Editor's note: Alan Dutka is president of National Survey Research Center, Brecksville, Ohio.

Computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) can increase accuracy, improve productivity, reduce turnaround time and provide grater management control. Sixteen critical features of CATI technology will help ensure that these benefits are actually achieved.

The hardware and software alternatives to implement CATI applications are almost limitless. Hardware choices range from stand-alone personal computers to networked terminals in a large mainframe computer environment. Software options vary from individually written applications to sophisticated generic survey generators.

No single choice will best satisfy the demands of every company. Variables influencing the selection include projected volume, time requirements, budgets, technical expertise and company culture. Every CATI installation, however, should contain these sixteen features to ensure success:

1. Complex skip patterns logic must be accommodated. Correct branching on every questionnaire is a major competitive advantage of CATI.

2. Responses not within the defined permissible range must be instantaneously rejected. If a rating from 1 to 5 is required, then no other response can be accepted. The interviewer must be immediately prompted to correct an inaccurate response. The prompting can be an audible "beep" or a visual flashing message. This logic can be used effectively whenever the range of permissible responses is known in advance (rating, demographics, ZIP codes, telephone exchanges, etc.).

3. Consistency checks among answers to logically related questions must be performed. The interviewer should be prompted to probe responses that appear contradictory. Any required changes must be easy to implement.

For example, suppose that a respondent answers that the heating system in the home is 15 years old. Later the interviewer determines that the home is only 10 years old. One of the two ages may be in error since second hand heating systems are rarely installed. The interviewer should immediately receive a script to clarify the apparent problem and to make any necessary changes in the data.

4. "Backward navigation" logic must be included to correct errors that are uncovered during an interview. For example, an interviewer may discover during an interview that the respondent is reversing a rating scale. The problem must be rapidly corrected while the interview is in progress. Handwritten notes to change the computer file after the fact are almost guaranteed to create problems and errors. Backtracking logic can be especially challenging when surveys contain complex branching ("skip-pattern") logic.

5. Questions in a long list (such as rating of performance attributes in a customer satisfaction study) must be rotated to minimize bias due to question ordering. The questions should appear in a random order-not just beginning at a random start.

6. Demographic tabulations must be calculated on-line. At any point in the survey you should know exactly how many respondents fall into the critical demographic categories (females, young adults, high income families, etc.). The laborious hand tabulations at the end of the day should be completely eliminated.

7. Open ended responses should be readily available for editing, coding and reporting.

8. Instructions to interviewers should be highlighted in reverse video for easy recognition. For example, one recent study of advertising awareness required branching based on the response to an open-ended question. The branching alternatives needed to be highly visible since interviewers made the branching decision based on the respondent's answers.

9. Interviewers notes (customer names, callback dates and times, etc.) should be easy to enter and retrieve.

10. The CATI software may not perform complex statistical analyses or develop comprehensive reports. An easy interface to other required software, however, is essential.

11. Statistics should be readily available to control quality, evaluate interviewer productivity and compare bidding assumptions with actual experience. A log (not available to the interviewer) should record the dispensation of every attempted call, the time interval between calls and the time required to conduct each completed interview.

12. Comprehensive computer backup procedures must be implemented to minimize the risk of information loss due to computer or power failure.

13. Security procedures should include locks on all computers and password protected access to surveys by individual project. Access to every survey should require an individual password. Interviewers should not have access to computer programs or project related statistics.

14. Hardware and software must be configured to provide acceptable performance. Personal computers must have the required speed and internal memory to avoid delays during interviewing. Networked applications cannot overload the mainframe computer's capacity. Response time delays while an interview is being conducted cannot be tolerated.

15. The computer code must be easy to change or modify. Although comprehensive pretesting will uncover most problems, the possibility still exists that a change will be necessary while the project is in progress.

16. CATI technology will improve the quality of survey results. The technology, however, must also enhance quality control procedures. Careful planning is required since advanced technology can hinder rather than improve the quality control process.

For example, suppose that a supervisor is evaluating the quality of open-ended responses. A comparison between the supervisor's notes while monitoring the interview and the interviewer's work is relatively easy using paper questionnaires. Quality control will be more difficult if the open-ended responses are contained in a computer file that is difficult to access.

Telephone research has developed from poorly supervised home interviewing to centralized facilities with continuous monitoring. Computer assisted telephone interviewing is another step in this development. The return on investment will be maximized by increasing service, accuracy and productivity while controlling costs. These sixteen critical features will help ensure that the CATI technology achieves the desired benefits.