What is a Transcription Service and Why Does Your Business Need It?
A transcription involves taking spoken words and putting them into a written script. Transcription can be important within the world of business, as it provides a means for companies to work with audio in a more complete manner.
What is a Transcription Service?
A transcription involves taking spoken words and putting them into a written script. Transcription can be important within the world of business, as it provides a means for companies to work with audio in a more complete manner.
How Does Transcription Work
Transcription is a task that involves immense focus, multitasking skills, and language proficiency. At the core, transcription involved listening to audio and transferring all of the spoken words into a written document.
The transcriptionist is also responsible for time stamping the typed-copy as they transcribe to connect the written dialogue with its source from the audio file. An example of this comes in the form of subtitles. If subtitles are applied to a video, they need to be in the exact time stamp to be useful for viewers.
Transcription can be completed in multiple languages, depending on the needs of the individual requesting transcription. This can make content available in many different formats, helping people reach an audience where they are.
There are different methods of transcription, such as automatic artificial intelligence transcription, and manual transcription carried out by a professional. Depending on the needs of the customer, an experienced annotator can either transcribe every word that is heard through audio or video, or they can avoid unnecessary words and only transcribe the useful words.
More On Video Transcription
Video transcription services can prove to be a slightly more involved process, as transcribers will also have to watch for visual clues to create a more detailed transcription. The main purpose of video transcription is to serve as an on-screen guide to the video content.
Real-World Examples of Businesses Using a Transcription Service
International Transcription Business Uses
An example of why a business would need a transcription service comes to mind when thinking of international business relations. If a business is working with another company overseas, and they receive any sort of video message, they can transcribe that video so that it can be more easily translated to their home language.
Transcribing Company Training Videos
Another great example of a business using a transcribing service comes up in company training videos. For employees that suffer from a hearing disorder or any other sort of auditory impairment, an accurate transcription can better acclimate them to your company’s values, and make your company more inclusive to different types of workers.
Transcribing Content For Digital Marketing and SEO
As the shift to conducting business online becomes more accelerated, using an audio transcription service is a unique way for your business to make online marketing information conveyed effectively.
Sticking with the topic of online business, search engine optimization has become a hot topic for businesses that are trying to pursue an online marketing strategy. Transcription can help a business start to make efforts in the SEO world. If you have any video or audio content, you can transcribe that into content to feed to search engines. Just make sure that your transcriptionist is familiar with SEO practices, or if not you can run the written document by someone who is.
While audio and video are powerful tools for your business to utilize in its online marketing efforts, transcription services can help you connect with your audience on different levels and bring in different types of online traffic.
Transcribing Business Meetings
Transcribing your business meetings can be a great way to keep records, improve accountability, and stay organized with your business tasks. Even smaller sized companies can utilize a professional transcription service to better manage their information, and keep track of all the important ideas that are discussed during company gatherings.
Utilizing An Online Audio Transcription Service Can Save Money
Rather than hiring an in house professional transcriber, you should consider using an audio transcription service to aid your business. Hiring a transcriber can prove to be expensive, and will add to your company’s overhead due to their salary, workstation, benefits, and software needed to perform the job.
There are plenty of online transcription services that will provide your business with accurate and professional results, all while avoiding the excessive cost of hiring an employee transcriber to do it in house. It can be as easy as uploading a file, receiving a quote, making the payment, and receiving the corresponding transcription.
Just keep in mind that different transcription services have their own individual strengths and weaknesses. Some things to consider are cost, quality, and completion time. It can also be beneficial to work with a company that offers a money-back guarantee. That way, if you are unsatisfied with the transcription you didn’t waste precious company resources.
Why Not Just Use An Automated Transcription Tool?
You may be wondering why you shouldn’t just pay for an automated transcription tool. While the world of artificial intelligence has come a long way, there are still some drawbacks to using that type of transcription service.
To start off, automated transcription services can leave you with embarrassing errors. The unfortunate reality is that automated transcription tools simply can’t give the 100% accuracy that your business deserves.
The automation tools have usual typos that occur because of limitations within the software. A common problem that people experience with these tools is that they don’t record quotations correctly.
When you hire a manual transcription service, you can rest assured that you will get an accurate and polished transcript that you can confidently present to your business and your customers. While the manual transcription costs are slightly higher than their automated counterparts, you are getting a service that will pay attention to detail, and avoid costly transcription errors.
Keep Audio Quality In Mind
While manual transcription services are great at what they do, they can’t perform miracles. Audio that is low quality and inaudible may result in inaccurate transcriptions. If this is true of your audio or video content, make sure to be open about it with your transcription service and discuss what is actually possible when transcribing your content.