What are CATI or phone surveys? CATI (phone surveys) are those surveys that are conducted over a phone call. It is taken by professional interviewers who follow a scripted questionnaire and asks survey questions from customers. Why aren't phone surveys successful? While it is still used by many organizations, especially in Asia, phone surveys are not an effective way of surveying and with many limitations. - Takes weeks to gather the feedback - Offers low data quality - Agents who ask the questions from the participants need to be trained - Has low response rate - Not effective for concept or ad testing - Takes weeks to analyze feedback and create reports - Expensive even for a small sample Where are phone surveys helpful? - To gather qualitative customer feedback - To gather feedback from people with no knowledge of technology or access to the internet Where are phone surveys not helpful? - To gather quantitative customer feedback - To run product tests, concept tests, ad test So what is the alternative? ONLINE SURVEYS What are online surveys? Online surveys are the surveys that are sent via feedback platforms on channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, email, in-app, or chatbot to gather feedback from participants across the world. How are online surveys better? Here are some of the factors that show why organizations shifted from telephone surveys to online surveys. 1. Agent training Agent training is a must in CATI surveys. The agents are trained to understand the problems of the participants deeply and be empathetic towards them. Thus, the company can take action on the feedback accordingly. 2. Make a short questionnaire Make a short questionnaire because no one has enough time to answer long questions. Apart from phone surveys, Online surveys ask straightforward questions and work at customers’ convenience. 3. Visual questionnaire you cannot do concept testing or ad research where you might want to play a video or any kind of visual to know the response of the participants. 4. Feedback timeline Online surveys - launch a survey and gather instant feedback. CATI/ phone surveys - take weeks to gather all the responses. This leads to a gap between the participants’ problems and the brand’s actions. 5. Processing the data Processing the phone survey data takes days. On the other hand, the feedback platform processes online survey data in minutes and shares quick reports. 6. Cost CATI surveys are charged on the basis of a number of calls which is expensive i.e. $5-10 per call. However, the cost of online surveys is half of the cost of phone surveys. 7. Feedback relevancy Online surveys let the participants fill the survey at their convenience, leading to honest and reliable feedback. In phone surveys, participants need to answer the questions at the time of the call and at the pace of the agent. This sometimes leads to irrelevant and dishonest responses.

1. Are Telephone/ CATI
surveys dead?
April 2022

2. Agenda
What is CATI?
Problems with CATI
Where is it still helpful?
How online surveys will replace CATI and Why?
How companies like Daimler, Indomobil, Manulife, and more are getting
real-time feedback and saving 70% cost by using online surveys.
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3. What are CATI or Telephone Surveys?
CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) or Telephone surveys are
the interviews where skilled interviewers asked their target audience
questions regarding their research, experience, brand, or product over a
phone call.
I think you all know that
But have you ever received a CATI Survey?
Did you like it?
Many times when I am in a meeting, I receive them. and I would simply
disconnect it.
I have even received the ones where people ask me to rate them good? -
Really? Is this a good Customer Experience?
On top of that would you like someone to ask you 20 questions over a call
when you’re busy?- Poll 2

4. So, when you do not like these surveys, why do you think your
customers would like them?
A Survey is also a touchpoint for your customer.
Why would you do something to piss them off?
I understand they would be required when your audience is
above the age of 50, or they don’t have internet access. But for
audiences between the age of 20-50 why would you call them
for simple surveys like CSAT?
What are CATI or Telephone Surveys?

5. Now, let’s discuss some problems with CATI Surveys?
External Interviewers don’t know about your business and neither they
care
For every survey, you need to train the field agents or interviewers to do the survey, do you think 1-hour discussion
with them makes them understand everything about your business?
Quality of data is low
When customers get confused about a question, interviewers don’t know how to respond, customers get
frustrated and interviewers fill the wrong answers.
Responses are not always honest
When you have someone taking the interview, the customer feels they are from the company and try to give polite
answers. In CATI you will receive much higher satisfaction ratings than in an online survey.
Does you customer have 15 mins to answer a survey on phone?
Sometimes your surveys are more than 15 questions long, do you believe the customer has time to answer those
questions? They don’t, they simply disconnect the call but interviewers still give the data to you, how do you think they
are giving that data?

6. Now, let’s discuss some problems with CATI Surveys?
Low Response Rate
I don’t need to share more on this, you guys already know what kind of response rates you get.
You can’t do concept or ad tests via CATI
I have seen some companies try this and the interviewer explaining the concept to a respondent over the phone,
now how can you act on that data?
CATI Surveys are not real-time
It takes a minimum of a month for an agency to run an analysis on surveys, when you call a dissatisfied customer
after receiving those results to understand what happened, they don’t remember what happened a month ago.
Expensive
On average, you pay between 5-10 dollars per response in a CATI survey. Now, if you have to gather 20k responses
every year that means 100k-200k dollars a year.
You can’t take action if the results are so slow.

7. Where is CATI helpful and where is it not?
Qualitative interviews, where you need to
have a conversation
Helpful
In B2B when your customers know you and
believe that you will act
For audience which is elderly and can’t fill
online surveys or where there is no
availability of internet
Running a simple CSI/SSI/NPS or CSAT
survey
Not Helpful
Product test, concept test, or advertisement
tests
Transactional CSAT or NPS surveys

8. What are Online Surveys & how they are better?
You can now survey your customers/employees/merchants/distributors via email, Whatsapp,
SMS, or even on your website and apps.
I am sure you see Go-Jek/Grab/Uber asking for online feedback as soon as the ride is over.
How are they better than CATI?
You get responses in real-time. No need for data processing or using pivot tables
in excel. The platform does all this for you.
Close Loop: As you see data in real-time, it’s easier for your team to get back to
customers when they give a negative response.

