This afternoon I got a phone call from a woman saying she was conducting a survey about energy consumption. Before she got any further I asked, “How long does the survey take?”
“About 20 minutes.”
I figured it wouldn’t hurt to cooperate so I said fine. Here’s the entire duration of the survey:
Her: “Are you the person who makes decisions regarding the use of energy in your household?”
Me: “Yes, I am.”
Her: “Ok, that concludes our survey, thank you.”
Me:
Our entire conversation took under a minute, including her intro spiel. There was no attempt to sell me anything or get any information. Whether they were doing a legitimate survey or a scam I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to talk to the decision-maker.
So what were they up to?
It was a survey to see (a) who would ask “How long does this survey take?” and the answer they give is “About 20 minutes.” and (b) who hangs up or says “no” after hearing this answer.
That’s why the phone call was under a minute because they have to make many calls for their survey. It’s a meta-survey.
She would’ve kept asking 20 minutes worth of pointless questions to see how much energy the average energy user wastes until they hung up. But since you cut to the chase, she asked the only question needed, then marked you down as “disturbingly wasteful”… Ironically cutting energy costs.
My WAG is that they were looking to survey a particular demographic; men. or women, or immigrants, or whatever. It’s possible she decided just from the tone of your voice that you weren’t the type of person they were looking for.
One other thing – I once took a temp job doing phone surveys, and they told me to answer “5 to 10 minutes” of someone asked how long it took. It actually took more than twenty. That’s one reason I didn’t last even a full day at that job – practically the first thing I was told was to lie to people. I walked out at lunch time and didn’t come back.
The moral of that story is “Don’t believe what they tell you about how long it will take”.
I think they would have given a shorter time estimate if that was the intention.
It does sound kind of odd that being the decision maker would disqualify you from the survey.
The most likely reason is the caller had to be interrupted for something. The survey company may have just concluded a survey that brought them to the max they would be paid for and the computer terminated the process right then, or she had to go to the bathroom.
Seriously, I make all the energy decisions in my household. What does that mean in practice?
Replacing burned out incandescents with fluorescents. That’s pretty much it. And the GODDAMNED government is taking away my right to make even that choice!
Maybe you’re obviously the opposite gender of who they want to speak to as the one making decisions? It could be about something besides energy use, more sociological.
