CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews)

Telephone survey research is one of the most common traditional market research methods. Today much of it is done by CATI systems in which the interviewer follows a script shown on the computer screen. Skip patterns and item grid rotation, both good survey practices, can be easily incorporated.

Customer phone number lists are fed into a CATI system. If telephone numbers are collected properly, it’s easy to extract a random sample. Interviewers are assigned a customer, the computer dials the number automatically, and the survey is administered as a script printed on the screen. As the customer answers questions, the interviewer records responses on the computer. Logic within the program then selects the next appropriate question.

A CATI-trained interviewer can easily and gracefully move from the survey to the explanation and back in a conversational manner. This helps respondent comprehension and minimizes data contamination as a result of accidentally ‘leading the respondent’, giving you better information.