How Reconnect Research is Resurrecting Telephone Research In The Age Of AI

My first job in market research was in 2001 as Director of Call Center Operations for a healthcare-focused MR firm. We did NCQA CAHPS studies using a rigid CATI sampling method, and we sold excess capacity as a field & tab provider for other research companies. We also were bidding on many government studies such as the CDC BRFSS, so I was receiving a crash course in sample theory and applying very hardcore probability sampling models to the studies we were conducting. I had come from a customer service call center operations management background, so I knew how useful IVR (Interactive Voice Response) could be and was exploring if there was a role for that technology in a research paradigm, and through that effort was recruited by my vendor, DialTek, to become their VP of Operations. DialTek did outbound (they still power the polling of Rasmussen Reports) and inbound (lots of satisfaction surveys when calling into a customer service line) IVR surveys, and during my time there we experimented with using it as a recruitment tool for qual, to build online panels, as a partial solution to streamline phone surveys, etc… In other words, I know the technology very well and understand the best uses cases for it.