The Handbook of Mobile Market Research: Tools and Techniques for Market Researchers

10 mCATI – Mobile Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing

INTRODUCTION

As a data collection mode, CATI (computer assisted telephone interviewing) is currently far larger than modes typically described as mobile. In 2012, ESOMAR estimated that CATI accounted for about 17% of quantitative projects by spend (ESOMAR 2013). Until recently, in the more developed economies, CATI was perceived as relating only to landlines, but increasingly CATI has started to include mobile phones (hence mCATI). One of the key drivers of this growth in interest in CATI and mobile devices has been the rise of mobile only households in the developed markets. For example, by January 2013, the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) National Health Interview Survey was quoting that 37% of US adults lived in a home without a landline (up from about 4% a decade earlier).

In the less economically developed markets, mobile phones have been a core part of CATI for much longer.

In 2013 the ITU (the UN agency focused on information and communication technologies) estimated that in the developed world there were about three times as many mobile phones as landlines (which they refer to as fixed lines), as shown in Figure 10.1. The gap was even wider in the developing world where the ITU estimated that there are more than seven times as many mobile subscriptions as landlines.

The chapter starts by reviewing CATI in general and looking at why the introduction of mobile phones has made a difference. ...