MMarket ResearchIndia

Market entry · 4 min read

CATI Telephone Surveys for Foreign Companies Entering India

How international companies use cati telephone surveys to enter India: what to research, which cities to start with, and how to work with an Indian research p

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Quick answer

Foreign companies use cati telephone surveys to test demand, pricing, positioning and channels before investing in India. Start with 4–6 metros, add Tier 2 cities to see how demand scales, and work with an India-based partner who reports in English.

At a glance

Guide type
Market entry · 4 minute read
Method covered
CATI Telephone Surveys
Research family
Quantitative research
Typical timeline
2–4 weeks end to end, which makes it the fastest route to a representative read
Typical sample
300–800 completes; budget eight to twelve dials for every completed interview
Written for
International teams entering India · Strategy teams picking a first city · Boards asking for evidence

Key takeaways

  • India is many markets in one, so plan regional reads
  • Validate price points locally rather than converting from home markets
  • Channel structure differs sharply from Western markets
  • Choose a partner with on-the-ground teams

Reader intent

Who this guide is for

Three readers arrive here with different problems. Each should be able to act on this page without reading all of it.

  • International teams entering India

    What cati telephone surveys looks like here, and which assumptions from your home market will not survive the trip.

  • Strategy teams picking a first city

    City selection decides more about an entry's success than almost anything else in the plan.

  • Boards asking for evidence

    The research a capital-allocation decision needs behind it before it is sanctioned.

01

What to research before entering India

  • Market size and growth
  • Target segments and their needs
  • Price acceptance
  • Competitive landscape
  • Channel and distribution
  • Regulatory considerations

02

Where cati telephone surveys fits

Computer-assisted telephone interviewing from our multilingual call centre. For entry decisions it is often combined with feasibility, market sizing and competitor analysis.

03

Working remotely with an Indian partner

Expect English reporting, scheduled calls in your time zone, NDA-first engagement and invoicing in your currency.

04

How Market Research India can help

Market Research India designs and runs cati telephone surveys projects across 50 Indian cities and 30 industries. A senior research director leads every study, and our own supervised teams handle the fieldwork. You get clear recommendations, not just data tables.

Share your objective and we will send a scoped, fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours, with a recommended method, sample and timeline.

What goes wrong

Common mistakes in cati telephone surveys

Most disappointing cati telephone surveys studies fail for reasons that were visible in the design, not in the fieldwork. These are the ones we see most often, and what to do instead.

  • 01

    Calling only during office hours

    A sample collected between 11am and 5pm over-represents people who are not at work. Spread dials across three time slots and include weekends.

  • 02

    Dialling a stale list

    An unchecked database burns the budget on dead numbers before it reaches a respondent. Clean, dedupe and test-dial a sub-sample first.

  • 03

    A script written for the eye, not the ear

    Long scales and nested brackets work on paper and collapse on a phone call. Read every question aloud before it is programmed.

  • 04

    Monitoring too few calls

    Without live listening on at least 10% of calls you cannot tell a refusal conversion from a leading prompt. Audio-audit a further sample afterwards.

  • 05

    Fieldwork without an audit trail

    GPS tags, timestamps, audio snippets and back-checks are what let you defend a finding when a regional team disputes it. Specify them in the contract.

  • 06

    Significance claimed on thin bases

    A gap between two sub-groups of forty respondents is rarely real. Agree the minimum reportable base before field and grey out everything below it in the tables.

Run through this before sign-off

Your checklist before you brief anyone

A working sequence for a cati telephone surveys project. Most of it costs nothing, and it saves the two weeks a re-field would take.

  1. 1

    Clean, dedupe and screen the number list against do-not-call registers before dialling begins.

  2. 2

    Keep the interview under 12 minutes and read the script aloud before programming it.

  3. 3

    Train interviewers on refusal conversion, with a scripted response to the three common objections.

  4. 4

    Spread dials across morning, evening and weekend slots, with at least four attempts per number.

  5. 5

    Live-monitor 10% of calls and audio-audit a further 10% with supervisor notes attached.

  6. 6

    Agree the minimum reportable base before fieldwork, and hold the line in the tables.

  7. 7

    Agree in writing who acts on each finding, and by when, before the debrief ends.

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Answers

Frequently asked questions

The questions buyers ask us most often before they commission cati telephone surveys.

Do I need a local entity to commission research?

No. We work directly with overseas companies and invoice internationally.

Request a proposal

Talk to a cati telephone surveys specialist.

From guide to project

Where cati telephone surveys actually gets commissioned

If this guide has settled the method, these are the pages worth opening next: the service itself, and the markets where cati telephone surveys is most often run for our clients.

Keep exploring

More reading on cati telephone surveys

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