Believe it or not, having your audio transcribed in an accurate, quick, neat, and tidy fashion is a tall order. Despite there being a plethora of transcription companies and independent transcriptionists available at your fingertips via the Internet, you’re not always ensured the quality you desire. While outsourcing the strenuous work of transcribing your audio files is a great way to streamline your workflow and create quality reusable content, it only works if you find the right transcription service for your needs.
You deserve the best of the best, but the first step to finding the quality service you need is understanding what to look for in the best transcription services. Here’s what you need to know!
Intentional Reach is the leading sermon transcription service provider, transcribing sermons, podcasts, speeches, and more. Contact us today to get started!
What to Look For In the Best Transcription Services
Knowing what you want from a transcription service is always important, but if you’ve never worked with a transcription service provider before, it can be difficult to find the right fit. While we could go on and on about what you should avoid, it’s more productive (and helpful) if we identify what services should be provided and what standards should be met. Here’s what to look for in the best transcription service providers:
High Accuracy Guarantee
First and foremost, look to see that the company provides a high accuracy guarantee. This should be your number one priority when scouting for a transcription service. A high accuracy guarantee is important. It’s the factor that separates the good transcription services from the best.
Intentional Reach promises 99.9% accuracy and on-time delivery, or we will give you a full refund.
Identify Your Transcription Service Needs
While it’s important to have your project details all lined up and outlined for your transcriptionist, there’s more to it than asking them to transcribe your audio in a specified format by a certain date. Both you and your transcriptionist will be happier if you can identify whether you need your audio transcribed full verbatim, verbatim, or as detailed notes.
Full-Verbatim Transcription
This type of transcription captures everything in your audio files as spoken, including all false starts, errors, ums, and uhs. Everything is documented as is, word for word. As a client, it’s important to know that full-verbatim transcription is more tedious and therefore may cost more or take more time to complete. However, transcriptionists understand the value of this type of transcription.
Verbatim Transcription
With verbatim transcription, instead of documenting everything word for word, the transcriptionist tidies up the common errors that occur in everyday human speech, editing for grammar and cleaning up mistakes. This makes the content easier to consume and highlights the important information and themes of the audio.
Detailed Notes
In detailed transcription, detailed notes really hone in and focus on the important themes and information presented in your audio. This style removes the false starts and typical errors of human speech but also removes anything off-topic from the written transcription, while still delivering the most meaningful content. It covers the real meat and potatoes of your recording for easy and digestible review to aid in whatever project you’re working on.
Read Reviews & Testimonials
When conducting your research, it’s always a good idea to read over customer reviews and testimonials. Find out what previous customers have said about their experience with the service to see if it’s a good match for you and ensure if they actually deliver on their services.
Explore Intentional Reach client testimonials!
Data Protection & Security
Sometimes the files you need transcribed aren’t open to the public domain. These projects need to be protected and kept secure. The best transcription services will be able to walk you through their procedures for protecting your files.
Transparent Pricing Policy
As with any service, make sure you know exactly what you’re paying for. If there’s anything unclear about a transcription service’s pricing policies, they should happily oblige in answering your questions. The last thing you want is to be taken off-guard by hidden fees.
You can find Intentional Reach’s rate sheet here.
User Experience
Does the transcription service’s website allow you to upload your files easily? You shouldn’t be struggling to complete this first basic step in the process. If the process isn’t outlined on their website, make sure to contact them to ensure uploading is an easy and intuitive process.
At Intentional Reach, we can make the process even easier by monitoring your website and downloading new files when they're posted, so you don't have to send them. If you want, we'll even post the transcripts on your website for you. Our goal is to make the process as easy and stress-free as possible.
Design & Branding
Does the transcription service provider offer custom design and branding for your finished files? While not everybody will need this service, it is a nice plus one that the best transcription service providers offer, allowing you to have publish-ready content that you can share across your marketing channels.
At Intentional Reach, we'll design a transcript template that matches your brand, including your logo in the header of the transcript.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
While focusing on the positives is a great tactic for finding the best transcription service, it’s still important to recognize and acknowledge the other side of the coin. Here are a few things you should avoid during your search:
Don’t Choose the Cheapest Price You Can Find
The number one rule of purchasing anything is you get what you pay for. If you decide to cut costs on a transcription service, it’s highly likely you won’t be satisfied with the results. It’s important to find a service provider in your budget, but be sure you know what services are offered at the given rate.
Don’t Use Audio Transcribing Software
While you may be able to use transcribing software to shave some time off transcribing audio, it will still need a human touch to grammar check, edit, and format. Editing content after the fact can be even more time-consuming and expensive than if the content were to be optimized by a professional transcriptionist from the beginning.
Get High-Quality Transcripts Today!
Intentional Reach is the leading sermon transcription service provider, transcribing sermons, podcasts, speeches, and more. Contact us today to get started!
