Telephone Opinion Polling (CATI)
Telephone interviewing reaches the people online panels miss: older people, people who are rarely online, and people who live in one town, ward or constituency where no online panel has enough members. Our interviewers are our own staff, working from a cloud-based calling system, paid at least the London Living Wage and supervised by Survation researchers.
When telephone is the right mode
- Small geographies: a single Westminster or Holyrood constituency, a council area, a ward or a by-election seat. We are one of the most experienced constituency pollsters in the UK and our seat polls are published and tested at by-elections and general elections
- Offline and older audiences: the Office for National Statistics estimates that millions of UK adults have never used the internet, and a large minority of people aged 75 and over are offline. They vote, use services and buy things, and online-only research leaves them out
- Specialist and member samples: customers, members, tenants or service users from a client list, where a phone call gets a response an email would not
- Nuanced subjects: where open answers matter and an interviewer can probe, with responses coded for analysis
- Mixed mode: telephone alongside online or postal fieldwork, so that each group is reached by the method that works for them and the sample is weighted as one
What you get
- Questionnaire design and scripting by Survation researchers, with a pilot before full fieldwork
- Random digit dialling of landlines and mobiles, or calls to a list you supply, with quotas set to the profile of the area or group
- Daily progress reports during fieldwork and a named project manager throughout
- Weighted data tables with full breakdowns, coded open responses, and a topline or full report as needed
- Fieldwork run to British Polling Council and MRS standards, so results can be published with the method and tables behind them
Examples of our work
- Constituency and by-election polls for broadcasters, newspapers and campaigns, including seat polls reported by Sky News and the Jewish Chronicle
- Member surveys for trade unions including the RMT, reaching members who do not respond online
- YMCA: a time-sensitive telephone evaluation of a national marketing campaign, delivered on schedule through the first weeks of the 2020 lockdown as our calling team moved to working from home
“YMCA were delighted that our research project with Survation would be able to continue during the current health pandemic. We had a time sensitive project which meant our telephone polling needed to take place shortly after our marketing had finished. Survation adapted quickly and delivered.”
David Bridson, Head of Campaigns and Research, YMCA
Pricing
Telephone fieldwork costs more per interview than online, because every interview is a conversation with a trained person. For a constituency poll of 500 adults expect a quote in the high single thousands of pounds; larger samples, longer questionnaires and national random-digit-dial studies are priced individually. Tell us the area, the audience and the questionnaire length and we will quote.
Talk to us
Tell us what you need to know. We reply the same day, and you will have a price, or a short call booked to get the few facts we need to price it, within two working days: researchteam@survation.com or 020 3818 9661.
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