Re: Telephone surveys

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:27:27 +0100, Chris Dent
<chris.nojunk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[- snip - ]

Mortimer wrote:
Well maybe that's because people like me (who may or may not be typical -
that's for debate) *do* lump together anyone who uses the phone for any
unsolicited calls, and regard it all, together with unsolicited email, being
stopped in the street, getting fliers and surveys through the post, being
surveyed as you visit a web site and being forcibly advertised at, as spam.
It's all spam - only the intrusiveness varies. It's a valid point of view
and if (if!) it's a common one, it's one that marketeers and surveyers need
to be aware of, but I'm not sure whether they are aware of the strength of
feeling and if so, whether they care.

It wasn't "spam" before the anti-spam debate. I remember in the last
century travelling to a San Diego ISP conference and finding an amazing
unanimity that zapping the occasional false positive (i.e. a customer's
potentially very important email) seemed to be a far less serious
problem than allowing an occasional bit of unsolicited crap to hit their
inbox. Those guys would have nuked the odd village or two if it meant
less of that damn spam could get through :)

Spam was a new term coined to describe unsolicted emails. It doesn't
mean that before this similar intrusions did not exist. I concur with
Mortimer and I lump unsolicted phone calls, spam email, fliers, web
pop-ups, commercial canvassers all in the same dustbin called "spam".
Unfortunately email spam brought a new level to the problem since the
receiver bears almost the whole cost of receiving the cr*p and hence
it is more prevalent than other forms.

The mood of the conference you mentioned just illustrates the level of
hatred that most people have for spam email and its ilk. Personally I
would not be happy missing any important emails, but I have my own
solution for spam emails that works well for me (disposable email
addresses).

As time goes by, owing to the increase of the aforementioned "spam", I
am becoming more and more averse to it. A long time ago I very well
might have responded to a telephone survey or talk to a canvasser if I
was not busy - but no more. The very fact that so many join the TPS
shows that we *don't* want to be disturbed!

I'd be most interested to know whether a survey has ever been carried out
into people's feelings about being contacted for telephone surveys and
telemarketing (two separate polls, really, to be fair) and what the result
was. Has such a survey ever been done - let's base out judgement on facts.

I too would be intersted to see the results of such a survey. Not aware
of one. My guess? The public would little distinguish research from
telemarketing.

I would not even listen long enough to find out what the survey was
about.

M.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
See http://improve-usenet.org

.

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