You know the drill. You're sitting comfy on your favorite chair, zoning in front of the TV and you get a phone call from some stranger wanting you to take a survey. When this happens, you have several options.

1. Take the survey.
2. Politely decline and politely end the conversation.
3. Politely decline and hang up.
4. Rudely decline and hang up.
5. Hang up.
6. Scream insults at the surveyor and hang up.
7. Make the whole thing a joke.

Let's go in order, shall we?

1. Take the survey.
Seriously. Just take the dumb thing. Sometimes they can last for a while, but not only are you contributing to an official poll (y'know, the kind where you see results quoted in newspapers), you're often giving extremely useful information to local companies with the purpose of bettering service and products. Bonus: you're also helping the phone surveyor keep his job.


General pointers about taking a survey:

• Answer the question only, and in the vernacular the surveyor provides. If the possible responses include "yes", "no" or "I don't know", don't say "Well, I like it because of this and I don't like it because of this". There is no way to record that extraneous information, and it will only make your time on the phone last longer. If the surveyor does ask you to expound, talk away! – but remember the surveyor is typing everything you say, so try not to go too fast.

• Don't give ranged answers. 99% of the time, the surveyor can only input a single specific answer.

• Try to speak clearly. Call centers are usually very loud and the surveyor can only turn his phone volume up so much.

• Sometimes it might sound like you're being asked the same question over and over again. Survey authors will often do just that, because asking the same question slightly differently will yield more answers and detail. Be patient, the surveyor doesn't much like the repetition either!

• Don't interrupt the surveyor in the middle of a question. You might very well be right in assuming what the rest of the question is, but often the last few words can change your answer completely.

Here's the thing. A telephone surveyor is paid based on how many surveys he completes. If he gets none (or not enough), it's minimum wage and job probation. If he continues to get too few surveys, he'll be fired. Further, if he gets enough surveys to keep his job, pay is on a sliding scale. Surveyors can make anything between minimum wage and $3.50/hour more, depending entirely on how many surveys are completed.


Excuses to not take a survey include:

• Busy. This includes everything from "I'm eating dinner" to "I'm getting ready to leave the house" to "I'm doing yardwork" etc.
• I dun wanna.
• An issue with the surveyor himself. Annoying voice, rude demeanor, etc.
• I don't want to give out any personal information over the phone.
• I'm unfamiliar with/not interested in the topic.
• Belief that he's actually selling something, it's not just a survey.

Often, the reason people don't want to take surveys is because they're busy with something else. And y'know, that's perfectly fine! The surveyor can call again and try to catch you when you're not busy.

I dun wanna? Seriously? Most surveys take no more than ten to fifteen minutes, and many only five. I've done surveys that had a grand total of ten questions plus two demographic questions, lasting a whole two minutes. If you're really in an antisocial mood or whatever mood it is that makes you disinterested, then at least end the conversation politely. Otherwise, take the survey!

If you have an issue with the surveyor, you have a couple of options. You can come up with some excuse to hang up and then be called back later, or, if the surveyor is being exceptionally rude, you can request to speak with his supervisor. In fact, please do so! A rude surveyor gives every other surveyor a bad reputation, and he's not going to change his ways until the boss gives him what for.

Being wary of giving personal information out over the phone is perfectly logical, especially with so many scams out there. In legitimate surveys however, there is a professional organization that is collecting the information, and if the surveyor doesn't mention it immediately, you can always ask for it. In addition, you will never be asked for personally identifiable information beyond your first name. Most of the time there are demographic questions that can include age, race, income, marital status, political affiliation, education and more, but these are not associated with your name or phone number. It's a statistical thing: "Statistics show that low-income individuals are more likely to vote in such-and-such a way." Where do you think that information comes from?

Besides, you are always free to refuse individual answers – and it doesn't affect the surveyor's pay. Surveyors almost always have that option, but aren't allowed to read it.

If you have no idea what the surveyor is talking about ("The survey is about the application of astrophysics."), take the survey anyway! The company collecting the information wants to know that you don't know about the subject.


2-7. Everything else.
If you do not want to take the survey, I beg you, be polite to the surveyor! People have a tendency to forget that the voice on the other end of the phone belongs to a living, feeling human being. Being rude is a sadly common thing, and it's what makes surveyors hate their job. In these economic times, you take the job that's offered to you, never mind the constant abuse and often vitriol surveyors have to deal with.

Let me make one thing very, very clear. In all instances in which you don't take the survey you will be called back. (The same applies for telemarketing.) As a telephone surveyor, from day one it was drilled into my head to never take people off the calling list, with only two exceptions: if the person is extremely abusive or if they ask specifically to be put on the 'Do Not Call' list. Not "take me off your list", not "never call me again", but "put me on your 'Do Not Call' list". Regarding the abuse, the rules are almost as specific – the person must be screaming obscenities and insults before they are put on the Do Not Call list.

This is not an invitation to abuse the next person who calls you. In short, it's a plea to be kind to the surveyors that call you (they're human, remember?), and to answer their questions if you can.

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For those of you TL;DR-ers out there, the long and short is this: if you get a call for a telephone survey, take it! – or, end the conversation politely. Hanging up on people is bad.