Use bonus monetary incentives to encourage the web option in mixed-mode domestic surveys

It is well documented that respondents to an investigation prefer the paper-based response to the web, while the latter is the mode preferred by investigators.
The advantages of the web include relatively efficient costs, the absence of pressure on the interviewer and the ability to use sophisticated questionnaire tools such as complex branching, hypertext instructions, drop-down menus and visual aids.

How to get an increase in responses via the web without making this decrease the response rates to the questionnaires?

Pre-incentives: 
it has been found that a pre-incentive produces a greater response than a promise of final payment at the end of the questionnaire, even if the latter is much greater than the pre-incentive.

Pre and post incentive combinations: 
offering both a prior and unconditional incentive and one at the end of the questionnaire produces a very high response rate.

How will you provide post-incentives?

The "Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Household Pilots" experiment divided the subjects participating in the questionnaire into 4 protocols:

"Web only": only the web option is offered for all requests for completing the questionnaire.

"Web / paper": the web response is offered to the first application for compilation, while the paper option is provided on the second and third request.

"Choice": the choice between web and paper is free.

"Choice +": the choice between web and paper is free. An additional $ 10 incentive is promised if the web option is chosen instead of the paper option.
Each participant was guaranteed a pre-incentive of $ 5 and a prepaid premium at the end of the questionnaire.

Risultati:

RESPONSE: the highest rate of responses was achieved by the "Choice +". The "Web only" protocol has the minor.

Web option: the "Choice" option registered the 28% of web format preferences.
"Web / paper" registered the 64% of web builds with an incentive of $ 10, while the 71% with an incentive of $ 20. 
Choice + "registered 64% for the web.

Cost: The most expensive protocol is "Choice". It follows "Choice +", "Web / paper" and "Web only".

The results also showed that web responses are much higher among the 18-44 age subjects, among those with more income ($ 60.000 +) and in people living in urban environments.

In conclusion Choice + has the highest response rate and has led the 64% of subjects to choose the web. This strategy is more robust than the traditional choice option or the sequential web / paper form method.


Authors:
Paul P Biemer, Joe Murphy, Stephanie Zimmer, Chip BerryGrace Deng, Katie Lewis

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