How to Choose the Best Transcription Service for Your Business?


How to Choose the Best Transcription Service for Your Business?
Beth Worthy

Beth Worthy

10/3/2018

Having transcription service transcribe your electronically stored files into text is a cost-effective, hands-off technique that may serve many purposes for your business.

Whether it be for precisely capturing meetings and interviews, making SEO-compatible transcripts of a podcast or video, or smartly training speech recognition systems, there are innumerable uses of transcription services.

Today, transcription services are used worldwide for transcribing webinars, seminars, lectures, interviews, court hearings, and meetings, among other reasons.

Also, there is a growing need for transcription services in Government and non-profit organizations.

The market offers many distinct options but how will you know what is the most suitable transcription service for you?

While there are several criteria to consider for each category of business or organization, there are some essential features that you should avoid when selecting transcription services.

Factors to Choose the Best Transcription Services

1. Ensuring Quality - Accuracy Is the First Priority

Quality is an important concern in any transcription project. In today's fast-paced world, transcription services have become very accessible.

The technology has given rise to several automated transcription services that have impacted the popularity of human transcriptions.

However, it’s a well-established fact that automated transcripts will only be as sound or unsound as the audio file quality.

Needless to say, manual transcription still beats an automated one in terms of producing the highest quality transcripts.

When it comes to choosing the right transcription service provider, you must first and foremost ensure to review the quality of services being provided.

One of the qualities that set a professional transcription services provider apart is having talented transcriptionists with excellent language skills and have the ability to interpret regional accents and recognize grammatical and punctuation errors.

If you’re considering hiring a professional transcription service to manage your captions and transcripts, you should find a service that assures that the final product you obtain will be close to 99 percent accuracy.

  • Accuracy Level of Transcripts: The accepted norm for the accuracy level of transcripts and captions is 99%. If a company does advertise an accuracy level higher than that, learn about how they can guarantee it.
  • ISO-Certified: Consider how strong their quality-control mechanisms are and whether or not they have the ISO-certification.

At GMR Transcription, our sophisticated platform and integrated tools for quality assurance enable us to deliver superior human transcriptions at affordable prices.

2. Transcriptionists’ Skills & Location - What Is Their Importance?

Transcription is a challenging and specialized domain and the role of a transcriptionist demands distinct skill sets and the ability to multitask.

Moreover, individuals specializing in certain industries will require additional industry-specific knowledge.

The point of hiring a transcription service is to reduce your workload and not keep you overburdened with hours of editing.

When hiring a transcription company, make sure that the company employs native speakers of your language.

Having a non-native transcriptionist with poor language expertise can present issues in transcription including grammar, exact phrasing of idioms, and spelling of brand names.

There are multiple benefits to hiring a local transcription company to manage your transcriptions including:

  • A native speaker will be able to understand the language intricacies when transcribing.
  • Whether it’s technical, ethnic, accented, or industry-specific, the material required to be transcribed will demand native language experts to truly comprehend the actual theme in order to retain cultural and language variations.
  • Hiring a local transcriptionist also favors the timely completion of the transcription project.
  • If the transcription companies are in your city or county, you can have face-to-face meetings with the representatives whenever needed.

Also Read: How to Find a Transcription Service That is Right for You

Any Project Size, At Your Deadline.

Get Quality Transcripts With A 99% Accuracy Guarantee.

3. Information Security - Look for Guaranteed Assurance

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines confidentiality as "ensuring that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access" and it is among the cornerstones of information security.

The level of confidentiality requirements may vary according to the level of data sensitivity.

When it comes to transcription projects, the selection standards typically revolve around accuracy, speed, and price (and not always in that sequence).

Failure to hire a service provider with robust security measures in place and suitable safeguarding technology can imply an expensive breach for your firm.

When researching firms, ask a lot of questions on how they function to ensure data security. Quality transcription companies will typically provide the necessary insight into their security system to the clients.

This includes what sort of encryption they offer and for what duration they retain files before suitably deleting them.

Other details might be, disclosing their employee non-disclosure policy or equivalent tidbits relevant to the handling of files and maintaining a proper backup of the stored data offsite.

Professional transcription companies will provide clear proof of data server security through firewalls and antivirus software, alongside various encryption levels controlling and closely monitoring access to your file throughout.

4. Get the Best Transcription Services at Affordable Rates

The best transcription service providers are characterized by unmatched speed, accuracy, precision, and an affordable and transparent pricing structure.

This is further strengthened by a delivery system that ensures that your content data is transcribed and delivered within quick turnaround times, resulting in considerable cost savings for your business.

It’s important to choose an affordable transcription service that does not compromise on efficiency and speed but also offers relief to businesses and individuals who are budget-conscious.

Factors Which Influence Transcription Pricing

Several factors that are taken into account while determining the structure of transcription pricing include:

  • Type of Work
  • Industry Trends
  • Industry Related Practices
  • Jargon Usage
  • Work Complexity
  • Turnaround Time
  • Audio/Video Quality
  • Hybrid Technology

Other factors that influence the pricing:

  • Accent
  • Clarity of Voice
  • Background Noise
  • Special Formatting Request
  • Outsourcing Services

Read Also: How to Choose the Best Transcription Service Provider to Protect Your Data

5. Do They Offer Transcription Services in Other Languages?

With the dawn of globalization, there is a growing need for multiple language transcription services.

