Call Forwarding

Call forwarding is a feature on most U.S. and international telephone networks that allows an incoming call to be redirected to one or more other telephone numbers as directed by the subscriber. This feature is popular with individuals who want or need to be reached when they are not at home or want to avoid the delays inherent with answering machines and voice-mail. The use of call forwarding features can cause problems for telephone survey researchers. When an incoming call has been forwarded to another location, the called party may be less willing to participate in a survey at that location. When a call is forwarded to a cell phone in the United States, the called party will incur a cost in terms of dollars or minutes and may be in a location or other circumstance that is incompatible with survey participation.

Standard call forwarding transfers all calls from phone number A to phone number B. Special types of call forwarding are also available. Call forwarding can automatically route calls that are not answered within a designated number of rings or when the line is busy to another telephone number. Finally, call [Page 75]forwarding can transfer only those calls coming from a select set of telephone numbers. Remote access to call forwarding allows customers to activate or deactivate call forwarding from any telephone equipped with touch tone. In the North American Numbering Plan, vertical service codes, such as ∗ 72 for activation, are used to control call forwarding. Usually, the forwarded line rings once, to remind anyone there that calls are being redirected.

The fee structures associated with placing a call to a called party who has his or her number forwarded can be subtle. For example, in the United States, Person A in Pittsburgh calls Person B in Chicago, who has forwarded his calls to Person C in Los Angeles. Person A will be charged for a long-distance call from Pittsburgh to Chicago, and Person B will be charged for a long-distance call from Chicago to Los Angeles. Call forwarding from a landline number to a cell phone will result in additional costs to respondents and problems associated with location of the respondent at the time of contact. These charges and unexpected circumstances may make respondents less likely to cooperate in a survey when reached at a telephone number or location other than their residences. Since sample suppliers routinely remove numbers assigned to wireless services from their databases, most of the cell phones encountered in telephone surveys are likely the result of call forwarding. Researchers should attempt to identify these cell phones early in the interview process and offer alternative means for completing the interview.

Finally, call forwarding may mean that an interview is completed in a location other than that associated with the telephone number dialed. For example, in the case of the areas affected by the hurricanes of 2005, call forwarding was included in the list of waived services that customers of BellSouth could consider using during their displacement. Also, a telephone company sometimes briefly uses call forwarding to reroute calls from an old number to a new number after a customer moves or ports his or her number to a new provider.

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