CATI: Telephone Interviewing for Caribbean Markets

CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) occupies a specific niche in Caribbean research. It's not the workhorse it was 15 years ago, but for the right study type, nothing else matches its speed-to-field or cost efficiency.

We run CATI operations from our data processing centre in Allen, Texas, with trained interviewers who cover English, Spanish and French Creole. The operation connects to Caribbean mobile and landline networks through local carrier routing, which matters for caller ID display and pickup rates.

Where CATI Works Best

Telephone interviewing produces the best results when three conditions are met: the survey is short (under 10 minutes), the sample comes from a pre-existing list, and the respondent has some prior relationship with the commissioning organization.

Customer satisfaction callbacks are the clearest use case. A bank that wants post-transaction feedback within 48 hours of a branch visit can't wait for a CAWI invitation to convert. A 6-minute CATI survey gets you an 80%+ contact rate on customer-provided numbers, with response rates between 35-50% when the call is identified as coming from the institution.

Strong CATI applications

• NPS and CES tracking surveys on customer databases
• Service recovery callbacks after complaint resolution
• Short-form brand health pulses between major tracking waves
• B2B studies where the sample frame is a membership or client list
• Event feedback surveys (post-conference, post-workshop)

Where CATI Doesn't Work

Cold-call CATI to mobile numbers in the Caribbean produces refusal rates above 80%. The culture of screening unknown callers is stronger here than in markets where landlines still carry some legitimacy. If you don't have a customer list to sample from, CATI isn't your methodology.

Long surveys are another mismatch. Anything over 12 minutes on the phone produces breakoff rates that compromise data quality. The respondent is doing you a favor by answering. Respect that with a tight instrument.

Complex question types don't translate to phone either. Conjoint tasks, long grid batteries, card sorts, anything requiring visual stimulus: these need online panels or face-to-face CAPI fieldwork.

Caribbean-Specific Considerations

Caller ID and Local Routing

Pickup rates in the Caribbean drop by 40-60% when calls display an international or unfamiliar number. We route CATI calls through local carrier agreements so the caller ID shows a recognizable local number or the client's name where the carrier supports it. This single operational detail is the difference between a viable CATI study and one that can't reach sample.

Language and Dialect

A CATI study covering Trinidad, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti requires interviewers fluent in Trinidadian English, Jamaican English, Spanish and Haitian Creole. These aren't interchangeable. A Trinidadian interviewer reading a Jamaica-adapted questionnaire will lose rapport in the first 30 seconds. We staff and train by market, not by language family.

Timing and Call Windows

Optimal call windows differ from North American norms. Weekday evenings (6-9 PM) produce the highest contact rates for consumer surveys. Saturday mornings work in some markets but are poor in others (notably Trinidad during cricket or Carnival season). B2B calls work best Tuesday through Thursday, 10 AM to 3 PM local time.

Quality Controls

Every CATI project runs with real-time monitoring. Supervisors listen to a random sample of live interviews (minimum 10% of completes per interviewer) and score against a standardized quality rubric covering question delivery, probing technique and neutral tone on attitudinal items.

We record all interviews with respondent consent. This serves double duty: quality assurance and verbatim capture for open-ended responses. Audio recordings are especially valuable for satisfaction studies where tone of voice carries information that a checkbox response doesn't.