Why a 3-Tier Quality Control Model is Required for Transcription?

A MATTER OF TRUST

When you entrust your valuable corporate files to a transcription vendor, you expect accurate work delivered in a cost-effective and timely manner.

If the quality of the work being returned to you gives you cause for concern and prompts you to assign one of your own team to double-check all of the work, any time or cost-savings are immediately lost! Let us not ignore the most important factor: transcription quality control.

The price may have been right, and the immediate availability may have led you to believe that you could meet that deadline after all, but the harsh reality of poor quality work can set in very quickly.

OPEN AND HONEST COMMUNICATION

Commitments to specific turnaround times before the audio or video files have even been reviewed should raise a concern. Hungry freelancers may be willing to work around the clock to meet your deadline, but if there are problems with the files – poor audio quality, poor editing, and formatting issues – that deadline may be unattainable before the project even begins. Open and honest feedback from a professional transcription service will allow you to adjust your quality expectations accordingly rather than holding on to promises that all of the file issues can be fixed, only to be disappointed after the quality standards and delivery deadline are missed.

A COMMITMENT TO ACCURACY

Accuracy is very easy to promise but much harder to deliver. In the absence of an established track record, quality certifications, and a clear quality control model, the only way to test for accuracy is to verify the work being delivered.

This can be time-consuming and the internal resource cost ends up offsetting any savings gained from using a freelance provider.

For a commitment of a 99% or better rate of accuracy, there should be a clear and detailed process to back up such a claim.

A 3-TIERED CHECK MODEL

The work of a trained transcriptionist with relevant industry experience provides a very solid foundation on which to build a quality control model. Potential misunderstandings and miscommunications in the material are addressed through requests for supporting reference material (if needed), and additional research for verification. Once completed, the work is checked a second time for a specific set of quality criteria – typographical errors, blanks, phonetics (colloquialisms and vernacular phrases), and formatting errors.

To overcome any risk of familiarity blindness, where extended immersion in a document can make you blind to obvious errors, a qualified Quality Analyst then reviews the transcription file. Adding this third-tier of oversight with the fresh perspective of a qualified professional who has not been immersed in the document for hours, ensures that the document is triple-checked for any phonetic, grammatical, and subject-specific issues so that it can be delivered to you error-free.

Accurate transcription work of the highest quality delivered on-time and at a competitive price, can give you the peace of mind of knowing that your business or academic files are in safe and secure hands.