The article aims at underlining the valuable potential of the computer-assisted telephone interviewing as a marketing research technique. Representing only 5% of the total market research turnover in Romania, in the year 2001, the ad hoc quantitative telephone interviewing has a significant development potential in Romania based on the evolution of the IT and mobile communication technologies. The telephone and personal interviews are compared. The specific advantages of the CATI technique are analyzed, as well as the main drawbacks. The evolution in the field of CATI software is illustrated by means of a short example - the Win Cati solution that is running in Windows and provides functionalities in line with the best practices in marketing research. The possible improvements of CATI are reflected by the experience of IPSOS-ASI and Booth Research, two cases of research organizations that have applied the SPSS solutions for the enhancement of CATI productivity and efficiency. The article also focuses on several examples of regulations that are applied to telephone interviews. Specifically, these regulations are the ICC/ESOMAR International Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice, the MRS Code of Conduct and the MRS Code of Practice for Automated Dialing Equipment. While the pessimists will declare that the evolution of the Web will lead to the end of CATI, the optimists will support the idea of the combined application of CATI and Web survey techniques.
