Telephone Interviewing / CATI

Telephone interviewing – the advantages

Telephone interviewing is widely used in New Zealand, both for business and consumer surveys.  It is often referred to as CATI, or “Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing”. At 96%, the incidence of telephones in New Zealand households is amongst the highest in the world, providing us with the opportunity to obtain an excellent, representative random sample by telephone, at cost-effective rates.

Telephone interviewing – the disadvantages

Telephone interviewing has three key disadvantages which must be considered before selecting this interviewing methods:

1. The first is that any survey which targets those in the very low socio-economic groups, especially Maori and Pacific Island households, will suffer from the fact that telephone ownership is lower with these groups.  This results in an less-representative sample, which has to be weighed up against the cost benefits of using telephone interviewing.
2. Secondly, telephone interviews should be kept relatively short.  Our rule of thumb is usually 20 minutes at the most.  If longer interviews are necessary it is always  prudent to set appointments to call back.
3. Thirdly, telephone interviewing cannot usually use visual prompts.  However, in some cases these may be used, for example by sending through the prompt materials prior to a pre-arranged interview time.  Couriers are best for residential sampling, but if possible, faxed or emailed documents may be used for business interviewing.