Mortimer wrote:
>> Zero. 100% cast iron guaranteed, zero. [None of my customers complain].
>
> You reckon that *none* of your potential customers regard being cold-called
> as offensive? You are sadly deluded, arrogant or both. Or maybe you are a
> troll.

LOL, Morty, you haven't been reading this thread very carefully, have
you? Your kind words are also noted :)

> You make a distinction between telesales and market research calls. For me
> (and maybe other people - opinions, please) it it utterly immaterial *why*
> someone is spamming me by phone - all that matters is that they do it.

It's not just me but every regulator and government in the world that
draws this distinction. All I say to you is consider what will be lost
should your view ever come to prominence.
Chris

Mortimer wrote:
> It may be easier not to take part, but it's not as much fun!
>
> I wonder how many people who give misleading answers do so for reasons of
> coyness (as in the example of Conservative voters in1992) and how many do it
> out of devilment and sheer bloody-mindedness in payback for being
> interrupted from what they are doing by an unsolicited phone call which asks
> (as they see it) inane questions.

Why imagine that the questions are inane? Who are these people consumed
by devilment and bloodymindedness? Why demand payback because you
receive a phonecall in which you have little interest? Are you sure you
are not overstating this at least a little bit?

In article <HS0Fk.17$8T1.7>,
Chris Dent <chris.nojunk> writes:
> Sam Nelson wrote:
> > Go on, then: identify a single example of market research with real benefit
> > to society. GRFI. I'd love to have a counterexample.
>
> I don't know what you consider real benefit. How about, just notified,
> [..] (Please don't
> click, you wouldn't be interested...)

But surely that data is collected from phone-company billing systems. No-one
had to cold-call home phone numbers or stop anyone in the street to collect
it, did they?

> > It is possible that there are real, respectable, ethical marketing people
> > out there. They must surely realise that they rank alongside estate agents,
> > journalists and politicians as being viewed as complete and utter slimeballs?
>
> Actually not true but since you have no interest in any research

On the contrary, I've worked in a scientific research environment for
getting on for quarter of a century. People I work with do what they
do to make real new discoveries, rather than to pamper the egos of a
few self-appointed fat-cat captains of industry.

> I won't
> bore you with any useless stats. Go ahead with your wild guesses, they
> are a much sounder basis for any decision making...

I don't believe it's me that's solely responsible for the way the
marketing/market-research business is regarded by the general public. I
think it achieved that for itself.

In article <8X0Fk.18$8T1.17>,
Chris Dent <chris.nojunk> writes:
> tinnews wrote:
> > You really think that's there's only a few people out there giving
> > random or purposely wrong replies?
>
> In general yes but it depends. One of the problems with the polling
> that failed to predict the 1992 general election result is believed to
> be that, feeling mean about it, people did not wish to own up to
> researchers that they were going to vote Conservative.

What this tells you is that large swathes of the population have no problem
with lying to market researchers. How, as a result, can they ever trust
anything anyone tells them? Isn't it a fundamental assumption of the
business?

> People have said
> the same thing about US Presidential election polling but another body
> of opinion just says the Republicans simply cheated last two times.
>
> Frankly, it a lot easier to simply not take part, isn't it?

But walking away from the person with the clipboard knowing you just added
an awkward element to the long tail of their statistics (`my three major
leisure-time interests are cave rescue, extreme snowboarding, and
looking after my grandchildren, yes') can add an element of glee to the
day that's so much more satisfying than `not today, thank you'.

In article <nL1Fk.14966$yU7.10702>,
Chris Dent <chris.nojunk> writes:
> Mortimer wrote:
> > It may be easier not to take part, but it's not as much fun!
> >
> > I wonder how many people who give misleading answers do so for reasons of
> > coyness (as in the example of Conservative voters in1992) and how many do it
> > out of devilment and sheer bloody-mindedness in payback for being
> > interrupted from what they are doing by an unsolicited phone call which asks
> > (as they see it) inane questions.
>
> Why imagine that the questions are inane? Who are these people consumed
> by devilment and bloodymindedness? Why demand payback because you
> receive a phonecall in which you have little interest? Are you sure you
> are not overstating this at least a little bit?

Everyone else contributing to this thread, except you, thinks he isn't, I
suspect.

