Saturday, October 18, 2014

Dantzing With Pollsters - Follow Up

Yesterday I did a  post about ways to respond to political pollsters that raises questions like what do you owe telephone survey folks?  The only things I said you owe them are some respect and friendliness, because it's not an easy job.  I just got a call from a local Anchorage number - 268 2121.  It's a bit late for calls, but I answered it.


Caller:  May I speak to Steve?
Me:  Whose calling?
Caller:  Tanya.  I'm from MRS.
Me:  [She sounded tired, and remembering my advice, I answered in a very friendly]     Hi Tanya, how are you doing tonight?  What is MRS and where are you?
Tanya:  McQuire Research Service, in Nevada.

Well she was clearly pleased to get a friendly response and, in her words, "not to be yelled at."  But I did tell her about yesterday's blog post and she asked if I wanted to do the survey.  Since she'd identified her company, which I'd said yesterday legit pollsters should do,  I said, 'Sure."

Tanya:  How likely are you to vote next month?
Steve:   Barring getting hit by a bus . . . you know Tanya, actually, I plan to vote next Monday when early voting starts.  So I'm definitely voting in October, not next month.
Tanya:   . . . .
Steve:  If I say I'm not voting next month, that ends the survey, doesn't it?
Tanya:  Yes . . .
Steve:  I guess they didn't write the question very well, because I'm sure they don't care when I vote, do they?  But since I'm not going to vote next month, and I answered honestly 'no,' you have to end this right?
Tanya:  Yes,

I thought I heard an unspoken, "but . ."

I hope she still gets paid, even though we only did the first question.  But she shouldn't be penalized if people don't plan to vote.  That's information too.  I should have asked her. 

[OK, this post is sort of a stall.  I'm working on several longer posts that aren't quite right yet, and this seemed like an easy filler.  But if you didn't see the original post Dantzing With Pollsters, that has a little more meat.

I don't generally watch television or listen to much AM radio, so I'm relatively spared a lot of the political advertising.  The mailed advertising doesn't make noises and is easy to put into the recycle bin.

But I noticed tonight, getting a Youtube clip for a post I'm working on, that I got a Dan Sullivan ad linking Mark Begich to Obama before the video.  But I had to play the video several times and then I got Begich ads with a women talking about how Sullivan would interfere between her and her doctor at her clinic. 

2 comments:

  1. Steve, thank you! When pollster's ask my race I say American. Maybe Cross-country is a better response?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, have fun with the callers, and not at their expense. Help them smile a bit cause you know they wouldn't be doing this job if they could find something better.

    ReplyDelete

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