Editor’s note: "War Stories" is a regular feature in which Art Shuhnan, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches.
Dave McKamey of Western WATS recalls a political sur-vey his company conducted last year in Texas. Dialing randomly generated numbers, one of the interviewers reached a man who seemed very disturbed that he had been called. The man bellowed, "Do you have any idea who you have called? Do you realize you have called me on the Red Phone? The RED PHONE! Only the President of the United States calls me on the Red Phone!"
Apparently the man was a general, whose number was randomly selected. The conscientious interviewer continued, "I appreciate that, sir, but do you want to do the survey anyway? Your opinion counts too."
The man replied, "No, but I’ll call the FBI if you ever call me again!"
Some respondents, bless their hearts, are exceptionally polite, to the extent of being reluctant to ever interrupt the interviewer. I was reminded of this when monitoring a recent study. The interviewer asked, "Which of the following groups best describes your total household income?" She proceeded to read all the income categories - under $20,000, $20,000 to $29,999, $30,000 to $39,999, and so on. It was only after she’d finished reading the final of nine alternatives - $150,000 and over - that the respondent said, "The first one you read, under $20,000."
Ron Sellers of Ellison Research reports attending a focus group in Phoenix where Chinese food was served to the clients. The head of advertising for a major bank was enjoying his meal immensely, until he sensed something unusual about the crunchiness of the fried rice, and pulled a cricket leg out of his mouth. Needless to say dinner ended prematurely. They didn’t explore what might have happened to the rest of the cricket.
Beth Mattar of Motorsearch was conducting a large-scale automotive clinic in a distant city and hired local people to staff the clinic. On the first day of training, they went through a detailed orientation for the 60-some people who filled the various clinic positions. For an hour and a half, Mattar presented the study objectives, individual job descriptions, roles and regulations, etc. This was followed by a 30-minute question and answer period. Next they split everyone up into their specific groups to provide further detail on their individual job responsibilities.
Everyone was paired with a supervisor except for one elderly man with a quizzical look on his face and a piece of paper clutched in his hand. "I think there’s been a mistake," he said quietly, passing the invitation to Mattar. Glancing at the invitation, which bore the next day’s date, Mattar quickly realized what had happened: the man had come at the right time, just a day early!
She gave him his $50 incentive check, thanked him and sent him home.
Murray Simon of D/R/S Health Care Consultants says that as a health care marketing researcher, he sometimes finds himself in the position of having to explain to his clients something technical that was said during a focus group or individual interview. This particular task was made rather difficult one night during a focus group with surgeons on the subject of prostate cancer.
One of the respondents was Hispanic and although he was very articulate, he spoke with a heavy accent and used Spanish colloquialisms quite freely. At one point he made the statement, "When you cut off their cojones, they are not too happy about it."
During the debrief after the group, one of Simon’s clients, a young woman, asked if he would explain the technical medical term used by one of the doctors ... and here she checked her notes ... "carrones or collonies."
Simon reports that some technical explanations are easier than others.
Susan Meyer, whose company, National Shopping Service, performs mystery shopping, reports two more reasons her shoppers have given for not completing their shops:
"There’s a tornado watch right now."
"It’s 25 degrees below zero and the policeman told me I’d best go home." In future issues, we’ll report on more quirky, loopy and strange happenings in the world of market research.