Transcription services are important for any business that uses audio in any part of its service delivery, whether taking customer calls, interacting with customers in the market, doing interviews, or marketing. There are several transcription service providers in the market and the quality of their services is not equal. Besides, the needs of customers vary from one company to another. Here are a few things you should keep in mind throughout the process, from hiring to actually using the transcription services.
Hire a Service with Some Level of Expertise Within Your Industry
Every industry has its own jargon and technical terms that will always appear in their conversations that will eventually be transcribed. It is important to investigate the level of expertise that the transcription company has within your industry. There are several niche transcription services that target specific verticals. These are your best bets rather than those that serve a wide market.
You may ask about the level of expertise and the number of clients that the service provider has handled in your industry. Then gauge their expertise to determine if they meet the threshold for meeting your transcription needs.
Be Careful with Data Security
In many industries, the information that is transcribed into text does not include confidential information or personal details. However, there are few companies that require services for sensitive data. For example, most forms of medical and insurance transcription may include the patient’s name and age, their social security number, health information and their payment status.
If your organisation deals with sensitive data, it is important that you check what systems that the service provider has put in place to ensure that this data is safe. Ideally, the service provider should vet its transcribers, offer technology to prevent unauthorised access to information and remove the data once it is done transcribing it. Get these assurances when hiring them.
Check the Turnaround Time and Scheduling
How long will it take you to get your work after hiring the enterprise transcription service? Is the schedule open-ended? Can you get a quick turnaround for urgent tasks? Do you have to pay more for it? Be wary of service providers that do not offer timeframes for their services. It is a sign that there could be delays, but the service provider will always hide it in the terms and conditions.
On the same note, check the procedures for initiating any type of order, regular or urgent. In many cases, regular orders can be placed directly on the service provider’s website. However, you may need an option to call customer service when making urgent orders so that you are sure they have all the instructions clearly stated and can get the work done in the required period.
Get Quality Recording Equipment
If you want to have the highest quality transcription for your business, you should invest in quality recording equipment. It ensures that the speaker is clear and eliminates background noise. Poor quality audios are difficult to transcribe and the transcriber may miss out on a few important words from the conversation.
It is also good to record audio in quiet locations. Background noise, chattering and acoustic noises really affect the quality of the recording and may lead to a lower quality transcription.
What is the Cost of the Service?
When hiring a transcription service, price should be the last thing on your mind. This is because you might overlook some factors as you check for the best price. The most expensive provider in the market is not always the best. However, very cheap services are not usually the best as they show that the service provider may have cut corners to lower their costs.
Go for a service provider that offers value for money. Look at any add-ons that are worth purchasing and add them to the package. If you have loads of audio that needs to be transcribed, you may negotiate for a discounted offer or get a dedicated team of transcriptionists that will handle it exclusively.
Determine the Level of Service that Meets Your Needs
Most transcription services will offer different levels of transcription. Popular levels include strict verbatim and intelligent option. In strict verbatim, the service provider types out everything that is included in the audio, including repetitions, fillers and stumbling over words. However, these are omitted in the intelligent option.
The former is ideal where the company needs to capture the mood, tone, pauses and emotion in the transcription. However, intelligent transcription is meant to send the core message across by removing anything that does not add value to the message.
Finally, it is good to work with the service provider throughout the length of the contract. You should have someone to answer their queries and solve problems they encounter when working on your audio. You should also consider creating milestones for large projects so that you can keep track of the project.
