Introduction: Over the last decades, response rates XE "response rates" in market and social surveys have been declining continuously. Given that the response rate is one of the most critical methodological issues, a special conference aimed at professionals from the top agencies in market research was devoted to this topic in 2008. The conference title was: Where have all the respondents gone? All participants observed a serious loss in respondents' cooperation (AMA and SPSS 2008), although there was no agreement on which response rate level is still acceptable: governments demand 85 %, academics accept about 50 % for their publications, and for an average marketing study 20 % seems to be a good level. At the end of the conference, a discussion took place on how to engage with selected people and make them want to interact with interviewers. This discussion culminated in a call for investigating and working out the basics of how to interact with people in today's world.