Phone interviews by people, in the respondent's language, with every attempt accounted for
CATI survey services in India suit studies where the people you need have phones and the questionnaire is short enough to hold attention over a call. Bharat Survey runs interviewer-led telephone surveys for companies, NGOs, research agencies and departments: the questionnaire is programmed with skip logic, interviewers are briefed in Hindi, English or the regional language, each call attempt and outcome is logged, and a share of completed interviews is re-called by a supervisor before data is released.
- Interviewer-led calls, not robocalls
- Script with skip logic and validations
- Every attempt and outcome coded
- Supervisor re-calls on a share of completes
- Complete
- Partial
- Declined
- No contact
- Home locked
- Revisit
CATI stands for computer assisted telephone interviewing. An interviewer calls the respondent and reads questions from a screen that routes them through the questionnaire, so skips and checks happen during the call. It is faster and cheaper than sending enumerators to doorsteps, and it can reach respondents spread across many states in the same week.
How we set it up
The questionnaire runs in our form engine on the interviewer's screen, the same engine used for field surveys, so logic and exports are identical across modes. Calling is done by trained interviewers through telecom lines arranged for the project. We do not sell a dialler product; if your study needs predictive dialling or call recording at scale, we arrange it through a calling partner and state that in the proposal.
Who we call
Lists you provide with a lawful basis to contact, such as your customers, dealers, programme participants or beneficiaries, or samples recruited earlier in a face-to-face round who agreed to follow-up calls. We do not buy phone lists.
Typical CATI studies
- Customer satisfaction follow-ups
- Dealer and distributor feedback
- Programme participant check-ins
- Panel follow-up after a CAPI baseline
- Short B2B interviews
- Service verification calls
Telephonic survey agency India set-up: script and list
Interviewer briefing
Calling with outcomes
Re-calls and release
Our view on phone surveys
A phone survey dataset without dispositions hides its own bias. We deliver both.
Interview completed
Interview broken off
Asked to call later
Declined to take part
Busy, switched off, no answer
Wrong or non-existent number
We match interviewers to respondent languages where the list includes a region or state, and keep the translated script version-locked so every interviewer asks the same question.
Choose CATI
Phone interviews
- Respondents have and answer phones
- Questionnaire under about 15 minutes
- Spread across many states
- You already hold a contact list
- Speed matters more than full coverage
Choose CAPI
Doorstep interviews
- Rural or low-phone households matter
- Long questionnaire or rosters
- Photos or observation needed
- No reliable contact list
- Proof of location is required
Respondents are told who is calling, why, how long it will take and that they can stop at any time. Consent is recorded at the start of the interview. Phone numbers are personal data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, so the client, as data fiduciary, confirms it has a lawful basis to contact the list.
What a telephonic survey agency in India owes respondents
Calls are made during reasonable daytime hours, callbacks follow the respondent's chosen time, and anyone who asks not to be called again is marked and excluded. Research calls must not be used for selling, and we do not mix sales messages into survey scripts.
Not the right fit if
- You need a representative sample of rural households
- Your questionnaire runs past 20 minutes
- You want automated robocalls (see IVR instead)
- You want us to source phone numbers
A good fit if
- Customer, dealer or participant lists you already hold
- Follow-up rounds after a face-to-face baseline
- Quick multi-state reads
- Short questionnaires in several languages
Corporate solutions
Market research and field data for companies.
Learn moreIVR survey
Automated voice surveys for very short questionnaires.
Learn moreConsumer research
Consumer interviews across India.
Learn moreRural market research
Face-to-face research where phones fall short.
Learn moreBrand tracking
Phone or field tracking waves.
Learn moreStraight answers to the questions people ask most about this topic.
How long can a CATI interview be?
Most phone interviews work best under about 15 minutes. Beyond that, break-offs rise and answers get rushed. If your questionnaire is longer, we suggest cutting modules, splitting into two calls with consent, or using face-to-face interviews for the full version.
Do you record calls?
Not by default. Call recording needs respondent notice and a clear purpose, and adds storage of voice data. If quality control requires recording, we arrange it through the calling set-up for that project, state it in the consent script and agree retention with you.
What response rate should we expect?
It varies widely with the list quality, how recently respondents dealt with you, the language match and time of calling. Old or purchased lists perform badly. We report attempts, contacts, refusals and completes so you see the real rate, and we flag early if a list is not working.
Can CATI and CAPI be combined in one study?
Yes. A common design is a face-to-face baseline where respondents agree to follow-up calls, then CATI rounds in between. Both modes use the same form engine, so questions and exports stay consistent, though mode effects on sensitive questions should be noted in analysis.
Tell us the audience, languages and number of completes you need. We will reply with a calling plan and quote.