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Refusal Conversions, Some Results

We just completed a month of data collection on the RDD survey that is running my experiment on call scheduling. I discussed an interesting problem in a previous post. Basically, the algorithm seems to work for calls prior to any refusal. But it is actually less efficient for calls made after an initial refusal (i.e. refusal conversion calls).

One hypothesis about why this occurred was that the person who refused would be screening calls and would not pick up if they saw that we were calling again. The model, which is tuned to contact, might lead you to call back during the same call window as that in which the first refusal was taken. If you call during another call window, you might reach another person in the household or, perhaps, the person who refused would be less likely to be screening calls.

The change was to make the window in which the first refusal occurred the lowest priority window.

The results were... no change (12.0% contact rate for controls, 10.1% for experimental group). The control group was still more efficient than the experimental group at contacting refusal conversion cases.

I had one other thought. Could it be that the algorithm is not allowing less time between the refusal and the conversion attempt? This is a parameter in our sample management system, and it should lead to a minimum lag time. But it is possible the algorithm was creating a difference in the lag time between first refusal and the first conversion attempt. Alas, the following table shows this is probably not the case.

Back the drawing board...
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