Research Services
Telephone Methodology
We have a purpose-built Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing (CATI) Unit with 26 stations and 3 supervisors.
Quality is assured with all supervisory staff able to remotely monitor any interviewer station by both listening to the interview and watching how the answers are recorded. All interviewer's are regularly monitored and appraised by supervisory staff and meet the IQCS standards.
Our CATI software enables us to ensure the demands of our clients and adapt to any new requirements. We consider our software allows for both speed and flexibility during the setup process. It provides us with the ability to include complex rules and skips as well as being able to closely monitor sample status and apply multi dimensional quotas.
When the survey is completed the data can be immediately imported into an appropriate analysis package (primarily SPSS) where our executives will produce tabulations which can be provided to clients in either a paper format or a standard electronic file such as SNAP, Excel, SPSS, PDF, Word or even HTML. The advantage of an in-house unit is the ability to provide reports almost immediately after interviewing is completed.
Our unit has established a reputation for conducting retail surveys to establish the level of demand for new store sites, cinemas and leisure facilities. This type of research can establish current shopping habits for both food and other goods including expenditure levels, types of transport used, reasons consumers select or reject a particular store or centre. We also conduct a diverse range of other consumer surveys and have recently dealt with topics including banking services, the police force and housing.
We also use our unit to conduct business-to-business research as the telephone is an efficient way to reach senior managers and directors of companies. Senior personnel can more easily be persuaded to participate in a telephone survey as our CATI system enables us to provide a flexible appointment system. Previously booked interviews can even be postponed or suspended to fit into their work schedule without the expense of canceling a face-to-face interviewer. It is often appropriate for business respondents to receive an initial letter explaining the reasons for the survey as this can increase their willingness to participate and with our on-site printing and mailing facilities this is easy to arrange.
Clients considering using our CATI service are welcome to visit our unit and see a survey in progress (subject to other client's confidentiality) and are welcome to spend time listening to their own research being conducted.