For the last several weeks, nearly everybody I know has been spending an awful lot of time video conferencing. And, in other news, all of a sudden, most of the qualitative research I’m doing these days is taking the form of webcam interviews or focus groups. This isn’t a big deal for me—I’ve been conducting webcam research for many years now. The webcam is a great tool, one that solves a lot of logistical problems, and that can provide highly insightful findings. But I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of the existence of one of the oldest of the old-school qualitative research tools: the telephone interview. There are a lot of things about phone interviews that make me love them.
They’re expedient!
Logistically, phone interviews are simpler to schedule than any other approach—nearly everybody has access to a phone pretty much anytime, and just about everybody knows how to use their phone – even my mother. What’s more, lots of people have access to multiple phones, decreasing the possibility of scheduling and technical problems.
They’re agile!
If you’re looking to conduct research quickly and flexibly, look no further than the telephone interview. Phone interviews can often be scheduled on the spot. I recently did a study among medical practitioners. Nearly half of them, upon completing screening, said that they were available right away. We were able to pair just about all of them with an interviewer immediately, increasing our recruiting yield and shortening our project timing. So, if ‘agile’ research is something you seek, the phone interview can be a great way to achieve that.
They’re foolproof!
Compared with most online platforms, a low-tech phone call offers far fewer things that can go wrong. Aside from a battery going dead or somebody losing their signal, there aren’t too many bad things that can happen. And, as I mention above, respondents frequently have access to another phone—that’s a nice insurance policy.
They’re cheap!
Platform costs can range from free to $1.00/minute at the most. Compared to many online market research platforms, this is a bargain. And recording is a snap. Many conference calling platforms offer free, high quality archived recording.
They’re profound!
The phone interview’s most important virtue may be depth of insight. Think about your own experiences. Have you ever had a long, deep, intimate phone conversation with a friend? Of course you have! In fact, you’ve probably had lots of those. That’s because a phone call strips away distractions and anxieties. There’s just the sound of two people’s voices. Nobody has to worry about all the aspects of how they look (and let’s face it – everybody’s hair looks terrible these days), and nobody gets distracted by the appearance of the other person or any other visual elements.
Conducting research on the phone lowers the stakes, reduces the sense of expectation, and makes people feel less inhibited. In addition, there’s no anxiety due to unfamiliar technology. This can make telephone interviews the best option for emotionally-loaded topics: sensitive healthcare issues, politics and personal finance to name just a few. It’s also good to bear in mind that phone interviews are perfect for studies that don’t require you to expose complex stimuli. In other words, if what you primarily need to do is engage in deep conversation with your research subjects, a voice-only platform might meet your needs better than any other approach, including face-to-face interviewing.
So, this time of social distancing might offer a valuable opportunity to reacquaint yourself (or get acquainted in the first place) with this venerable research technique. Consider phone interviews for studies in which:
You need to compress timing
Money is tight
You don’t need to present complex stimuli
You’re faced with a low incidence recruit
You’re researching sensitive, emotionally loaded issues
With all that in mind, here are a few tips and best practices for getting the most out of telephone interviews:
Who calls whom? Participants don’t always want researchers to have their phone numbers (and vice versa). In addition, this might constitute personal information, which can place researchers and clients at risk. So, I typically have everybody dial into a conference calling service. While most respondents can dial-in at no additional cost to themselves, it’s important to be sensitive to this issue. So, I always make sure there is a toll-free dial-in option available to the participant. And, for studies involving lower-income participants, I’ll just make toll-free the default option.
Anybody listening in? Do your clients want to monitor some or all of your interviews? If so, you’ll need to inform your participant that this is going on. In addition, having a way for your clients to communicate with you during the call might be a good idea. If you’re using a conference calling platform— such as freeconferencecall.com or Zoom (with the webcams turned off)—this capability may be built in. If not, text messaging might work well.
Any distractions present? Remind your participants at the beginning of the call to take a minute to eliminate any possible distractions from their environment. This could mean closing the door to the room they’re in, and closing any distracting browser tabs and applications. In addition, it’s important that recruiters confirm when scheduling calls that the participant will be able to conduct the interview undisturbed.
How reliable is your phone? Whenever possible, I conduct phone interviews from a landline. I know this isn’t as cool as my smartphone, but the sound quality is much better, and the possibility of the call being dropped on my end is pretty much nil. I also encourage the respondent to do the same. If using my smartphone, I’ll make sure it’s fully charged, that all sounds and alerts are muted, and that the internet connection is disabled to the greatest extent possible.
Do you need to show stimuli? As mentioned above, if you need to share complex stimuli, phone interviews are probably not your best research tool. But it’s easy to show simple stim, such as written concepts, print ads and 2D packaging renderings. The cleanest solution is emailing them to the participant, if that’s feasible. If not, it’s not difficult to set up a secure file sharing link through the cloud services offered by Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and others. Teleconferencing services might also present a workaround for this problem.
Nobody can see you. So, remember that no meaning or context will be conveyed by either you or the participant through facial expressions, body language or hand gestures. As a result, such subtleties as humor, irony, sarcasm and sadness might not come across. This can create some risk of misunderstandings, so it’s important to regularly repeat back to your respondents your understanding of what they have said for verification.
So, don’t forget. The telephone interview is your friend. Used wisely, it can enable research that is agile, cost-effective and – most importantly – insightful. It’s easy to forget about the phone, now that we have so many powerful, high tech, feature-rich solutions available to us. But, sometimes, it’s still the best tool for the job.
