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What it’s for

A Phone number question collects a phone number — a better number to reach the respondent on, or a number for a follow-up — or confirms one you already hold. The number is checked against the Australian number formats, read back to the respondent in the familiar local form, and stored in the international E.164 format.

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Settings

Alongside the settings every question shares (Question settings), a Phone number question has: A Phone number question has no answer options, spelling or screen-out settings.
Leave Read every answer back on. On a phone number, the read-back is the only check — with it off, a misheard digit is stored without anyone noticing.

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Accepted formats

A number is accepted when it matches one of these Australian shapes: A number said in the +61 form is read back in the local 0 form, the way the respondent knows it. Overseas numbers aren’t accepted.

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Confirming a number you already hold

To confirm the number on the contact record, enter {{contact.phone}} in Value we already hold. With the field empty, the respondent is asked for a number.

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What the respondent hears

The ask. The voice prompt — for example “What’s the best number to reach you on?” The read-back. The number is read back in digit groups — “zero four one two, three four five, six seven eight” — followed by a check that it’s right. A number that doesn’t fit an Australian format is quoted back so the respondent can tell what went wrong — “Sorry, I don’t think I caught that correctly — I got 0412345. Could you say that again, slowly?” If fewer than seven digits were heard, the interviewer says “I only caught part of that” instead of quoting a fragment. A correction replaces the whole number. Don’t know and refusal. Each gets one nudge through a re-ask; after that the question is skipped and the Move-on line is said. Timing. The interviewer waits longer between digits than it would for other answers, because people pause while reading out a number. You don’t need to change Eagerness for this. Silence, FAQs, busy and stop work as on any question — see Question settings.

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What is recorded

The number is written to the call’s contact.phone variable for the rest of the call. To update your contact list in Contacts, use the recorded answer from Results or the export.
In the CSV export, the number is in the answer column. See Responses and export.

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Next Steps