9. How online surveys are better than CATI?
Your customers can answer surveys at
their convenience.
You get honest answers as there is no one there to push customers for better
ratings: Customers respond more honestly as there is no one asking them for a
survey.
You can do CSAT/Concept tests/Advertisement test, UNA, etc. All of them online
Via WhatsApp, SMS, EMAIL, etc.

10. Show example of Indomobil incentivization scheme here/
How online surveys are better than CATI?
You get better responses rates, even more
than 30% via WhatsApp.

11. How online surveys are better than CATI?
You don’t need researchers all the time to run a survey. You can simply use a
feedback platform like SurveySensum or any other and run surveys on your own.
You save around 70% on the cost. If CATI costs between 5-10 dollars per
respondent, with WhatsApp and email it ranges between 1-3 dollars and
sometimes even less.
We did a project with Astra Honda Motors, they received 40k responses and the
cost of the project was 35000$ and CPI was less than 1 dollar.

12. Telephone vs Online surveys
Though being used for many new years now,
CATI/ telephone surveys are not that effective
any more.
Specially with the introduction of the ONLINE
surveys, many organizations have shifted from
the traditional telephone surveys to the online
surveys.
Majorly for the Quantitative surveys.
Here’s why -
“The telephone surveys’ response rate has declined by
41% in the last 7 years.”

13. Agent Training
The agents need to be trained on how to talk to the
respondents, empathize with them, understand
their issues, gather qualitative feedback, and punch
it into the system.
And not just that, the objective of each survey
should be shared with them as clearly as possible
so that they communicate those questions to the
respondents the right way.

14. Communication Gap
The telephone surveys are usually conducted by
third-party agencies. And this leads to a major
communication gap between the brands, agents,
and customers.
Why?
The objective with which the brands are
conducting the surveys is not usually clearly
communicated to the agents. So the questions are
not properly asked by the agents and answered by
the respondents.

15. Longer Questionnaire
Long questionnaires are not recommended in both
online and telephone surveys. So, before sending
them forward, it is highly recommended to take the
respondent’s permission.
Even after that, online surveys are a better choice as
they allow the respondents to share their feedback
in their own time and space.

16. Visual Questionnaire
Telephone surveys can not help in concept
testing or advertising research where some
videos or visuals had to be shown to the
respondents to get their feedback!

17. Feedback timeline
Launch a survey and gather feedback in real-time.
That’s how easy the online surveys are.
Alternatively, telephone surveys are launched over
weeks and many times respondents even forget
their issues or how they even felt while their
interaction with the brand.
And not just that, the responses of the surveys are
shared after weeks leaving no time to take the
required action.

18. Processing the data
Online surveys are launched via feedback
platforms. They not only give you real-time
feedback but also process the data within a day.
Replacing 2-3 days of processing and creating the
presentation time spent by the CX professionals.
And not just that, the comprehensive summary of
the surveys can be seen on the dashboards.

19. Cost
Costing is the critical attribute of online
surveys.
They are conducted at half the cost of
telephone surveys.

20. Feedback relevancy
Online surveys allow respondents to
share their feedback on their own
time. Giving them the opportunity to
share their honest opinions creates a
reliable feedback pool.

21. Daimler was using CATI to gather their customers’ feedback. With all
the drawbacks of the CATI surveys, customers were annoyed when
the questions were not asked properly. And they’d drop off the calls
leading to a low response rate.
A while back, Daimler shifted to the online CSI and SSI surveys. They
started gathering feedback in real-time, creating surveys became
easy, customers were listened to, and required actions were taken on
time.
Not only was their survey cost reduced by 70%, but their customer
satisfaction rate also increased by 30% as well.
Organizations are moving from CATI/Telephone
surveys to Online Surveys.
Daimler (Automotive)
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22. Like many other organizations, Indomobil wanted their customer
feedback in time so that they could close the feedback loop properly
and enhance their customers’ experience.
CATI surveys were not doing the job as they were time-consuming,
tedious, costly, and stressful.
With online surveys, they were able to gain customer insights and
act on urgent issues promptly. They saved 80% of their overall cost
and more than 30 hours a week
Indomobil
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23. With CATI, Manulife was not seeing any increase in its NPS
score for the past 2 years. So, when they started measuring
CSAT surveys online after every customer interaction, they
found that the customers were struggling to buy funds on
their own because they didn't know how to choose the right
one.
So, they created help articles and videos training customers on
how to do it.
In 5 months, revenue from those customers increased by 43%
and the NPS score rose by 5 points.
Manulife
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24. Where is CATI still effective?
When you want to gather open-ended answers from your respondents, CATI/telephone
surveys are the best approach.
Qualitative Research
● It’s easier for the respondents to share/explain their experience in detail over a call as
compared to writing it down on a survey.
● Over phone surveys, the agents can empathize with the unhappy customers, humanize their
interaction, and resolve their issues properly.
● It builds a relationship with the customer as they feel like they are being cared for.
Note: Before calling a respondent, it is advisable to take their permission to discuss their experience
with the brand.
Why