Dialing for Answers Can Stymie Today’s Pollsters

Tony Beegle slides the receiver off the phone and dials yet another number. In the last half hour, he’s gotten nowhere.

Answering machines. No one home. People hanging up.

It’s a typical Friday night at Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas Inc., a New York-based market and public opinion research firm with phone centers in Fort Myers and two other cities. Tonight, Beegle and two dozen colleagues are taking the political pulse of America.

Hour after hour, the pollsters dial and hope that someone 18 or older will answer and agree to spend the 28 minutes needed to complete a survey.

Some do. Many don’t. But either way, polling will crescendo as the presidential race approaches climax in November. Politicians want to know what Americans are thinking, but not all Americans want to be bothered.

“I’ve had people try to deafen me on the phone. They blow whistles,” Beegle said. “A guy did it to me last night. It was like one of those rape whistles they give to women--the really loud ones.”

That’s the exception, though. More typical responses: “How did you get my number?” “I don’t want to buy anything.” “I’m not interested.” “We’re broke.” “We don’t want any.” “I can’t vote because I’m a felon.” “No speak English.”

There are plenty of friendly respondents too.

Asked if she cared which political party wins the presidential election, one woman laughed and told interviewer Helen Perry: “Honey, to be perfectly honest, I don’t even know who is running.”

Interviewer Eric Bechtel woke up a woman in Texas, but she didn’t get mad.

“Some people say, ‘Awwww, you woke me up,’ and then slam the phone down,” Bechtel said. “She wasn’t mean about it. I suggested I call her back, and she said, ‘OK.’ ”

It’s 7 p.m. The phone center, with room for about 100 interviewers, sounds like a noisy restaurant. Interviewers sit in rows of cubicles, staring at blue computer screens that display survey questions. Computer keyboards are clicking. The smell of rubbing alcohol, used to clean telephone headsets, fills the air.

“We buy it by the case,” says Ralph Grisi, who coordinates daily operations. “Once someone gets a cold around here, it travels.”

Tonight, Grisi’s team is shooting for 100 completed surveys on the political poll, one of 18 surveys being conducted across the room for clients he can’t disclose. A computer randomly dials the telephone numbers.

Response rates differ from survey to survey, but most pollsters say they have been falling. More than a decade ago, the rate was six in 10 responding, sometimes higher, some pollsters say. Now it can sink below half, although pollsters often differ on how to compute the total, whether by refusal to participate or inability to contact a household. Sometimes only two or three in 10 respond to quickie surveys, which can make them less reliable.

Robert Groves, a University of Michigan professor who chaired an October conference in Portland, Ore., on the non-response problem, said much higher response rates are achieved when trained interviewers make the calls and when a survey is taken over an extended period of time. Response rates also are higher when advance letters are sent and interviewers are persistent about calling back, he said.

“The outcome is a function of how much money you put into it,” Groves said.

Pollsters are studying ways to measure non-response, but one thing is clear: It takes determined survey-takers to get the job done.

The first challenge is to get a live human on the phone. People screen calls with answering machines and caller ID services, and a growing number of numbers are assigned to computers, fax machines and cell phones.

Heightened determination to guard personal privacy causes hang-ups. Also, pollsters say people often confuse legitimate public opinion research with telemarketing or selling and fund-raising conducted under the guise of a survey.

Getting reluctant respondents to participate is called “ref-conning,” short for refusal conversion.

One woman gave interviewer Sherwin Fuller the same excuse twice: She was talking long distance on another line. Her number was returned to the callback list. “Oh, yeah, we’ll try her again. We’re not going to let her get by that easy,” Fuller said, then grabbed a pencil and used the eraser end to dial again.

Hurricanes, floods and mudslides that knock out phone service make it harder. But major snowstorms are a godsend: Everybody’s home.

“The elderly will not interrupt ‘Wheel of Fortune’ or ‘Jeopardy,’ ” said Judy Vansteen, who monitors the interviewers to ensure that they are handling the calls professionally.

Once they get someone on the line, interviewers face more obstacles. Static on the line. Mothers trying to bathe screaming children. Gardeners trying to answer on cordless phones while they’re weeding in the backyard. People even try to answer questions while in the throes of passion.

It’s nearly 11 p.m. Tonight’s dialing will yield 108 surveys, eight more than the goal.

Beegle is trying to snag a sixth survey before he goes home. His right leg bounces nervously under his desk; the silver rings he wears on his thumbs flash as he works the phone.

Frustration prompted him to quit the job once.

“Before I left, this was like total competition for me. It’s like it’s my mission to get my person to do this, and when I don’t, I used to freak,” he said. “Now I pretty much settle in, dial and smile.”