Although there has been a big movement to online surveys, CATI (computer assisted telephone interviewing) still has a big role to play in market research. The true cost of CATI software, however, is often overlooked.
As more and more market research surveys are conducted online, older technologies tend to stand still. Why? Because the software companies are racing to be leaders in the next big thing. This can leave a void meaning that older technologies don’t develop as much as they could.
Ease of use, functionality and cost are probably the three main drivers for purchasing any software. In my view, most CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) software packages fail on at least one of these criteria…
Market research has adopted technology at varying speeds in its history, often at a different rate to other industries. Why is this? Is it important? CAPI, CAWI, CATI, tabulations, reporting and dashboarding all pose different wants and needs.
The CATI market has clearly shrunk in recent years with the advent of cheaper and faster online surveys. Telephone surveys of the past are often now conducted online. There are few new products in the CATI software market, but…
Security and data privacy continue to grow in importance. New laws in the EU under GDPR are designed to make care of personal data increasingly important to companies. Whilst there is an established and obvious need for data security with online surveys, there has arguably been less rigour with CATI surveys.
If you make a Google search for online survey software, you can go through several pages finding different products. However, few of these offer mixed modes or multimode surveys. Ignoring the paid for advertising, the first page of the search at the time of writing this article threw up three review sites (Capterra, PCMag, a 2014 blog post) and seven products (Smart Survey, SoGoSurvey, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, Snap Surveys, SurveyGizmo and QuestionPro).
If you need interviewers to collect data on a tablet or some other portable device, you will need the best software for online and offline CAPI. Even if your interviewers are working in areas where there is good internet connectivity, we all have experienced areas or times when an internet connection is unreliable.
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MRDC Software has been supplying software for market research since 1992. It is known around the world for its leading tabulation software, MRDCL, but has expanded its portfolio of products to have productivity-focused software for data collection, data analysis, reporting and dashboards.
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