Your Opinion Counts

Companies and institutions want to know how you view their products and services. Some want feedback on critical social issues so they can better meet your needs. By answering survey questions, you make your opinions known to the people who have the power to make the changes you want. Your answers to survey research questions influence many decisions that affect you as a consumer and a citizen. Survey research is an important part of any democratic society, allowing people to express their views on political and social issues, as well as on products and services.

Respondent Bill of Rights

Your participation in legitimate survey research is very important. Therefore, our relationship will be one of respect and consideration, based on the following practices:

-Your privacy and the confidentiality of your answers will be respected and maintained.

-Your name, address, personal information, answers, or responses will never be disclosed to anyone outside the research industry without your permission.

-You will always be told the name of the person contacting you, the name of the research company, and the nature of the survey.

-You will be contacted at reasonable times, but if the time is inconvenient, please ask to be re-contacted at a more convenient time.

-Your decision to participate in a study, answer specific questions, or discontinue your participation will be respected without question.

-You are assured that the highest standards of professional conduct will be upheld in the collection and reporting of information you provide.

Our Commitment to Maintaining Respondent Confidentiality

Information obtained through research is provided to research sponsores without individual identification. Researchers will never divulge your identity. Researchers will never sell or give your name or phone number to anyone else. No one will ever contact you as a result of your participation in a survey except, perhaps, a data collection supervisor to validate that you did in fact participate.

Our Commitment to Privacy

The goal of the research industry is to strike a balance between the need for information to improve people's lives and protecting the privacy of the people who participate in such research. Hence, interviewers will always identify themselves and state the reason for their call at the beginning of each survey. Research interviewers are tasked to be courteous and to respect your time by calling back at a more convenient time if necessary. They will answer your questions as completely as possible and politely honor your decision not to participate in a particular research study if you so choose.

Differences between Research and Sales

While both the research industry and sales-related industries use the same mediums to conduct their business (i.e., telephone, mail, internet, email), there are some important differences.

-Sales-related industries want to sell you something.

-A survey researcher simply wants to ask your opinion.