Skip to content
An official website of the OECD. Find out more
Log In | Register |
Created by the Public Governance Directorate

This website was created by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), part of the OECD Public Governance Directorate (GOV).

How to validate authenticity

Validation that this is an official OECD website can be found on the Innovative Government page of the corporate OECD website.

Behavioural Insights Projects

Submit a project

Boosting Survey Response Rates

General Information

Project description

Telephone surveys were prefaced by a brief message reminding businesses that they had previously committed to participate.

Detailed information

Final report: Is there a final report presenting the results and conclusions of this project?

Yes

Final report

See the final report

Hypothesis

Test different opening messages to a 16-minute long telephone survey with 7,000 small businesses from the Growth Vouchers program

How hypothesis was tested

BIS used behavioral insights to develop and test different opening messages to a 16-minute long telephone survey with 7,000 small businesses from the Growth Vouchers program.[1]

In addition to the original message, they developed four new messages, including:

Commitment mechanism message: used historic commitment
“You agreed to take part in a short telephone interview when you applied to take part in the Growth Voucher Programme in [DATE]. We would now like to interview you about your experience and what has happened in your business since.”
Reciprocity message: used willingness to “repay a favour”
“You received [an online diagnostic assessment/a voucher worth £2,000/a £2,000 subsidy toward business advice] from the Growth Voucher Programme in [DATE]. We would like to hold a short telephone interview with you about your experience and what has happened in your business since.”
Two other messages included a simplified version of the original message, and a social norm message that drew on “herding” effects to try and increase survey completion rates.

Dependent variables

Survey response rate

Analyses

Comparison between conditions

Sample Size. How many observations will be collected or what will determine sample size?

7,000 small businesses from the Growth Vouchers program.

🇬🇧

United Kingdom

London

Who is behind the project?

Institution: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Team: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)

Project status:

Completed

Methods

Methodology: Experiment, Field Experiment
Could you self-grade the strength of the evidence generated by this study?: 1

What is the project about?

Policy area(s): Administration
Topic(s): Compliance
Behavioural tool(s): Commitment Device, Framing, Reminders

Date published:

24 June 2021

Comments are closed.