We examine optimal time of day and day of week for conducting random digit dial (RDD) surveys in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Different types of survey respondents have competing time demands that influence when they are likely to be able and willing to answer the phone and complete...

When pandemic restrictions made face-to-face data collection too risky or costly in 2020, global poverty researchers started relying more heavily on mobile phone surveys, most often Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). These surveys provide several obvious benefits in terms of...

Response rates remain low in phone surveys compared to face-to-face data collection (see here for a similar brief on response rates). This is especially true for random digit dial (RDD) or similar “cold call” phone surveys, which are necessary in the absence of a sample frame of reliable...

This research methods brief presents data from random digit dial (RDD) surveys in nine countries. We show that response rates to such surveys are typically below 60 percent and can be as low as 7 percent. We also show that most of the sample is lost at two points in the survey: non-contact,...

A central challenge to telephone surveys is low response rates. This is particularly true for random digit dial (RDD) surveys, which have especially low response rates. For researchers designing RDD survey protocols, there is a clear tradeoff between effort and composition, where surveys can...