Re: Sugging...Selling under the guise of research

Posted by anonymous on February 18, 2000 at 14:50:40:

In Reply to: Re: Sugging...Selling under the guise of research posted by Helen Black on February 10, 2000 at 11:44:56:

I think it is important to understand how sugging impacts the research industry. I really, really hope and pray that the MRA/CASRO et al can help promote the differences between telemarketing, push polling, and honest-to-god research.

My concern is that too many people in this industry have entrenched in their minds that telemarketing is bad, and research is good. It's very easy for people to throw up their hands and say we are trying to help consumers so they shouldn't mind being called during dinner or while watching their favorite tv program.

Next time you monitor some interviews listen closely to the initial refusals. Keep track of how many initial refusals actually listen to the script being read. I would suggest that a majority of those who refuse to participate are pre-disposed not to talk with you - no matter what the script being read by the interviewer/tsr says.

Maybe consumers get too many telemarketing calls, maybe they get too many survey calls, I don't know. But we do not live in a vacuum and we cannot blindly move forward because we THINK the work we do has some type of 'higher purpose' than telemarketers. We have to recognize that we make a living making unsolicited calls to peoples' homes and places of work. We have to recognize that today's consumer is pretty savvy, and realizes his/her opinions are worth something.

sidebars: what is sugging??? How do we define it? Another in this thread suggests offering an incentive/gesture to a respondent is the same as sugging. The client wasn't selling anything. Also, a federal law against sugging - what's that about! Ahem... has anyone ever heard of the first amendment? I can call people and a) ask them questions, b) try to sell them something, c) but not do both. Doesn't make sense. Fraud if fraud, talking to someone is talking to someone.

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