Ethics and anonymity in surveys: how CreditCall protects respondent data and ensures independence in the data collected

One of the activities that a separate division is in charge of at CreditCall is market research. Thanks to this tool, we can help our business partners to gather information, e.g. about potential customers, their buying habits, verify their interest in products, services, etc. It is a way to find out what customers need and what can or should be provided to them. Part of our work consists of opinion polls or pre-election surveys.

Juraj Balogh, CEO of CreditCall, will tell us more about surveys, how they are created and implemented, what they entail and whether they can be a supportive voice in making important decisions for our clients.

Juraj, what types of research do we conduct and which are our clients most interested in?

Customer surveys are not just about collecting data, they are also about discovering consumer behaviour and motivations in the marketplace. One of the most effective and objective forms of research that we conduct is CATI – a telephone survey. I think we are really very good at that. To give you an idea, we do about 100 telephone surveys a year.

Which companies order surveys from us (most often)?

It must be said that we are not a survey agency. We are the company most often hired by survey agencies when they need to conduct telephone market research and are unable to do it with their own resources. Either they don’t have their own call center or they don’t have one with sufficient capacity.

What is important when creating a survey, when asking questions, what should our clients look out for?

It is important to remember that the survey is a very sensitive matter. Each survey is individual and requires a specific approach, precise planning, quality implementation and proper evaluation. It is also necessary to ensure transparency and confidentiality in the collection and processing of data.

A survey is a sub-area of the whole, which is research. As such, research consists of developing a professional methodology, processing and evaluating data based on the data collected. Our company is therefore a researcher or data collector for research agencies. If a research agency needs to gather information, they approach us with an assignment, which we carry out in practice as field data collection. We carry out assignments mostly on behalf of the agency.
However, we do not only carry out surveys for research agencies, but we are commonly hired by companies that have their own analysts. Our task is to collect the necessary data well.

How does such a survey come about? Do clients know in advance what the implementation entails?

In the beginning, you and the client define the aim and purpose of the survey. We prepare the topics we want to find out in the survey. Often our clients are clear about this and have the topics pre-determined with appropriate questions.

This is followed by the programming of the questionnaire in our IT department. The actual telephoning and data collection is carried out by our operators after the training that precedes each survey.

Once the survey is called, it is evaluated and compiled into graphical form, the results are interpreted and our clients can take further action if necessary. Since we work mostly with survey agencies, they handle the evaluation in-house.

How has technology impacted the telephone market research process in recent years? For example, can voicebot be used in surveys?

The times are changing, more and more surveys are being conducted using the CAWI method and therefore it is basically an online survey, usually on professional respondents. They are professional because they are paid for it.

Although new technologies such as voicebot can be used in surveys, respondents react very badly to bots and therefore companies do not use them either. At the same time, current technology does not yet allow for seamless interaction with a regular human. For example, a robot doesn’t understand sarcasm in a reply or if a human makes a mistake, it can’t correct it. For example, when a human says he was very satisfied, but gave a grade like in school for a five. The interviewer can check the answer or repeat the question.

Are you responding to rapidly changing trends and societal changes to keep surveys and information up-to-date for clients? Do you have any interesting findings that you have identified in CreditCall?

We work with agencies that constantly monitor social, economic and technological trends to keep surveys up-to-date. They use flexible survey methodologies to do this and regularly update instruments and questions to reflect current conditions and societal interests. These agencies then either employ or work with trend analysis specialists who help anticipate future changes and respond appropriately to them in our surveys.

Are the anonymity and confidentiality of respondents ensured in surveys, and are survey data processed ethically and in a privacy-compliant manner? For example, in the case of sensitive questions relating to social, health or financial aspects?

Our surveys are carried out on the so-called. generated database of telephone numbers, so we do not really know who we are talking to, which ensures the anonymity of the respondents. The data is deleted after each survey is conducted and completed. Our team is regularly retrained in GDPR and ethics to ensure we comply with all relevant legal and ethical standards.

Are there any specific tools and technologies that are used to analyse and visualise market research data? How do you ensure that this information is presented in a way that is understandable and useful to your clients?

We use our own software. It is a unique advanced software solution. Statistical software and other big data processing tools, including data visualization software, are then used for post-processing and data analysis. These tools allow us to efficiently process and present data in a way that is understandable and useful to our clients. However, we do not use them for our own purposes, that is done by our clients – the research agencies.

What is statistical error, confidence interval and why do they matter?

Statistical error represents the potential measurement error in the data that results from using a small sample instead of the entire population. Thus, for example, 1000 respondents are telephoned instead of telephoning the whole population, i.e. 5.5 million inhabitants. The confidence interval is the range of values within which we expect the true values to lie with a certain probability. Both of these concepts are critical to data interpretation because they provide information about the accuracy and reliability of the results obtained.

The general public may feel that survey results are influenced by who commissioned them? This is especially the view that circulates in political polls.

We guarantee that our data and surveys are objective and independent, regardless of who commissioned them. While the commissioner may define the objectives of the survey, we maintain strict methodological and ethical standards to ensure that the results are not influenced by the commissioner.

When collecting data our operators, in any survey, certainly do not spoon-feed answers to respondents, nor do they discuss their or their own views with them.

What do you think are the key qualities that a successful interviewer should have? Should you give yourself any challenges when making phone calls?

Courtesy, courtesy, ability to listen attentively, record information correctly and be impartial. The interviewer cannot express his/her opinion on the respondent’s answers or have a discussion with the respondent. He must record what he has been told.

How do you see the future of telephone market research in the digital era?

I fear that more and more assignments will be going online. In any case, there are industries and projects that cannot be done otherwise than by phone, or the price/result ratio is in favour of CATI. This is especially true for political surveys and so-called B2B surveys, i.e. surveys between companies.

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You can also read more about surveys in our blog Professional surveys: how are they done?

And you might be more interested in the article CreditCall Stories: Juraj Balogh, CEO

We will soon be publishing the stories of our two operators who are in the business of just calling surveys.