skewed results or it would have led to huge time and person costs to gather data from a large no of respondents.
Also out of annoyance to phone calls, people might have responded negatively to the interviewer and rather than giving answers to the poll questions, they would have clarified doubts about the calls from researchers since the poll was about National Do-Not-Call Registry. Also if the doubts were cleared during this discussion, in the final result, the number of respondents aware about the researcher’s rights might have been over half and not just one fourth as found in online survey. So this way some of the results could have been exactly opposite to the ones in online survey
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