"Chris Dent" <chris.nojunk> wrote in message
news:4924
> Mortimer wrote:
>>> Zero. 100% cast iron guaranteed, zero. [None of my customers complain].
>>
>> You reckon that *none* of your potential customers regard being
>> cold-called as offensive? You are sadly deluded, arrogant or both. Or
>> maybe you are a troll.
>
> LOL, Morty, you haven't been reading this thread very carefully, have you?
> Your kind words are also noted :)

So out of all the cold-calls you make to people to solicit their views on
whatever you are market-researching at the time, not a single person has
ever complained to you that you are interrupting him?

I find that hard to believe, but maybe you have a very persuasive tongue -
in which case you are one of the minority that manages to do it without
causing offence.

(Don't get side-tracked into a semantic discussion based on petert's use of
the word "customer", when "punter" or "person whose opinion is being sought"
might have been more accurate. No doubt your customers - the people for whom
you carry out research - have no complaints, but I don't think that's what
petert was talking about.)

What this thread has shown is that there *are* people who think the same way
as me, despite your comment that "This is an extreme view and not one which
is ever likely to become prominent."

Mark says "Agreed. It is particularly annoying when the said phonecall
wakes a baby that parent has spent hours getting to sleep for example.
Personally I hate being interrupted by these annoying calls as they
always occur at mealtimes or when I am playing the guitar!"

Petert says "It's certainly a point of view that is prominent amongst my
circle of friends - how many other people find it an attractive proposition?
I'm sure you must hold market research data that gives you an answer..."

Pete says "It's certainly not an extreme view - I'd say it's one that's held
by the majority of people. Think about it (not from a marketing
perspective). You're interrupting people's lives. You expect them to *give*
you their time and for them to provide you with information - all for free.
I'd suggest you stand back from your job and be a little more considerate of
how real people live - then you'd realise just how intrusive you are being."

I wonder if people who make unsolicited telephone calls (for any purpose)
realise just how much the general public resent having their lives disrupted
by pushy salesmen, people carrying out market research etc, people trying to
convert us to their religion, etc.

The fact that you innocently asked your technical question and are surprised
by the vehemence of people's protests shows that you might be out of touch
with the public's feelings on the matter. The law distinguishes between
telesales and marketing, but I bet the majority of the public regards both
as nuisance calls.

I fully agree that we, the public, need to be asked for our opinions and
preferences if those opinions and preferences are to be taken into account.
What you are doing is very laudable. Long may it continue. It's the "how"
that I am passionately opposed to.

Phoning people when they may be in the middle of doing something else,
stopping them in the street or knocking on their door is *not* the right way
to go about it because you will just put people's back up and lead to
resentment and ill-considered or even maliciously untruthful replies.

A poll sent by post, or even by email (what, am I defending email spam?) at
least has the advantage that it is "off-line" and can be attended to when I,
the recipient, have time, not when you, the researcher, phone me or stop me
in the street.

"Sam Nelson" <sam> wrote in message
news:1ln1
> In article <nL1Fk.14966$yU7.10702>,
> Chris Dent <chris.nojunk> writes:
>
> Everyone else contributing to this thread, except you, thinks he isn't, I
> suspect.

Thank you for that vote of support. I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in
wanting to bugger-up the results of any survey that is carried out by means
that I resent, in the hope that it will devalue to the results to a point
where better, more public-friendly methods are used.

Chris, for someone who is in the business of gauging people's response and
opinions, you seem to be sadly out of touch in this one. A telephone survey
is needed - and this is one that I *would* answer truthfully and honestly:
"What is your attitude to being contacted by phone by companies carrying out
a) surveys, b) telesales? Choose from: i) resent it strongly, ii) resent it
slightly, iii) neutral, iv) welcome it slightly, v) welcome it strongly". Do
that, and let's see what the results are.

Hi All,

Herewith my last contribution to the 'privacy-concerned' hijacking of
this thread. This is because we are clearly not getting anywhere and
shall have to agree to differ. Thanks to all who added their 2 cents
and especially Mike who was the only one to answer the OP.

Sam Nelson wrote:
> ...large swathes of the population have no problem
> with lying to market researchers. How, as a result, can they ever trust
> anything anyone tells them? Isn't it a fundamental assumption of the
> business?

