Anne has been given the task of conducting a survey of

sales clerks who will be using a new order entry system

being developed for a household products catalog com-

pany. The goal of the survey is to identify the clerks

opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of the current

system. There are about 50 clerks who work in three

different cities, so a survey seemed like an ideal way of

gathering the needed information from the clerks.

Anne developed the questionnaire carefully and pretested it on several sales supervisors who were available at corporate headquarters. After revising it according to their suggestions, she sent a paper ver- sion of the questionnaire to each clerk, asking that it be returned within one week. After one week, she had only three completed questionnaires returned. After another week, Anne received just two more completed questionnaires. Feeling somewhat desperate, Anne then sent out an e-mail version of the questionnaire, again to all the clerks, asking them to respond to the questionnaire by e-mail as soon as possible. She received two e-mail questionnaires and three mes- sages from clerks who had completed the paper ver- sion expressing annoyance at being bothered with the same questionnaire a second time. At this point, Anne has just a 14% response rate, which she is sure will not please her team leader. What suggestions do you have that could have improved Annes response rate to the questionnaire?