Research relevance

A growing number of people are embracing wireless/mobile phones, establishing new categories of telephone users in the process. These include households where no landline is present, wireless/mobile dominant households where landlines are used as a backup and infrequently, and mixed households with both used frequently.

Telephone sampling is widely used because it has been the most practical way to capture a truly representative cross-section of the population. But telephone sampling today without a wireless/mobile component can miss large segments of a demographic -- particularly younger age groups, males, minorities, and others.

Balanced sampling

SSI offers a wireless/mobile phone component for researchers who want to help balance their telephone surveys, or who want to reach hard-to-find segments of the population. This offering reduces the potential of coverage bias by providing researchers with two equivalent, complementary, and non-overlapping sampling frames. 

SSI wireless/mobile sampling is presently available in 9 countries:

• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Spain
• United Kingdom
• United States

SSI can help you understand the nuances and legalities of wireless/mobile sampling

Wireless/mobile sampling has its own set of laws and accepted practices, which vary by country and culture. SSI can assist you by providing consultative expertise and documentation which, in combination with industry and legal guidance from your own sources, can help to create your wireless/mobile sampling best practices.

With telephone sampling in the US, it is possible to automatically call a set of randomly generated telephone numbers. However, with wireless/mobile, although the numbers can be randomly generated, the numbers must be manually dialed according to law.

In addition, people answer calls from unknown parties more often on their wireless/mobile than on their telephone landline, as they expect to know the caller. Therefore, providing proper identification and the legitimate purpose of the call must be immediate or consumer anger, dissatisfaction, and complaints can result.

Emerging practices

Marketing research leveraging wireless/mobile phones is rapidly evolving. SSI will continue to be at the forefront of this phenomenon by working with key clients and agencies to conduct research on research, and by helping to define and promote industry standards. In addition, we bring our decade of online sampling expertise and three decades of telephone sampling know-how to this emerging field of survey research.

To view The Pew Research Center US research study "Calling Cell Phones in '08 Pre-Election Polls," click here.