Transcription Service Blog by Transcription Institute

First and foremost, avoid sending business emails during hoilidays, such as Thanksgiving, Chritstmas, New Year as these are the times when people are not working and therefore, they will not be able to check their emails. With this, it is suggested to avoid launching your email campaigns during these periods.
Second, some surveys claim that the best days to send email is TUE, WED and THU. Mondays are usually busy to catch up with the work and plan the week, and Fridays are usually busy to plan the weekend.br/> As to the best day time to send email, consider mornings or end of the daya in the time zone of the receipient as those are the times when they are not busy with the meetings.

We get a lot of potential customers looking for software that will automatically transcribe their audio or video files for them. But we have to disappoint them. As much as we would love to be able to provide software that automatically transcribes speech, unfortunately the technology to support speech recognition simply hasn't gotten to the point where automatic transcription of audio or video recordings can match, let alone surpass, the accuracy of (good) human transcriptions. One of the reasons for this is that speech is incredibly complex, with variations in accents and enunciation as well as pitch and tone of voice, making it hard to match spoken words to written ones. Human transcribers have the luxury of determining how accurately they're going to transcribe a given audio or video file (or voicemail), for example

- Transcribe verbatim, including "ums" and repetitive phrases such as "like, like," and even enter indications of non-language cues such as laughter and sighs
- Skip over the "ums" and pauses as transcribed (which is what I decided to do)
- Transcribe only the relevant parts of the message.

Commercially available speech-to-text software, such as Dragon generally works best if you "train" the software to a specific voice and even then users should listen to the audio they wish to transcribe and re-speak what they hear for the software to translate. Moreover, there's a further step needed in proofreading the transcription and correcting any errors, which are quite many regardless of your mic quality of ability to speak like a news anchor with absolutely no accent.

Progress is being made on cracking the "speech to text" nut. Some voicemail providers offer automatic speech-to-text transcriptions of incoming voicemail. Apple's Siri is another step towards instant voice to text but the accuracy is well beyond the acceptable.

In the end, unlike computers, humans can compensate, at least to a degree, for another person's mumbling or to poor audio quality and other problems that can affect the clarity of the speech being transcribed.

Conducting an interview, coming up with good questions and establishing a report, is a challenging process. Transcribing that interview can also be difficult, and requires precise listening skills, patience, and careful editing. An hour-long interview can easily take 4 to 6 hours to transcribe, depending on how fast you type. Make sure you allow enough time to transcribe interviews accurately, and maintain the tone and quality of the original audio.

If you are transcribing an interview that someone else conducted, it's important to familiarize yourself with the subject's style and the context of the interview. Listen to at least a good portion of the interview first, before any typing, to prepare yourself.

When typing up the interview, to add clarity, you can add some clues to the tone of the interview in brackets, (e.g. [laughs], [points at bandmate]). Add these in either the first draft, or in the second edit when re-listening to the tape.

Words are harsher in print, so editing of filler and adding context afterwards can help present your subject in the correct light. Read over the final copy and make sure that your interview subject doesn't end up sounding more extreme or less articulate than they are in real life.

From my experience transcribing documentary interviews, I've found that you want to also we the specifications of the person that's hired you. A lot of times they want things exactly as they were said, including all the "ums" and "ahs."

If you're lucky enough to be using a digital file to transcribe from, there's plenty of software you can use to slow the file down so that you can type it up in real time (depending on how fast you type), which makes it easier.

Whether you're a large transcription services company or small business with one or several  or no employees, you may be required by State or Federal laws, or your vendors/subcontractors, to carry insurance.

In this article we're going to review what type of insurance you may need, how much it could cost, and where you can get coverage.

 

General Overview

There are many insurance companies in the U.S. And you don't have to shop all of them for insurance to get the best deal, however, we recommend you contact several brokers for quotes and than compare coverage and pricing. Personally for business insurance and workers compensation we use and recommend Paperless Insurance Services. They are brokers, who have access to multiple insurance companies and provide comprehensive and competitive insurance coverage we can afford.

For transcription service business there are 3 types of most common insurance:

1. General Liability or Business Owners Policy: covers bodily injury or property damage losses. General liability insurance will pay for legal representation in the court, litigation, and damages. Business Owners Policy also includes coverage for your business personal property against thefts, fire, and other common causes that can destroy it. Usually, the premium is low and starts from $250 for General Liability only and $500 for Business Owners Policy.

 Case example: Say you have an office and your clients stop by to drop off some tapes or discs for transcription and flips over a step. You call for emergency and possibly, later, being sued for bodily injury.  General Liability should help.

 Case example: your expensive equipment for transcription is stolen or destroyed by fire. Insurance company will pay for new equipment and for lost income, while equipment was in the process of ordering, shipping, installing etc... 

Common Limits: $1,000,000 per occurrence

2. Workers Compensation: if you have employees you're required to carry Workers Compensation insurance. This coverage will provide payments for medical bills and lost wages, and rehabilitation for employees injured when performing their job duties. In some States you must provide the Workers Comp. coverage for subcontractors as well. Please consult with your local authorities. The cost of Workers Compensation should not be high, and is regulated in each State. In California, for example, the rate is 0.6 per $100 of payroll. Another words, you're paying $6 for each $1000 of payroll. There are certain minimum premium requirements with each carrier in each State, but generally speaking, Workers Comp. starts from $525/yr.

 

Limits: Each U.S. State has own workers compensation insurance law and limits required on the policy.

 Case example: Say, similar accident happens with your employee, who is trapping over a broken step.  Workers Compensation should help.

3. Professional Liability, also known as Errors and Omissions:  this is the coverage that provides payments for unintentional errors or omissions in your work.

 Case example: You work with a School District and transcribe lectures for school teachers, so later the school district can publish new textbooks. A mistake has been made in transcription and is discovered after 50,000 textbooks are printed. Now the School District has to print those again... And guess who is paying for that? Right, your professional liability insurance.

 Case example: You work with a lawyer and transcribe testimonies and make mistakes... Oh, you don't want mess with that...

Limits: $1,000,000 per occurrence.

 

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This is not an offer for insurance. Please contact your licensed broker to obtain actual quotes.

Case examples are fictitious. Insurance claims are reviewed on a case by case basis and availability coverage is not guaranteed.

We're not legal advisers. Please consult with your legal adviser to learn how a lack of insurance coverage may affect your business operations, and what are the appropriate coverage limits and options for you operations. 

Below is a list of top 5 things you should know when meeting with lawyer, selected by our editors from various online sources and own experience.

1. Meeting with a lawyer is a business meeting, unless you bbq. Dress and behave as you would at a business meeting.
2. Prepare for the meeting. Have your questions ready. Plan ahead.
3. Attorney-client privilege means privacy. Be honest and tell the truth.
4. Be ready to pay attorney fees. Not always you can be offered "pay after you win the case"
5. Bring your sound recording device and record the conversation. You may want to get a transcription of your meeting.
6. Ultimate advice: try to live your life in a such way - you won't need a lawyer. To sue some one is not a pleasant thing.