In Finland, consumer (barometer) survey is widely recognised as an important tool for forecasting consumer behaviour as well as cyclical movements. Statistics Finland’s interviewers conduct the telephone interviews monthly in accordance with the harmonised EU data collection method. Survey suffers from increasing non-response rate. Statistics Finland has set up a web survey pilot project concerning the EU Consumer Survey to be carried out in March 2011. The main task of the project is to find out: – What mixed mode data collection requires from practical arrangements, such as questionnaire design, – What costs and/or cost savings the combined collection brings about,- What effects the combined collection has on the quality and results of the survey.Special attention has been given to sample design in the preparatory work. The sample size of the pilot project is 4,000 (which is more than that of the basic survey, 2,200). A telephone number can be found for around 65 to 70 per cent of the targets (2,600-2,800). Of these one half (1,300-1,400) are selected at random, and they will be both web and telephone targets. The remaining (2,600-2,700) will be only web targets.Blaise IS is used as the web questionnaire, Blaise Cati for telephone interviews. The time for answering on the web is two to three weeks. An accompanying letter with web login information is sent to the targets before the beginning of the survey, and a reminder to those not having responded.
When analysing the results, attention is paid to the response shares and response distributions between web and telephone targets.