Although English and Spanish are the most popular spoken and written languages in the U.S., many countries have discovered the need to translate their business-critical information to other major languages for better scope and visibility.

You should seek a multilingual transcription company that is backed by a powerful network of certified bilingual transcriptionists with local language expertise, who can translate and transcribe from any source including audio, video, or digital at cost-effective prices.

Transcription service providers who offer transcription in multiple languages with superior accuracy and fast turnaround time can help give you a competitive edge.

The certified language professionals can impeccably transcribe and translate your data such as interviews, seminars, web content, etc.

The team of highly skilled and experienced foreign language professionals at GMR Transcription can transcribe your business-critical data and translate it to other foreign languages such as Mandarin, Spanish, and more.

Also Read: 5 Top Human Transcription Services in 2024

6. Look for Different Types of Transcription Services

Choose a transcription company with expertise in handling transcription services for a wide range of industries and formats.

They can deliver your desired services at affordable prices and quick turnaround times at the best accuracy levels in the industry.

Here are some of the types of transcription services provided by GMR Transcription:

  • Audio Transcription
  • Video Transcription
  • Academic Transcription
  • Business Transcription
  • Market Research Transcription

GMR Transcription Services offers its transcription services to all industries and professions including media, business, legal, government departments, financial, academic, and others at highly competitive transcribing rates.

7. Turnaround Time - Speed Gets the Second Priority If Your Request is Time Sensitive

Turnaround time, or simply TAT in the transcription industry, is the time measured from the minute the transcriptionist obtains the digital audio file to the moment a completed transcript is handed over to the individual or company that provided the data.

Industry-standard rules that it should take, at least, three times the size of a file to generate a transcript.

Fast turnaround time is essential for media professionals, journalists, investigators, and in some cases students who need the transcripts as soon as possible.

In such cases where you need transcripts with faster TAT, look for a transcription company utilizing modern-day technologies that help in improving efficiency and turnaround time.

There are several things that are considered while setting turnaround times.

  • Audio Quality
  • Number Of Speakers
  • Heavy Accents
  • Topic Of Discussion
  • Typing Speed
  • Verbatim
  • Timestamps
  • Formatting

FAQs

A transcription is a powerful tool for your business. It can simplify your work, enhance productivity, prevent errors, and guarantee accuracy in record-keeping.

Hiring a dependable transcription service provider is vital to achieving these benefits.

You should find the right answers to all your questions related to transcription services to make sure you get the most suitable transcription service provider for your success.

What Makes Hiring a Transcription Company Worthwhile?

Regardless of whether you’re a small business, a sole owner, or running a massive organization, you understand the value of time saved and resources conserved.

To guarantee your organization’s recorded information is readable, searchable, and conveniently accessible to key stakeholders, you’ll need to consider hiring a professional transcription service.

Here are a few more benefits of selecting transcription and translation service providers for the organizations:

  • Professionally skilled business transcriptionists who ensure close to 100 percent accuracy
  • Guaranteed fast turnaround time and 24x7 professional assistance that allows you to meet your deadlines
  • Tailored services that meet all legal requirements of your profession and industry
  • Standard hourly rates that support you to get rid of overhead costs
  • Expertise to handle a broad range of input file formats (Analog recordings, MP3, WAV, etc.) and generate output in client-specified file formats (.DOC, .DOCX, PDF or .TXT, and other file types)

9. Did We Forget Something? No Way You Can Ignore Customer Reviews

One of the simplest ways to discover a top-notch transcription company is to request recommendations. Find out what nearby businesses or others in your industry use.

You can also consider researching your chosen company’s website to know if they have customer reviews and whether they transcribe for any popular companies.

Read Also: Selecting Transcription Services: 6 Blunders to Avoid

GMR Transcription Quarterly Survey Reveals High Customer Satisfaction

Clients choose GMR Transcription Services because of our outstanding reputation for accuracy with several local dialects and our aptitude to apply the needed subject matter and terms.

Why Choose Us?

GMR Transcription offers a timely, accurate, and budget-friendly means to meet all your transcription needs.

With many different solutions and options, GMR Transcription is your one-stop solution for all things transcription because:

transcription services

Toll Free: 1-800-731-7412 | Call Us: 714-202-9653

  1. Our certified foreign language transcriptionists have sound knowledge of grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence formation in their respective native languages.
  2. Our professionally skilled transcriptionists adhere to the confidentiality and security you require and ensure that sensitive data related to your project stays secure with us.
  3. Our transcriptionists can decode different language accents and dialects. We review our work meticulously and pay attention to every detail before delivering it to you.
  4. We have all the advanced tools and policies in place that will guarantee you complete information security in every step of the transcription process. Our data security measures include secure file management, secure account information, and various stringent transcriptionist data security norms.

Also Read: Business Transcription Services: Selecting One for Your Needs

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Beth Worthy

Beth Worthy

Beth Worthy is the Cofounder & President of GMR Transcription Services, Inc., a California-based company that has been providing accurate and fast transcription services since 2004. She has enjoyed nearly ten years of success at GMR, playing a pivotal role in the company's growth. Under Beth's leadership, GMR Transcription doubled its sales within two years, earning recognition as one of the OC Business Journal's fastest-growing private companies. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two kids.