Industrial mail surveys: The costs and benefits of telephone pre‐notification

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Over the past 5 years a trend towards increased usage of mail surveys has been identified and the reasons for this as well as the advantages of mail surveys are discussed. Low response rates form the major disadvantage of the technique and advantages of pre‐notification which can help to increase response rates are discussed. A limited number of studies exist on the effect of pre‐notification and its associated costs and benefits. This paper reports the results of an experimental study on telephone pre‐notification within the industrial sector (n = 235). Results showed that a significantly higher (14%) response rate was achieved when individuals were pre‐notified, but there was no significant difference between the groups which were contacted directly and indirectly. Time of day and day of week had no significant effect on the success of pre‐contacting. Return times were shortest for the group contacted directly and longest for the control group, but not significantly so. A call duration of around 6 minutes appeared to give the highest probability of response. A cost increase of over 100% per return was associated with the telephone pre‐notification technique. The paper offers practical advice to researchers planning an industrial mail survey.