Template · 4 min read
How to Write a CATI Telephone Surveys Brief (Free Template)
A ready-to-use cati telephone surveys brief template for India: background, objectives, audience, geography, timeline, budget and deliverables.
Quick answer
A good cati telephone surveys brief covers background, the business decision, research objectives, target audience, cities, timeline, budget range and expected deliverables. It fits on a single page.
At a glance
- Guide type
- Template · 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
- Anyone writing a research brief · Procurement issuing an RFP · Agencies helping a client brief
Key takeaways
- One page is enough
- State the decision, not just the questions
- Share a budget range for realistic proposals
- Include what you already know
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.
Anyone writing a research brief
A structure for a cati telephone surveys brief that gets comparable proposals back instead of three different studies.
Procurement issuing an RFP
The scope lines that must be specified if quotes are to be compared like for like.
Agencies helping a client brief
The questions to ask before writing a proposal against a vague objective.
01
Brief template
Copy this structure into your brief:
- Background: the business context
- Decision: what will you do differently based on the results?
- Objectives: 3–5 research questions
- Audience: who, and how they are defined
- Geography: cities, tiers and rural coverage
- Timeline: when you need results
- Budget range
- Deliverables: e.g. daily progress, clean datasets, topline reports
02
Tips
Share existing data, and say which stakeholders will use the results.
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
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.
- 06
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.
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
Clean, dedupe and screen the number list against do-not-call registers before dialling begins.
- 2
Keep the interview under 12 minutes and read the script aloud before programming it.
- 3
Train interviewers on refusal conversion, with a scripted response to the three common objections.
- 4
Spread dials across morning, evening and weekend slots, with at least four attempts per number.
- 5
Live-monitor 10% of calls and audio-audit a further 10% with supervisor notes attached.
- 6
Publish the sample design, response rate and weighting scheme alongside the numbers.
- 7
Agree in writing who acts on each finding, and by when, before the debrief ends.
Need cati telephone surveys?
Get a scoped proposal within 24 hours.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
The questions buyers ask us most often before they commission cati telephone surveys.
Can you help write the brief?
Yes. Book a short call and we'll shape the brief with you.
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.
The service
CATI Telephone Surveys in India
The commissioned version of this guide: cati scripting, quota control, call monitoring, delivered as daily progress, clean datasets, topline reports.
ViewTelangana
CATI Telephone Surveys in Hyderabad
Metro-scale cati telephone surveys with supervised field teams, working in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English. Most often commissioned here by Pharmaceuticals and Information Technology & SaaS teams.
ViewWest Bengal
CATI Telephone Surveys in Kolkata
Metro-scale cati telephone surveys with supervised field teams, working in Bengali, Odia, Hindi and English. Most often commissioned here by FMCG and Logistics & Supply Chain teams.
ViewMaharashtra
CATI Telephone Surveys in Pune
Metro-scale cati telephone surveys with supervised field teams, working in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English. Most often commissioned here by Automotive and Information Technology & SaaS teams.
ViewGujarat
CATI Telephone Surveys in Ahmedabad
Metro-scale cati telephone surveys with supervised field teams, working in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English. Most often commissioned here by Chemicals & Specialty Materials and Pharmaceuticals teams.
ViewUttar Pradesh
CATI Telephone Surveys in Ghaziabad
Tier 2 cati telephone surveys covering the city and its surrounding districts, working in Hindi, Punjabi and English. Most often commissioned here by Manufacturing & Industrial and Real Estate teams.
View
Keep exploring
More reading on cati telephone surveys
Grouped rather than listed, so you can find the one page you need instead of scanning a wall of links.
More on cati telephone surveys
14Every angle we have published on this method: what it costs, how long it takes, how large the sample should be and how to choose a partner.
- How Much Does CATI Telephone Surveys Cost in India? A Pricing Guide
- CATI Telephone Surveys in India: The Complete Guide
- How to Choose a CATI Telephone Surveys Agency in India
- CATI Telephone Surveys Checklist: 12 Steps Before You Commission a Study
- 7 Costly CATI Telephone Surveys Mistakes Brands Make in India
- CATI Telephone Surveys Sample Size and Sampling Guide for India
- How Long Does CATI Telephone Surveys Take? Project Timelines Explained
- CATI Telephone Surveys for Foreign Companies Entering India
Show 6 more
- CATI Telephone Surveys in Tier 2 and Tier 3 India: How to Get It Right
- CATI Telephone Surveys for Startups: Getting Evidence on a Budget
- In-House vs Agency CATI Telephone Surveys: Which Is Right for You?
- Measuring the ROI of CATI Telephone Surveys
- CATI Telephone Surveys by Industry: Use Cases from FMCG to Healthcare
- CATI Telephone Surveys: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Research Firm
Other template articles
19The same template written for each of our other research methods, so you can compare like with like.
- How to Write a Consumer Research Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a B2B Market Research Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Focus Group Discussions Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a In-Depth Interviews Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Quantitative Surveys Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Online Surveys Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Mystery Shopping Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Market Feasibility Studies Brief (Free Template)
Show 11 more
- How to Write a Competitor Analysis Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Brand Health Tracking Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Customer Satisfaction & NPS Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Product & Concept Testing Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Pricing Research Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Market Sizing & Forecasting Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Ethnographic Research Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Healthcare Market Research Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Retail Audit & Distribution Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Usage & Attitude Studies Brief (Free Template)
- How to Write a Advertising & Media Research Brief (Free Template)
CATI Telephone Surveys city by city
50Local field teams, local languages and the sector mix each market is strongest in.
- CATI Telephone Surveys in MumbaiTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in Delhi NCRTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in BangaloreTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in ChennaiTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in HyderabadTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in KolkataTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in PuneTier 1
- CATI Telephone Surveys in AhmedabadTier 1
Show 42 more
- CATI Telephone Surveys in JaipurTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in LucknowTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in KanpurTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in NagpurTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in IndoreTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in BhopalTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in SuratTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in VadodaraTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in RajkotTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in NashikTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in AurangabadTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in CoimbatoreTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in MaduraiTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in KochiTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in ThiruvananthapuramTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in VisakhapatnamTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in VijayawadaTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in MysoreTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in MangaloreTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in Hubli-DharwadTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in ChandigarhTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in LudhianaTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in AmritsarTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in JalandharTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in DehradunTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in AgraTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in VaranasiTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in PrayagrajTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in MeerutTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in NoidaTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in GurugramTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in FaridabadTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in GhaziabadTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in PatnaTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in RanchiTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in BhubaneswarTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in RaipurTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in GuwahatiTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in JammuTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in GoaTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in JodhpurTier 2
- CATI Telephone Surveys in UdaipurTier 2
Related research services
19Quantitative methods first — these are the ones most often combined with cati telephone surveys in a single study.
- Consumer ResearchQuantitative
- Quantitative SurveysQuantitative
- Online SurveysQuantitative
- Brand Health TrackingQuantitative
- Customer Satisfaction & NPSQuantitative
- Product & Concept TestingQuantitative
- Usage & Attitude StudiesQuantitative
- Advertising & Media ResearchQuantitative
Show 11 more
- B2B Market ResearchStrategy
- Focus Group DiscussionsQualitative
- In-Depth InterviewsQualitative
- Mystery ShoppingSpecialist
- Market Feasibility StudiesStrategy
- Competitor AnalysisStrategy
- Pricing ResearchStrategy
- Market Sizing & ForecastingStrategy
- Ethnographic ResearchQualitative
- Healthcare Market ResearchSpecialist
- Retail Audit & DistributionSpecialist