Low response rate has been considered as a matter in a survey. Even though researcher has applied techniques to enhance the response rate, they very often still experience low rate of response. This paper tries to share the challenging experience in dealing with low response rate in the context of international business research. This is a questionnaire survey of small firms in Indonesia that were doing business abroad. The results show that it is more important to select the most effective survey method rather than techniques to enhance response rate in order to deal with local condition. Survey by knocking the door is found to be the best suited alternative for maximizing the response rate.