Dear Editor,
The headline of your March 21 story “CRTC says survey research is still telemarketing” does not correctly tell the story of what the Commission actually decided.
Although it may seem to be splitting hairs, the CRTC already provides exemptions to survey research — “the exemption of survey calls from the Telemarketing Rules is contingent upon such calls being void of solicitation” — therefore, the Commission recognizes that survey research is not a synonym for telemarketing.
Most importantly, survey research calls were exempted from the need to respect the Do Not Call list: “calls made for the sole purpose of collecting information for a survey of members of the public were exempted from the application of prohibitions or requirements with respect to a national do not call list,” says the regulation
Clearly, there is already a recognition of the distinction between survey research and telemarketing.
We survey researchers make unsolicited calls. As a result, we are rightly subject to the “Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules (UTRs).”
However, the calls we make are not telemarketing.
The CRTC agrees and points out that as long as the sole purpose of the call is survey research, it’s exempt from the limitations put on calls that are telemarketing.
If I understand Ekos' position, one thing they were requesting was to more explicitly exempt survey research from the rules, but the CRTC worried that a company may try to mix survey questions with marketing on a call: “if these revisions were implemented, the collection of information for a survey of members of the public would no longer need to be the sole purpose of the call.”
I may not agree with the decision, but I respect their decision and can certainly continue to live with it.
Regardless, the industry faces some negative push-back at times because it is so often confused with telemarketing.
So, we’re a little sensitive to when that unfortunate blurring occurs.
I hope you can appreciate the distinction and why its important to those of us in the survey research industry and will edit the headline.
Doug Anderson
Earnscliffe Strategy Group
Editor’s note: We agree with this assessment of our headline and have edited it.
