AI voice agents for phone surveys and feedback calls

A survey agent calls customers, members or participants and asks a short, fixed set of questions — how was the service, would you recommend us, what should we fix — and records each answer in their own words. It can call many people in a short window with exactly the same wording, follow up once on a vague answer and pass anything urgent to a person.

Every figure below links to its source. More numbers are on the AI voice agent statistics page.

Phone surveys: fewer answers, still useful

• Pew Research Center's typical phone survey response rate fell from 36% in 1997 to 9% in 2012, and to 6% in 2018.
• Across survey firms, US landline response rates fell from 15.7% to 9.3% and mobile rates from 11.7% to 7.0% between 2008 and 2015.
• Web surveys still do worse: a meta-analysis of 114 experiments found web response rates 12 percentage points lower on average than other modes (mail, email, phone and in person combined).

The practical lesson: surveys of your own customers, who know you and expect the call, do far better than cold polls. A short call at a good time, from a number they recognise, is the best you can do.

The phone changes the answers

• In a Pew experiment with 3,003 people randomly assigned to phone or web, answers differed by 5.5 points on average; 62% said they were very satisfied with family life by phone versus 44% online.
• On sensitive questions checked against records, web answers were the most accurate, live interviewers the least, and automated voice (IVR) in between.

People tend to give friendlier answers to a voice than to a form. Compare phone results with phone results, keep the wording fixed, and don't mix modes in one score without noting it. These studies tested human interviewers and recorded systems, not conversational AI agents.

The rules for survey calls

This is a summary, not legal advice.

Where	What applies
United States	AI-generated voices count as artificial voice under the TCPA (FCC 24-17). Calls to mobile numbers need prior express consent whatever the purpose. Non-marketing artificial-voice calls to a home line are limited to three in any 30 days and must honour opt-outs. A "survey" that sells something is telemarketing.
United Kingdom	Genuine market research calls are not direct marketing, but a call becomes marketing if it promotes anything or collects details for future marketing.
European Union	People must be told they are interacting with an AI system at the latest at the first interaction (AI Act Art. 50); this applies from August 2026. Recordings and answers are personal data.

How to run it in SAGOT

1. Write the agent with the survey questions (up to 30), how to handle "I'd rather not say", and who receives complaints that need a person.
2. Set the calling policy: hours and days, attempts per contact, a short maximum call length. Every call says it is an AI and recorded or transcribed; audio recording can be turned off while transcripts are kept.
3. Run a campaign over the people who agreed to be contacted. Opt-outs stop future calls immediately.
4. Read the answers in each transcript and outcome, or send them to your own system through a connection; export a person's full history when needed.

SAGOT is in a closed alpha; new phone lines start in test mode, where only the line's test numbers can be called. Join the waitlist, or draft your questions with the free call script generator.

Frequently asked questions

Can an AI voice run customer satisfaction or NPS calls?

Yes. Keep the questions fixed and short, say it is an AI at the start, and compare results with other phone results rather than with web scores.

Do survey calls need consent?

In the US, AI-voice calls to mobiles need prior consent; calls to home lines without marketing are limited to three in 30 days. In the UK, genuine research isn't marketing, but anything promotional is.

Are answers by phone different from online answers?

Often, yes: people give more positive answers to a voice. Don't mix the two in one score without noting it.

Can a survey call also offer a discount?

Then it's a marketing call, with the stricter rules that come with it. Keep surveys and offers separate.