You are right, it's a fundamental assumption and usually proves
justifiable: it is pure fantasy to imagine nothing useful can be gleaned
by such methods. Care, however, does need to be taken and it has been
known to go wrong. FWIW, the problem you identify is known to be
particularly acute in relation to permission-based (opt-in) internet
research where participants have sometimes multiple web personas. It
was estimated a couple of years back that 0.25% of internet users
completed 20% of all web surveys and more broadly 5% were responsible
for 50% of completions. Such concerns provide me with another impetus.

Or maybe you'd prefer to just know nothing?

(Sam, on a brief reading you are also right that the Ofcom link I showed
was probably based on operator figures. Here's one that is
survey-based: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/cm/cmrnr08/.)

> But walking away from the person with the clipboard knowing you just added
> an awkward element to the long tail of their statistics (`my three major
> leisure-time interests are cave rescue, extreme snowboarding, and
> looking after my grandchildren, yes') can add an element of glee to the
> day that's so much more satisfying than `not today, thank you'.

Personally my grown-up friends and I prefer to pop out for a game of
knock-down ginger...but whatever floats your boat...

Instead of clogging the NG with tales of sugging and telemarketers
disrespecting the TPS, please make complaints about it. Such practices
have nothing to do with me.

I can't say I am surprised to find a large body of apparently macho
anti-spam types outbragging each other about how much they hate *any*
invasion of their privacy. NGs attract this demographic and I know some
of the more moderate feel at risk of being flamed and so prefer silence.
You're welcome to your view but should have some appreciation that it
is not the mainstream one. I am sorry, a baby is occasionally going to
get woken up and sometimes your favourite TV program may be irritatingly
interrupted. Most people, however, perceive that the advantages
outweigh the disadvantages and at least you get to have fun and games
being gratuitously rude to interviewers and/or feeding them with your
amusing misinformation.

Chris

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
tinnews <tinnews> wrote:

> Chris Dent <chris.nojunk> wrote:
>
> You really think that's there's only a few people out there giving
> random or purposely wrong replies?

There may well be some who go a bit further like in this audio clip
http://dailycupoftech.com/2006/10/17...keter-revenge/ (admittedly this
refers to telemarketing rather than market research - but could easily be
adapted)

"Chris Dent" <chris.nojunk> wrote in message
news:1071
> I can't say I am surprised to find a large body of apparently macho
> anti-spam types outbragging each other about how much they hate *any*
> invasion of their privacy. NGs attract this demographic and I know some
> of the more moderate feel at risk of being flamed and so prefer silence.
> You're welcome to your view but should have some appreciation that it is
> not the mainstream one.

As a person who is involved in carrying out surveys, you are presumably wise
to the fact that many people will suffer in silence rather than stand up and
make a complaint or give a negative answer to a survey, even if they will
moan about it to their friends.

I agree we need to call it a day on this discussion: we've all made our
points of view abundantly clear. Hopefully you've appreciated that there is
a weight of opinion that unsolicited phone calls are deeply resented by some
(many?) people and that other ways of canvassing people might be less
intrusive, and the rest of us have appreciated that market research is
important (some might see it as a necessary evil!) if our opinions are to be
taken into account.

In article <U73Fk.1356$iX3.1071>,
Chris Dent <chris.nojunk> writes:
> Herewith my last contribution to the 'privacy-concerned' hijacking of
> this thread. This is because we are clearly not getting anywhere and
> shall have to agree to differ.

Your view of the situation is so far at odds with real life that this
isn't surprising.

> Thanks to all who added their 2 cents
> and especially Mike who was the only one to answer the OP.

Before the OP is worth answering, there's a generation's worth of work to
do in convincing the general population that market researchers are
worth paying any attention to at all. I think I'd rather tell my mother
I played piano in a brothel.

> It was estimated a couple of years back that 0.25% of internet users
> completed 20% of all web surveys and more broadly 5% were responsible
> for 50% of completions. Such concerns provide me with another impetus.

That's YouGov scuppered, then. No need to pay any attention to any of
their results in future. But, well, how was the above information gathered?

> Or maybe you'd prefer to just know nothing?
>
> (Sam, on a brief reading you are also right that the Ofcom link I showed
> was probably based on operator figures. Here's one that is
> survey-based: [..].)

Ofcom, by definition, have nothing to sell me. If I were phoned by someone
apparently represent Ofcom and wanting my views on the next round of that
survey, they _might_ just get them, and accurately so. It's a bit of a
special case, though, even if, strictly speaking, I'd have to admit that
you won that one, second shot.

