7 Advantages of Outsourcing Transcription Services

Businesses are starting to identify more situations where audio to text transcription can be beneficial.

In today’s fast-paced business world it is becoming best practice to record internal meetings, capture events, include subtitles on videos, and document press conferences. Having a text record in these situations can help engage with customers better, keep senior management informed, provide marketing benefits, and offer greater accessibility for clients and staff.

Traditionally, audio to text transcription has been done manually, in-house. Manually converting audio to text requires a specialised skill that is time-consuming and mundane for internal employees. However, advancements in new technology now make outsourcing transcription needs more attractive for businesses.

Here are 7 advantages of outsourcing transcription services instead of keeping audio to text conversion in-house.

Quicker Turnaround

Manually transcribing audio to text takes a skilled transcriptionist approximately 4 hours for every 1 hour of audio. A non-specialised transcriber can take considerably longer.

So why does a quicker turnaround matter?

Consider this scenario. Your business wants to convert three speeches from its recent conference from audio to text. Each speech with Q&A is an hour long. Manually transcribing this entire content would take a full-time employee at least two days, and that is based on the assumption that the employee works on nothing else. However, an automatic transcription service provider can produce a near 100% accurate transcript of these three speeches in less than an hour.

The benefit of this quicker turnaround time is that you are able to get content to your clients and to the press whilst its still timely information. If you wait a few days or a week, that content can become outdated and irrelevant, meaning your employee wasted all that time and effort for nothing.

Focus Time on More Complex Tasks

As stated above, in-house transcription is time-consuming and mundane. Most employees have skill sets that are better utilised doing more complex tasks. By outsourcing transcription tasks, you or those persons in charge of converting your businesses audio to text can speed their time on tasks that are more profitable.

Reduce Staff Turnover

According to a 2017 Gallup study, 51 percent of employees don’t feel engaged at work. This disengagement leads employees to do the bare minimum, creates a demoralised atmosphere, and ultimately forces an employee to quit or be fired. This form of rust-out often occurs when people stop feeling challenged and get bored from exposure to repetitive tasks. Manual transcription is exactly this kind of task.

A recent case study of Biola University highlights this staff issue. Biola University employed 2 full-time and 5 part-time staff to help with a project to convert 1500 hours of broadcast recordings to text. The staff described the process as ‘tedious and torturous’. Manually playing, pausing, typing and rewinding long hours of audio quickly lead to burn-out.

However, after engaging an automatic transcription service provider to convert the audio to text, Biola University reported an improvement in staff morale.

Reduce Overhead Costs

Employing full-time or even part-time staff to handle your business transcription requirements in-house is costly. Along with salaries and benefits, employing full time staff has hidden costs such as office space, transcription software, and increased use of HR and IT resources.

Using an automatic transcription service provider can help your reduce or even eliminate these substantial costs. An outsourced provider can offer you a one-off audio to text conversation with costs just a little over $10 per hour.

In fact, in the case study above with Biola University, after outsourcing their transcription needs they reported an 80% reduction in costs.

Allows For Flexibility

The amount of transcription work required within a business tends to fluctuate during a yearly cycle. An outsourced automatic transcription service provider can easily handle a sudden influx of work. Additionally, they can be taken off retainer during downturns in business or quiet periods. Both of these scenarios are much harder to deal with when you have in-house staff.

This flexibility saves additional costs and helps with turnaround times.

Obtain More Accurate Transcriptions

Converting audio to text requires a trained employee. If you are asking an employee to transcribe audio on top of their regular responsibilities, it is probable that the accuracy rate will be effected.

However, with recent advancements in AI technology, getting a near 100% accurate transcription is possible with good quality audio recording.

Security of Confidential Information

Common business uses of audio to text transcription is to record internal meetings or focus group sessions. Often the information captured is confidential and you may not want your in-house employees hearing about what was discussed.

Automatic transcription firms implement high security procedures such as encrypting all data in transit and complying with strict legal requirements. When the content you need to have transcribed is confidential and shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands, an external provider would be more secure than an in-house team.

Ready to Outsource Your Transcription Services?

As we have noted, outsourcing your transcription services can save your business time and money, provide more accurate documents, help keep your confidential information secure, and keep your employees happier.

If you are interested in learning more about how automatic transcription can benefit your organisation, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Happy Scribe. Our team is here to help craft a pricing plan that’s ideal for your business. Send us a message or schedule a call today.