Tactics for Enjoying Interviewing & Lowering Refusals

Objective:

Interviewer tactics that minimise nonresponse - refusals

Refusals:
These are the respondents that refuse to participate in the research study.

Refusal Rate:
The amount of respondents that refuse to cooperate in the research study.

Context:

The last two decades have witnessed a large growth of survey research, both for scientific and non-scientific purposes. There are potential negative side effects of frequent surveying, such as research tiredness and the effects of over surveying.

Consequences for the validity of survey research data are severe qualifying respondents do not have their responses captured by refusing to participate or provide low data quality as respondents participate but respond poorly.

The Importance of Interviewer Professionalism

Interviewers play an important role in gaining cooperation in surveys. There is empirical evidence for a considerable variation in response rates between individuals interviewers. Research shows that interviewer experience plays a role in gaining respondent cooperation, here we describe the tactics for fighting nonresponse-refusal as reported by experienced interviewers - and explore the relationship between favoured tactics and an individual's response rate.

Investigation

To successfully fight nonresponse, knowledge about the causes of participation is necessary. During the initial moments of contact, the interviewer is the initiator and dominant actor in the interaction, and much depends on the interviewer's ability to evaluate the situation (mood) and persuade the potential respondent.

Audio-recording analysis of interactions between interviewers and respondents shows successful interviewers tailor their introductions to the respondent; they also work to maintain contact with the respondent. Experienced interviewers develop a repertoire of successful tactics to ensure a respondents' cooperation. The Research asked “What is effective to obtain cooperation in a survey?” “What can you do as an interviewer” “Which tactics work.”

Successful Tactical Discoveries

What follows is an analysis of the effective tactics grouped by their place in the interaction, the tactics are global and are suitable for certain survey introductions over others:

Competent introduction

• be positive about the survey, make it clear YOU believe in the value of the survey
• know the introduction by heart (reading it out in monotone or stumbling conveys incompetence)
• adapt your introduction to suit social or cultural class (business vs. social)

Tailoring delivery

• reassert any prior relationship (you're being asked as a valued customer)
• adapt your introduction to suit survey altruism (is it important for the community or for personal gain)
• reassert the research sponsor if adds value (this is for Tourism Australia – see altruism) and refer to how this is relevant to latest news or society, important at the moment (such a an election?)

Respondent Centered

• grasp the mood of the respondent
• be honest (about duration, question types, respondent contact source)
• respect the respondent (pace yourself to the respondent, let them know it won't be much longer)
• use intuition, feeling and humor approach to mistakes or misspeak without invalidating or leading data collection (don't worry this happens from time to time during interviews – let me read this back to you to see if I've got it right and we can correct it together...)

Project a positive image

• start each interaction from the perspective that the person you contact will cooperate
• remain friendly
• raise trust by first listening and define queries from a respondents viewpoint (you are able to....)
• be likeable
• project that YOU enjoy your job

Maintain communication, realise the interview if an appointment is set

• reassure hesitating respondents; mention that if they do not want to answer a specific question that is OK with you and you can help them understand what information will be retained and what will be de-identified

Effectiveness of Applying Tactics for Individual Interviewers

Further analysis reveals an interesting pattern. The successful interviewers emphasise the importance of applying each tactic, especially a Competent Introduction, Tailoring and Projecting a positive image.

The less successful interviewers do not rate these tactics that high, and attach more importance to 'asking if its the right time' and 'being flexible in making appointments.' Less successful interviewers try to be too nice, giving people too much room to back out, rather than confidently stating why the survey is important and easy (a friendly interaction to have) to do now.

Overall, less successful interviewers ranked only a Competent Introduction as important, missing the value of using all the available tactics which make their role in the interaction engaging and enjoyable for themselves.

Conclusions

More successful interviewers follow the basic rules or elements contained in the successful tactics. Those who obtain a lower response rate regard “basic rules” as less important, show less care for the respondent and attach less importance to efficient tailoring and self/social awareness.

Interviewers who learn these simple tactics and stick to basic rules have emphatically better response rates, possess more confidence and enjoy interviewing much more, while delivering higher quality (engaged) data.

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