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Planning · 4 min read

How Long Does CATI Telephone Surveys Take? Project Timelines Explained

A stage-by-stage timeline for cati telephone surveys projects in India, from briefing and design to fieldwork, analysis and reporting, and how to speed it up.

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Quick answer

A typical cati telephone surveys project in India takes 3–6 weeks: about a week for design, 1–3 weeks for fieldwork, and 1–2 weeks for analysis and reporting. Rare audiences and many cities extend this.

At a glance

Guide type
Planning · 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
Launch owners working back from a date · Project managers sequencing workstreams · Agencies setting expectations

Key takeaways

  • Fieldwork is the most variable stage
  • Fast questionnaire sign-off saves days
  • Running multiple cities in parallel keeps timelines short
  • Topline results can come before the final report

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.

  • Launch owners working back from a date

    Where cati telephone surveys realistically fits between sign-off and the decision it has to inform.

  • Project managers sequencing workstreams

    Which stages can run in parallel, and which genuinely cannot.

  • Agencies setting expectations

    Realistic timings to quote, and the three things that most often cause slippage.

01

Stage by stage

  • Briefing and proposal: 1–3 days
  • Design and translation: 3–7 days
  • Pilot: 1–2 days
  • Fieldwork: 1–3 weeks
  • Analysis: 4–7 days
  • Reporting and debrief: 3–5 days

02

How to move faster

Approve materials quickly, keep the questionnaire short, and accept topline results ahead of the full report.

03

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

    A questionnaire nobody piloted

    Routing errors, ambiguous scales and a 35-minute runtime are cheap to find in a 30-interview pilot and expensive to find in the full dataset.

  • 06

    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.

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.

Can you deliver in two weeks?

Often yes, for focused studies with accessible audiences.

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.

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