According to the latest Pew Research polls, telephone survey response rates have fallen to around 6%. That’s a decline from the 9% rate that held strong in previous years.
If you’re a business owner, then you naturally want to know what buyers think about your products. In addition, you want to pick the brains of prospective shoppers who are on the fence about your shop.
Are you thinking about conducting telephone surveys to gather this information? If so, here are the advantages and disadvantages of going this route.
Advantages of Telephone Surveys
First, let’s start with the pros. Here are a few of the top benefits of telephone surveys.
Wide Reach
With a telephone poll, you can reach a greater number of people across a greater geographic distance as opposed to other forms of outreach, such as physical mailers. This includes landline and mobile phone users.
This means you can gather more diverse opinions from shoppers across your target audience. In addition to obtaining numbers directly from phone companies, you can also access in-house and online directories to contact more callers.
Economical Approach
Next, phone surveys are cost-effective! Most phone plans enable you to contact a large number of people at a fraction of what you’d pay for other forms of marketing.
Think about the expenses associated with a print marketing campaign. Mailing surveys to your local buyers could cost a fortune in postage alone!
Disadvantages of Telephone Surveys
Of course, there are also a few disadvantages to conducting telephone surveys. Here are two reasons why you might want to think twice about going this route.
Participation Rates
As mentioned, only a small percentage of people take the time to complete these polls. To improve your odds of a favorable response, you may want to outsource this service to a third-party marketing company that knows exactly how to conduct a telephone survey.
These experts will be well-versed on when and how to conduct a survey so people will pick up and listen. Most companies will also use advanced telephone survey software to help them complete this process in a quick, effective, and inexpensive manner.
Brief Questions
By nature, a telephone survey has to be brief. Otherwise, you’d lose the attention of the party on the other end of the line. While you can get some data from callers this way, you’re limited in how much they can elaborate.
Conversely, a paper survey allows recipients to expand on their thoughts and offer more detailed information. If your questions are complex in nature or require open-ended input, then that might be a better approach.
Should Your Business Conduct Telephone Surveys?
Now that you know a little more about the advantages and disadvantages of telephone surveys, does this sound like a viable marketing mechanism for your office?
Telephone polls allow you to get quick, data-rich insights from a large number of people. However, they’re also limited in scale and participation can be low. For these reasons, it’s wise to invest in a company that knows the tips and tricks to improve response rates.
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