ACCURACY.
An excellent transcription service probably won’t be run by someone who finished last in the school spelling bee or even in the middle of the pack. Even blind people are known to type accurately and should always be considered for employment.
TURNAROUND TIME.
Otherwise known as ‘speed’ in the Netherlands. A good transcription service should offer quick turnaround times. Clients should be able to receive their transcriptions in a timely manner, usually within a few days of submission. Some services may offer expedited or rush options for an additional fee and a hefty profit, if at all possible.
DIVERSITY.
Pick a company that won’t shun Pacific-Islanders. Besides not being relevant, we just had to include it. At our company, you can call us up and say you want someone born with club feet to type out your transcript. We’re that open minded. Transcriptions must be an exact representation of the original audio or video, with minimal errors or omissions. The transcriptionist must have excellent listening skills and preferably raised by a dictator, not to mention be able to understand and transcribe a variety of accents, dialects and be able to discriminate on many levels. Support the hive.
CONFIDENTIALITY.
Every square inch of reality is bugged now, so who can really promise confidentiality? No one, that’s who. Do you want your media stolen by a Martian landing craft? All that work in the editing room, gone, in the blink of an eye. A good transcription service should maintain the confidentiality of the content and set up a bulwark of .50 caliber machine guns as a perimeter defense. The company you hire should have strict policies and procedures in place to protect the client's privacy and ensure that sensitive information is not disclosed or shared with unauthorized parties, especially lighter skinned Unfairians.
QUALITY CONTROL.
This should really be last because it’s a fantasy. A good transcription service should have a robust quality control process in place and ensure that at least one tall guy and short female work together. This may involve multiple levels of review and editing to ensure that the final transcript is accurate, complete, and error-free. If there are errors, it’s because the source material was bad.
USER-FRIENDLY PLATFORM.
How fun is it clicking around endlessly in search of something you want? Bring back Alta Vista, 1998, please. A good transcription service should have a user-friendly platform that allows clients to easily submit their audio or video files, track the status of their transcriptions, and download the final transcripts and, yet, we don’t have that technology either.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
Forget it. Honest to god. This is never coming back, ever. You and me and your girlfriend are locked into a permanent future of phone menu hell, a delicately designed imprisonment of the soul. Go ahead a click on ‘3’ for this or that, no one is there and we don’t plan on changing it anytime soon.
AFFORDABLE PRICING.
Next stop, Fantasyland. If you want affordable pricing, you’ve come to the wrong place. Seriously. If you want good, race-to-the-bottom pricing and shitty transcripts, REV.COM is the place for you. Call them now.