The company, Precision Polling, allows people to design a survey on the web and automatically field it to a list of telephone numbers.

Interviewers are not involved at any step of the process. Instead, Precision Polling invites its customers to call a “voice recording hotline” where they record the survey script, including questions and answers. Interactive voice response is then used to present the questions to respondents, while answers are collected via the telephone keypad.

Calls are charged at 10c each. As well as dialling out, Precision Polling’s system also allows for respondents to call in to take a survey.

The company is the brainchild of longtime friends Guarav Oberoi, Precision Polling’s CEO, and chief technology officer Charles Groom.

Writing on the company website, the partners say: “For years people have been able to design and run web surveys on their own, but no such facility has existing for the phone. We want to enable people in fields as diverse as politics and government; non-profits and unions; hospitals and pharmaceuticals; newspapers, radio and TV; and corporate marketing to use the telephone to gather data – but we absolutely do no telemarketing, ever.”