The rise in the use of digital dictation systems has seen a corresponding rise in
the number of firms offering to transcribe your digital dictation recordings.
The main benefits of using an outsourced transcription service are:
- Reduce overheads by reducing the number of secretaries/PAs that you need to employ
and house in expensive office space
- Cope with sudden increases in workload or general busy periods by passing some of
your transcription work to the external company
- Provide evening, weekend and other out-of-hours secretarial cover to your fee earners
- Reduce reliance on temporary staff
Of course there are risks associated with using another company to undertake your
digital transcription with the main ones being:
- Confidentiality
- Maintaining quality standards
How do outsourced digital transcription services work?
Typically the fee earner will dictate into their digital dictation machine as normal
and a file in an industry standard format will be produced from this. This file
will then be sent to the transcription company using email or directly from your
digital dictation system if it supports this feature.
When the transcription company receive this file they will allocate it ether manually
or automatically to one of their pool of typists who will transcribe the file and
send it back to you. You will generally receive the transcribed file as a Word document
in your email although more sophisticated systems may receive it back into a digital
dictation workflow system.
Some companies will also let you phone in dictations using your mobile phone or
a normal office phone.
What to look for when selecting an outsourced digital transcription service
There are a number of things to investigate and be aware of when selecting an outsourced
digital transcription agency. Some of the key ones are listed below:
Experience
There is a proliferation of companies offering outsourced digital dictation. Many
of them are new and fairly inexperienced. Many may not also have the necessary technical,
managerial and financial infrastructure to provide the level of service that you
require.
Other have been in the market for a number of years, have considerable experience
and have invested significant sums in their infrastructure.
UK or Overseas Typists
Some companies employ only UK staff (generally ex-legal secretaries) to provide
transcription services while others employ overseas staff, generally in India or
the Philippines. This may or may not affect the quality of the returned transcription
but is something that you should be aware of when choosing a provider. There can
also be data protection issues with sending information abroad which you may need
to make your clients aware of.
Technology
It is important to ensure that not only does the transcription company have the
systems and technology necessary to receive, transcribe and return your dictations,
but also they have appropriate systems in place to monitor quality, return deadlines
and other such factors.
Turnaround times
Most transcription companies offer a rapid return service (usually a few hours)
which costs slightly more than their standard service. Standard service is typically
around 24 hours although some firms will aim to return all work to you the same
day that it is sent to them.
Quality Control
You should expect your transcription company to have appropriate quality control
checks in place to ensure the accuracy and quality of work prior to it being returned
to you. Some firms do this entirely manually while others use a combination of manual
and automatic measures.
Security & Confidentiality
Appropriate security measures should be in place at the transcription provider to
protect your confidential documents. These measures should also include confidentiality
agreements between yourself and the provider along with similar agreements between
the provider and their typists. This is especially critical if the company uses
freelance, self employed or overseas typists.
Templates & House Style
Your transcription provider should be able to return transcriptions to you using
your standard Word templates and house style for the documents they are transcribing.
If you have to re-format documents when you receive them then you are not getting
the full benefits of outsourced transcription.
Pricing
Price varies according to vendor. Some charge by the number of words transcribed
and others by the number of lines or other similar measures. Price will also depend
on whether you use the standard or priority service and whether you use them only
on an ad-hoc basis or whether you commit to send a more substantial volume of work
on a regular basis.
How to firms start using outsourced transcription?
The answer to this is basically "slowly".
Most lawyers will have an initial fear of using such services and there are also
the political issues raised within the firm as the secretaries start to fear for
their jobs.
Therefore most firms start off very slowly, just outsourcing a few bits of work
on an ad-hoc basis to see how the process works. If successful they will then perhaps
pass on more work when they have secretaries absent or during otherwise busy periods.
When a secretary leaves they may then decide not to replace the member of staff
but to start outsourcing more transcription work to the external company.
Look for companies that will offer you a free trial of their transcription service
so that you can try it out before making a commitment.