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March 31, 2020
Why There is a Need of Public Opinion Polling
The current population is divided, and it has become almost impossible to accurately hypothesis how the general public feels on a certain topic, issue or current event. Researchers have turned to Public Opinion Polling, defined as “a scientific, nonbiased public opinion poll is a type of survey or inquiry designed to measure the public’s views regarding a particular topic or series of topics .” In short, public opinion research surveys cross-sections of RANDOM people, in hopes of accurately predicting a general opinion or attitude. When everyone in a survey frame has an equal chance of participating, the survey would not be considered to have selection bias.
How Public Opinion Polls Work:
Public Opinion Polling asks the same exact questions to participants then a representative sample is used to generalize the specific population being studied. These polls are important because it shows us how a population feels and thinks about a certain topic. The most popular ways to conduct opinion polls are typically face to face or over the phone. Other methods include mail, online, and self-administered surveys. RICS focuses on the “phone interviews” and conduct the surveys a few ways:
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – the caller never speaks to a human and they answer questions by pressing numbers on their phone keypad.
- IVR to Web – The caller answers a few questions on the IVR to indicate they are qualified, then finish the survey online.
- IVR to Live Agent – The caller answers a few questions on the IVR to indicate they are qualified, then finish with a live agent.
Benefits of Public Opinion Polls
There are many advantages to using opinion polls. They are quick to administer, can be cost-effective and can be conducted remotely and across various modes (via web, phone, mail, etc.). Another one of the major benefits is that a wide range of information can be collected (attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviour), and because they are standardized, they are relatively free from several types of errors. Lastly, statisticians can utilize techniques to determine validity, reliability, and statistical significance, even when analyzing multiple variables. These scientific polls are different than others because the WHOLE population has the chance to answer the survey.
When everyone in the population has the opportunity to answer the survey, it becomes a “representative” study and can be generalized to represent that whole population. This is unlike other polls that are conducted on social media or entertainment platforms. For example, when a radio or TV station asks listeners to call in to vote on a particular issue, the results are not representing the entire population, it is only representing the specific individuals that listen to that radio or TV station and were actually motivated to call in. In order to represent the entire population, the sample must be available to everyone; survey participants also must be chosen at random, there can be no bias when choosing the sample.
How One Can Use This Service
There are many ways that one can use Public Opinion Polls; the most popular use is when government elections come around. Many companies use public opinion polls to estimate the likelihood of one candidate winning over another. Whether it is for the primaries, local elections or an actual Presidential Election, it is a great tool to monitor the public.
Another great example is when it comes to “surveillance”. The current COVID-19 virus is spreading like wildfire across the country and individuals are being forced to stay at home. RICS has surveyed individuals to try and monitor the public’s health, perceptions, beliefs, etc. Click here to see the COVID-19 results.
April 22, 2019
Back to the Future: Why Cost-Effective, High Quality Research is Within our Grasp
By :Simon Chadwick
Publication:
Greenbook Blog
Quotable Quotes :
- Time to take our collective heads out of the sand and recognize that there are methods out there that cost-effectively and actively improve the quality and accuracy of research. One such method is Redirected Inbound Calling Sample (RICS).
- The average cooperation rate (For RICS) is 6 – 8% and the resulting sample the closest thing to DFRDD outbound phone research, with an accuracy of results to match.
September 15, 2018
Effect of Noise and Light on Sleep in New York City
By :New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Publication:
EPI Data Brief
Quotable Quotes :
- More than one third of New Yorkers (39% or an estimated 2,494,000 adults) had frequent noise-related sleep disturbances (sleep disturbed by noise three or more nights per week.
- Three in four New Yorkers with noise-related sleep disturbance also had difficulty concentrating due to poor sleep.
March 29, 2018
Facebook users join call for regulation, survey finds
By :Nick Wells
Publication:
CNBC
Quotable Quotes :
- Most Facebook users say they support some governmental regulation of the use and distribution of personal data on social media, according to a survey conducted exclusively for CNBC by Reconnect Research.
