The transcription process helps businesses put video and audio content in the hands of their audiences. This can include interviews, webinars, conferences and podcasts. There are several industry standards for transcription services that you should look for when choosing a company to partner with. Some of these include accuracy, timeliness and reliability.
Accuracy
Transcription accuracy is critical in high-stakes industries, such as medicine and legal research. Mistranscriptions can lead to serious problems, so it’s important to choose a service with a high accuracy rate. The industry standard for transcription accuracy is a rate of up to 99%. This means that you can expect about ten errors in a thousand-word transcript. While it’s difficult to achieve a 100% accuracy rate with any transcription method, a 99% rate is pretty good. But that still leaves room for error, especially if your audio or video includes multiple speakers, accents, and background noise.
To get a transcription with high accuracy, look for services that use human transcribers. These transcriptionists are trained to ensure that they accurately transcribe everything that’s said in an audio or video recording. They can also add time coding, strict verbatim, speaker tracking, and other features to give you a quality transcript at a reasonable cost. These services are more expensive than automated services, but they’re worth it when you need a high-quality transcript quickly.
Timeliness
In the world of online business, timeliness is everything. Customers want a response to their questions as soon as possible–especially if they are in a hurry to make a purchase. This means that the sooner you can transcribe a customer’s questions, the better. Not only will you be able to clear up misunderstandings, but you’ll also project a positive image of your business and create more trusting relationships with customers. Thus, a good quality transcription service will have a robust turnaround time, so you can be confident that your transcribed content is ready for you. Some services offer rush options for an additional fee, so be sure to ask upfront what your choices are.
Security
If your company or organization has sensitive information that needs to be transcribed and disposed of, you’ll want to find a transcription service that takes security seriously. If it doesn’t, your data could end up in the wrong hands, exposing confidential information or even putting your company or organization at risk. Fortunately, most reliable and reputable transcription services take data security seriously. That’s why they usually have an HTTPS web address and encrypted log-in portal, which protects against hackers.
A good transcription service will also hire in-house transcribers rather than outsourcing their work to offshore freelancers. This way, they’ll have a better idea of how well their transcriptionists are performing and what data they’re handling. Another sign of a secure transcription service is that they’re ISO 27001 and 9001 certified, which is a set of international standards for data management. If a transcription company is not ISO 27001 or 9001 accredited, it can be a red flag that they don’t take data security seriously and may not be able to guarantee the safety of your files.