> > But walking away from the person with the clipboard knowing you just added
> > an awkward element to the long tail of their statistics (`my three major
> > leisure-time interests are cave rescue, extreme snowboarding, and
> > looking after my grandchildren, yes') can add an element of glee to the
> > day that's so much more satisfying than `not today, thank you'.
>
> Personally my grown-up friends and I prefer to pop out for a game of
> knock-down ginger...but whatever floats your boat...

Hey, it's free, and you can't get into trouble doing it.

> Instead of clogging the NG with tales of sugging and telemarketers
> disrespecting the TPS, please make complaints about it. Such practices
> have nothing to do with me.

I was aware that automated calls were illegal. I wasn't aware that sugging
was until you mentioned it, for which I owe you thanks---I'll use that.

> I can't say I am surprised to find a large body of apparently macho
> anti-spam types outbragging each other about how much they hate *any*
> invasion of their privacy. NGs attract this demographic and I know some
> of the more moderate feel at risk of being flamed and so prefer silence.

I'm forced to wonder why you came here in the first place, if you already
knew this. However, you have been informed that it ain't just `us'.

> Most people, however, perceive that the advantages
> outweigh the disadvantages and at least you get to have fun and games
> being gratuitously rude to interviewers and/or feeding them with your
> amusing misinformation.

The whole world is like this. Don't say you weren't warned.

On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 12:44:42 +0100, "Mortimer" <me> wrote:

>
>"Sam Nelson" <sam> wrote in message
>news:1ln1
>
>Thank you for that vote of support. I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in
>wanting to bugger-up the results of any survey that is carried out by means
>that I resent, in the hope that it will devalue to the results to a point
>where better, more public-friendly methods are used.
>
>Chris, for someone who is in the business of gauging people's response and
>opinions, you seem to be sadly out of touch in this one. A telephone survey
>is needed - and this is one that I *would* answer truthfully and honestly:
>"What is your attitude to being contacted by phone by companies carrying out
>a) surveys, b) telesales? Choose from: i) resent it strongly, ii) resent it
>slightly, iii) neutral, iv) welcome it slightly, v) welcome it strongly". Do
>that, and let's see what the results are.

And when they all slam down the receiver or say "*uck off" you can
easily interpret the results ;-)

On Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:28:26 +0100, Chris Dent
<chris.nojunk> wrote:

[-- snip --]

>I can't say I am surprised to find a large body of apparently macho
>anti-spam types outbragging each other about how much they hate *any*
>invasion of their privacy. NGs attract this demographic and I know some
>of the more moderate feel at risk of being flamed and so prefer silence.
> You're welcome to your view but should have some appreciation that it
>is not the mainstream one. I am sorry, a baby is occasionally going to
>get woken up and sometimes your favourite TV program may be irritatingly
>interrupted. Most people, however, perceive that the advantages
>outweigh the disadvantages and at least you get to have fun and games
>being gratuitously rude to interviewers and/or feeding them with your
>amusing misinformation.

I think you are sadly out of touch with normal social rules if you
think that waking a baby is acceptable in order to carry out your
"research". I doubt that anyone would say "I've had almost no sleep
for days and baby and me have just be woken up by a tele-marketer but
it's worth it!".

In article <6kjthbF863kiU1>,
"Roger Mills" <watt.tyler> writes:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> tinnews <tinnews> wrote:
>> There may well be some who go a bit further like in this audio clip
> [..] (admittedly this
> refers to telemarketing rather than market research - but could easily be
> adapted)

The very fact that a recent ad campaign (for some brand of tea, was it?)
involved a woman saying `your call is important to us' and putting the
handset down next to a tinkling child's toy and walking away suggests that
marketing departments do know that cold-calling of any kind is despised by
the general population. The whole point of the ad was to allow us to
idenfify with her and hence use the product.

Mark wrote:
> I think you are sadly out of touch with normal social rules if you
> think that waking a baby is acceptable in order to carry out your
> "research". I doubt that anyone would say "I've had almost no sleep
> for days and baby and me have just be woken up by a tele-marketer but
> it's worth it!".

?!? Personally, I would have unplugged the phone if I had had no sleep
for days. I'm glad it wasn't your Uncle Pete that accidentally
committed the grievous faux pas or the family might take years to
reconcile. But if you are on TPS and it was a telemarketer, please
complain about it to someone who can actually do something about it:
www.tpsonline.org.uk.