My landline phone is connected to an answering machine that tells people to send me e-mail since the primary calls on the landline are sales calls. A few days ago, in the evening I picked up the landline because some phone calls after 6 PM are survey research. I want to know what candidates are doing surveys.
This was a telephone survey done automatically. A recorded voice would ask a question and tell me what button to push for the response.
Roughly, half a century ago I experimented with this automatic phone survey technique. I would push a tape recorder button to ask the question and explain that the respondent was to use a one or two button on the phone for their response. This was in 1967, just after my region had gone to touch tone phone service.
I had about five questions in my automated survey and chose a random telephone sample of a few dozen people. To my complete astonishment, I got a 100% response rate at a time when telephone questionnaire response rates were down in the 15% level.
I'm sure the bizarre technical nature of the interview was alluring to many respondents. The technology, of course, was imaginary and far ahead of its time. I was actually pushing the tape recorder button for each question and listening for the answer.
I reported on my results in a talk to the Pacific chapter of the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers.
I did not participate in the automated survey that came to my home phone. The people who created the survey had more than two choices for the first few questions that I listened to and I had to listen to all of their alternatives. Far beyond my patience.