Personal Interviews
The requirement of personal interviews creates special problems from the field-service point of view. As discussed in Chapter 4, personal inter- views may be done through door-to-door, mall intercept, central location in- terviewing, or executive interviewing. Interviewers must be located, screened, hired, trained, briefed, and sent out in the proper geographic areas called for in the sampling plan in order to execute a door-to-door survey. A company will often hire outside field-service organizations to conduct this type of in- terviewing. If a company has subcontracted the entire project to an outside consultant firm, it would be wise to make sure that the research firm has its own in-house field-service personnel or at least has a good network of field services that it subcontracts to. Interviewers must also be well trained in the art of interviewing, but quite often they must also understand technical terms and jargon, particularly in industrial marketing research. This high degree of competence and preparation of interviewers, as well as the time and travel involved, make this door-to-door interviewing quite expensive.
Mall-intercept interviewing is a very popular way to execute personal in- terviews across a wide geographic area. This method of survey research intercepts shoppers in the public areas of shopping malls and either inter- views them on the spot or executes a short screening survey and, if respon- dents qualify, they are invited to a permanent interviewing facility in the mall to participate in a research study. Many different types of studies may be conducted in shopping malls: concept studies, product placement/home use tests, taste tests, clipboard studies (short, simple surveys), simulated controlled-store tests, and focus groups.
Another method of questionnaire administration that involves a personal interview approach is a recruited central location test (CLT). A CLT usually involves the need for a probabilistic sample plan or a category of respondent that has a low incidence that cannot be conveniently located by other ap- proaches. In this type of study, respondents are screened ahead of time and invited to a location at a preset time for the actual interview. These locations may include an office, church, school, private facility, hotel/motel, or even a mall research facility.
In-store intercepts are sometimes done to personally interview survey re- spondents. These studies are usually accomplished in a retail establishment central to the project’s objectives (e.g., in a tire store for discussion of tire purchases).
Executive interviewing is the industrial equivalent of door-to-door inter- viewing. This type of interviewing requires very skilled interviewers who
are well versed on the subject matter of the project. Consequently, this type of research is very expensive.
Telephone Interviews
Some of the same considerations involved with the development and management of a group of personal interviewers applies to telephone inter- viewers. However, greater control of a telephone interviewing staff can be maintained, particularly if the work is accomplished from a central tele- phone location. The entire interviewing effort can be monitored by a trained supervisor. On-the-spot questions can be answered and field editing can be accomplished to allow for quick correction of any problems with the data- gathering instrument. Computer-assisted interviewing systems have greatly automated telephone survey research and allow for better supervision, sam- ple administration, and quality control. Currently, telephone interviewing is one of the most widely utilized types of survey communication, due to the time and financial advantages of the method. Callbacks can be made much more easily and many people will talk on the phone when they would not open their door to talk with a stranger. In addition, telephone interviewing can execute a study design that requires a probability sample that would be too costly to do in a door-to-door manner.
Mail Surveys
Mail surveys eliminate the problems of selecting, training, and supervis- ing interviewers. They are convenient, efficient, and inexpensive. However, they create some of their own problems such as lack of response and cover- age, inability to control the sample responding, time lags in response, in- ability to handle lengthy or complex material, and potential for misinterpre- tation of questions.
The procedure for mail-survey administration is the same for question- naire development, pretesting, finalization, and production. However, the mail survey eliminates the field-service worker. In place of the personal or telephone interview, there is a mailing or series of mailings of the question- naire. Postcard reminders, incentives, tokens, and follow-up questionnaires could be sent at appropriate times to encourage return of questionnaires.
Internet Surveys
The Internet is increasingly being used as a means of conducting market- ing research. Exploratory research is done by conducting Internet focus groups, or by asking questions in “chat rooms.” Obviously, the objective here is the same as for all exploratory research—gain insights, ideas, clarifi- cations, etc. The Internet is also being used to conduct exploratory research
surveys. One firm that specializes in conducting marketing research over the Internet is www.InsightExpress.com. Begun in December 1999 by a partnership of NFO and Engage Technologies, it allows companies of all sizes to conduct marketing research surveys at an average cost of $1,000. When a company signs up to do a survey, InsightExpress puts out banner ads to those consumers and businesses that are included in Engage’s 35 mil- lion profiles database that match the researcher’s desired characteristics for the respondents. Respondents are given various incentives through Insight- Express’s alliance with Mypoints.com. InsightExpress says that initially they will provide qualitative and directional insight (i.e., exploratory re- search) into the needs, opinions, and behaviors of targeted consumers or customers, but that eventually they want to have statistically representative samples (i.e., descriptive research). Until then, firms like InsightExpress can be used for exploratory purposes to screen ideas, check the pulse of the marketplace, get a reaction to advertising copy, get a general idea of cus- tomer satisfaction, and so on. Other firms doing both exploratory and de- scriptive surveys over the Internet are <www.greenfieldonline.com> and <www.websurveyor.com>. More information on conducting Internet sur- veys can be found in Don Dillman’s, Mail and Internet Surveys.1
THE INTERVIEWING RELATIONSHIP