Comments on: Why surveys suck

By: McGehee

McGehee — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:46:10 +0000

according to Doug Rivers the response rate thirty years ago was something like 70%, while today it has gone down to an abysmal 15-20%.

While everyone wants their opinion counted, I think most people no longer believe their opinions will be fairly reported.

By: CGHill

CGHill — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:38:17 +0000

Back then, elections had consequences: Literary Digest, having screwed the pooch, subsequently bought the farm. Then again, credibility actually meant something in those days.

By: Francis W. Porretto

Francis W. Porretto — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:50:47 +0000

We can do better than Dewey/Truman. On the basis of a telephone poll it conducted, Literary Digest called this election for Alf Landon.

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:25:40 +0000

I work at a startup, and when they were first ramping up hiring in July 2008, I had the misfortune of ending up with the phone that, for whatever reason, all the telemarketers called when they wanted to try and sell our business something. The upshot was that I was given full authorization to tell them off.

By: CGHill

CGHill — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:13:10 +0000

Not to mention that you can no longer tell where a person is from his phone number, what with number portability and changes in the allocation of number blocks. Cell phones don’t even pay attention to area codes; for a while, I had a cell in area code 919, which is a long way away.

But I’d buy that phone-overload business: I get at least ten calls a week from credit-card types wanting to sell me additional services to increase the take. Not that I ever answer them.

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:52:05 +0000

Thanks for the double link!

I’d be interested in corroborating this, but according to Doug Rivers the response rate thirty years ago was something like 70%, while today it has gone down to an abysmal 15-20%. I found that pretty shocking–how can they trust their data at all at that point? Rivers claims that it is partly because telephone surveys today have to compete with a lot of telephone marketing, so people have less patience for any of them. Also, technology is such that a growing number of people don’t even have landline phones, and don’t expect to be called by anyone they don’t know on their cell phones.

I think Rivers’ technique of picking at random from a consumer database and then actually asking an individual with the same characteristics who has opted into their survey voluntarily is an interesting one. I don’t know if it solves the problem in areas where you don’t have a strong feedback, but it apparently has performed well for the few election cycles it’s been put through in its short history.