Robo Calls, Political Friend or Foe?

In the final weeks of this election, robo calls have received front page attention, in part due to the objection of some voters. Why do campaigns continue to swear by this method of voter contact when it receives so much bad publicity?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent headline in a national publication reads "Republicans Rain Negative Automated Calls on Voters in Swing States". This is just one of many articles pointing out the frustration some voters have with automated calls. With the robo call industry receiving so much negative press recently, one may wonder why political campaigns would ever use this medium. Could such a controversial voter contact method possibly benefit a campaign?

From the candidate's perspective, automated calls are an attractive choice for a variety of reasons, among which are quick response time and low cost, not to mention reducing a campaign's carbon footprint. Chris Kolker, founder of www.GOPcalls.com, states that, "No other medium lets a candidate immediately respond to their opponent's attack like robo calls. And with so many people concerned about the environment, this is one sure way to contact voters without a negative environmental impact caused by harvesting trees and adding to our landfills with all of those mail pieces. On the business side, our clients typically save over 80% by opting to use automated calls versus direct mail."

Along with the presidential election cycle each four years, comes a media focus on political ads, voter contact methods, public opinion polling and the like. Automated calls are no exception. "Inevitably, when millions of calls are made, some people will be upset, albeit a minority in comparison. These are the people you hear about in the news," says Kolker. When analyzing GOP Calls' historical call data, nearly 50% of voters listen to the entire automated message, including polls, with an average message length of 55 seconds. Of the people who hung up early, on average they listened to 22 seconds of the message.

The company experiences a response rate of over 30% for automated polls, similar to the response rate of 20-30% for live interview polls. In a test, voters are actually more willing to participate in an automated poll if the caller ID reads "Political Poll" than if the caller ID read "Unavailable". According to Kolker, "This fact alone shows that people are interested in voicing their opinion when it comes to political issues and they are quite responsive to automated polls. The numbers speak for themselves." Kolker says that the real indicator of public sentiment is on display when they do automated polling. "We don't have to rely on some political pundant to tell us what the voters think about these calls. The voters speak for themselves. When over 30% of the people we call participate in a long multi-question poll, that pretty much sums it up for me."

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Chris Kolker

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