- I think people are basically optimistic,” said Scott Richards, CEO of Reconnect. “They’re optimistic that the company will do anything they need to get it right.
January 18, 2018
Football protests could hurt Super Bowl LII viewership
By :Jessica Golden | Nick Wells | Eric Chemi
Publication:
CNBC
Quotable Quotes :
- Roughly the same number of Americans plan to watch the Super Bowl this year as last year, according to a separate survey this week by Reconnect Research. The company conducted a telephone survey of Americans and found that 44 percent said they watched last year’s Super Bowl, and 43 percent said they plan to watch this year.
- Reconnect Research’s poll results are based on a telephone survey reaching 10,000 people living in the United States on Jan. 17, 2018. Respondents were randomly selected.
October 5, 2017
Most Americans are in the dark about their tax bill, but think Trump’s plan won’t help
By :Nick Wells | Eric Chemi
Publication:
CNBC “The Big Crunch”
Quotable Quotes :
- CNBC commissioned two different firms to run this analysis: Reconnect Research, which conducted a phone survey, and marketing company Fluent, which conducted an online poll. Each company asked slightly different questions, but the overall results matched up.
- when asked to guess which tax bracket they were in, people were off. About 60 percent of respondents to Reconnect’s poll said they pay “around 20 percent” or less of their income in taxes, but the facts show, most people pay a lot less.
- Reconnect’s poll was conducted by telephone on Oct. 2 and 3, 2017, among 1,004 adults in the U.S.
March 30, 2017
GRIT CPR REPORT 2017 Global Respondent Engagement Study
By :Leonard Murphy, Executive Editor & Producer, Greenbook
Publication:
GreenBook
Quotable Quotes :
- AYTM – Ask Your Target Market, Dalia, Focus Pointe Global, G3 Translate, GRBN, the Global Research Business Network, reportbook by IfaD, Lightspeed, Mobile Digital Insights (MDI), Multivariate Solutions, RECOLLECTIVE (Ramius Corporation), Reconnect Research, Research Now, SSI, Toluna, and Virtual Incentives all joined us at GreenBook in fielding this new GRIT CPR (Consumer Participation in Research) study in March of 2017.
- The groundbreaking study was conducted in 15 countries and 8 languages among 6,208 consumers via online, telephone, and mobile-only surveys
October 27, 2016
The Wall Street Journal
By :Ryan Knustson
Quotable Quotes: Pew and research firm RTI International now are analyzing the feasibility of Mr. Richards’ idea of inviting people to take a survey when they misdial telephone numbers or reach one that is unavailable because of some network glitch. Doing this seems to collect an evenly distributed sample that doesn’t require much weighting, said Karol Krotki, a senior research statistician at RTI.
September 5, 2016
Reconnect Research is Resurrecting Telephone Research in the Age of AI
By :Leonard Murphy, Executive Editor & Producer, Greenbook
Publication:
Greenbook Blog
Quotable Quotes :
- As an old school telephone and IVR researcher who thought the best days of those approaches were a decade in the past, I am thrilled to find out that I am wrong and that Scott and his team are innovating to make them an important part of the researcher toolbox again
- they might have found the magic bullet to make it (telephone research) not just relevant again, but perhaps even a game changer.
- Reconnect Research (has) truly randomized and representative sample of virtually the entire U.S. adult population.
April 12, 2016
Reconnect robodialing is helping presidential polls
By :Eric Chemi | Nick Wells
Publication:
CNBC “The Big Crunch” election Edition
Quotable Quotes :
- (RICS) polling was the most accurate in measuring Democrat Hillary Clinton’s performance. She received 64.4 percent of the vote, and (RICS) poll…had her at 65 percent.It beat the results of polls from CBS News/YouGov and Quinnipiac. Of seven polls compared, (RICS) was tops. That’s impressive given there was not any post-survey weighting that happened. These were just the raw numbers.
- And it (RICS) allows pollsters to access cellphones automatically, because the surveyrespondents are the ones who made the initial call.