What comes to your mind when you hear the word survey? Do you see it as something positive or something negative? You're not alone if you answered the latter. There is actually some evidence that the word survey has some negative connotations. Now why is that?
Sales calls are usually disguised as surveys, and many people are very aware of this fact nowadays. With the implementation of the National Do Not Call List, this may spell trouble for legitimate surveyors for two reasons:
1. There is a legal distinction between surveys and telemarketing, but a lot of people do not know the difference. Such respondents may think that your survey call is against the law, making it more difficult to get their cooperation.
2. Since there are already telemarketers out there that unethically disguise their sales call as a survey, the number may increase. It is possible that some telemarketers will ask a few survey questions they have no plan of using just so they can technically be in compliance with the law.
This challenge in conducting telephone surveys is due to the boom of telemarketing. The volume of junk phone calls contends with that of junk mail. And because salespeople often start their pitch by talking about a "survey", the viability of authentic surveys is affected by phony ones, which are in fact sales campaigns disguised as research.
What's even worse is that people are so annoyed by telemarketing that many simply hang up as soon as they hear an unfamiliar voice stating some institutional association.
Telemarketing calls disguised as survey calls are not only present in sales but also in politics. A so-called push poll is a form of negative campaigning disguised as a political poll. This unethical political telemarketing technique aims to influence several voters and affect election results instead of measuring opinions.
Here are some survey-related figures according to a study published in 1992:
58% of respondents have participated in a telephone survey
73% of respondents have received at least one telemarketing call
65% of respondents don't know the difference between surveys and telemarketing