As respondents increasingly screen calls to their phones and most households have become cellphone only, telephone surveys have become more difficult to conduct. However, telephone data collection is still the preferred method for information that can be accurately projected from a relatively small sample to an entire population.

We have overcome the new obstacles to conducting telephone surveys. Our interviewers are trained to make the most of every contact. We more effectively use answering machines and schedule callbacks to encourage respondents to participate.

We field telephone surveys from our call center using sophisticated Voxco Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) software. Using CATI assures that your questions will be asked the same way every time and sample is rotated so that calls are made at different times of the day and week, to improve the response rates of your survey.

Telephone data collection is best if you:

• Need to collect data that can represent a whole population
• Have surveys that pose or skip questions based on previous responses
• Have sensitive or complicated topics that can benefit from clarification by an interviewer
• Develop instruments with open-ended questions, or ones that would benefit from skillful interviewer probing
• Are targeting respondents without email or mail addresses