MEANING AND FEATURES OF TELEPHONE SURVEY:
Telephone survey/Telephone interview is another method of field investigation. It is a popular alternative to personal interview. Here telephone is used as a medium of communication as there is only vocal interface between the interviewer and respondent. In telephone survey method, telephone is used as an instrument for the collection of information from the respondents. Here/ a brief interview of the respondent is taken on telephone. The respondent is contacted on phone, questions are asked on the subject matter of survey and information is collected from him for further processing. It is a type of oral interview with the respondent who is necessarily a telephone subscriber.
Telephone survey is a quick and economical method of survey as response is immediate and wide area can be covered without actual travelling to different places and parties. Telephone survey is similar to personal interview but personal contact with the respondents is absent. It is used as a substitute for personal interview. Originally the use of telephone was restricted to monitoring audiences for radio and TV programmes. Now, telephone is used for collecting information on marketing problems. Industrial surveys and trade surveys are also conducted by using this method. Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) and Direct Computer Interviewing (DCI) are new developments in the field of telephone surveys.
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