Rotator Survey Phone Interview�(CATI)

The Phone Interview module of RotatorSurveys CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) allows you to convert your questionnaire into a friendly Data Capture system to be used by one or more phone interviewers from your organization. All the definitions you have made, such as: questions, choices, skips, validation marks, etc., will also be considered within the phone interview.

interviews prefer to collect data using paper questionnaires, and then transcribe that data into Excel
Paper vs. CATI

Some researchers who conduct telephone surveys prefer to fill out the data on paper forms to be later typed into a computer, making the data collection process slow, cumbersome and vulnerable to errors. In a professional CATI system, the software keeps track of calls, their duration in seconds, attempts made, the status of each call, the reasons why it has not been possible to contact the subscriber, as well as a control of appointments with subscribers, since the subjects will not always be available to attend. In addition to these benefits that translate into speed, quality and productivity, other advantages are added, such as being able to analyze the data while the interviews are being carried out; the elimination of manual post-interview capture and the automatic supervision and control of the process.

How to program a phone interview? (It is easier than you think)
  • 1. Write each one of your questions (Activity 1), define skips and the flow of the interview (Step 2). Write instructions as well as other texts of the questionnaire.

  • 2. Press the round blue button shown at the top of this page to get a preview of the interviewer�s screen. If you do not agree with texts, skips logic or instructions, go back to the previous steps and make the necessary changes.

  • 3. To define the phone operators, execute Activity 2: and then go to the step �Team work�. Add there the phone interviewers, assigning them a username and password, and select the role �Phone Interviewer�.

  • 4. Install the App called �Rotator Phone Interview� on each one of the interviewers PCs. (If you are planning to have many interviewers (hundreds), the installation process could be slow and cumbersome, in this case you can choose to install the software on a Server and then get access via Terminal Server).

  • 5. Share your survey�s folder so it can be accessed by the operators trough a LAN. (We recommend you to map this shared folder as network drive, for example using the letters: �R�:, �Z�:, etc. Ask for technical assistance from your MIS department when performing this task)

How to apply a Phone Interview?
  • 1. Feed the system with a Data Base of calls to be made; for this, go to Activity 2, step �Participants� and import an Excel sheet with these calls. The structure of this sheet will be explained in the software once you try to import.

  • 2. Compile your Survey and fix all errors detected

  • 3. Instruct each interviewer to enter into the system using the Login and Password assigned. Then, a screen with the phone interview will show up so they can start calling. The Phone Interview�s main screen is very intuitive and easy to use; operators will be productive in minutes.

  • 4. Once some calls have been made, you can proceed to consolidate the data, to accomplish this task open the module �Rotator Surveys Modeler� and log in as an administrator, press the button �Consolidate� located in the Activity 3, step �Data�. This will allow you to bring the data from the operators PC to your computer.

How the control of calls is made?

Rotator does an exhaustive control of the calls made by the phone interviewers; the control fields include telephone numbers, call status, duration in minutes, number of attempts, name of the interviewer, date, time, postponed calls, etc. If you need other control variables, such as: city, municipality, gender, etc., you can include them on the imported Excel sheet (Participants Base) or define them as questions in your questionnaire.


Special Options

You can use skips and flow formulas to control the flow of the interview. Also to make a more fluent and interesting interview, you may use a feature that allows you to insert the answers given by the subject into the text of a subsequent question. This option is fully documented in the helps (little bulbs).