Frequently Asked Questions

Q Who uses your services?

We provide a service to a diverse selection of clients including small businesses, consultants, authors, surveyors, insurance services, students, and many more.

Q What benefits do I gain from outsourcing my work?

How much is your time worth to you and how long does typing your own material take you? By outsourcing your secretarial work you can liberate your time to concentrate on more productive tasks. Rather than hiring an employee which will entail costs in recruitment and employment, together with legal employment liabilities, you only pay us for the time we spend processing your work.

Q I have a secretary - why would I want to outsource secretarial work?

• Your business may be expanding but you are not yet ready to increase your office staff
•  You wish to have a confidential document processed which you do not want to take into your office
• Your level of business may fluctuate
• How do you deal with staff holidays or absence through sickness?

Q What factors increase the length of time it takes to transcribe a recording?

• Quality of recording - this can be affected by recording equipment, recording volume, type of microphone and quality of cassette used.
• Clarity of voices - clarity of voice can be affected by distance from the microphone or by speaking too low or fast.
• Recording environment - background noise can affect recording quality - microphones pick up many background noises.
• Number of people speaking - recordings involving multiple speakers often take longer to transcribe due to interruptions and overlaps, or identification problems if speakers sound similar.
• Other factors which may influence transcribing times may be regional/foreign accents, specialist/technical terminology and speed of speech.
• We will always endeavour to transcribe poor quality recordings, however it should be noted that time, and consequently cost, will be affected by the factors outlined above. Click here to see our tips for producing high quality dictation, which will in turn reduce transcription time.

Q What is Verbatim Transcription? 

This is a full transcript of everything that is said in the recording including ''erms'', ''ers'', etc. These types of transcripts are often required for interviews by universities for qualitative analysis and by the legal profession.

Q What is Intelligent Verbatim Transcription?

Commonly used for lectures, conferences, etc. The ‘erms’ and ‘ers’ etc. are omitted from the transcript. In addition, abbreviations can be removed if required and replaced with formal terms, e.g. ‘you’ve’ becomes ‘you have’ etc.

Q I have an audio file I wish to be transcribed. How do I proceed?

Please simply contact us by email or telephone. Based on the length of the audio file and type of recording/content we will provide you with an estimate straight away.

Q How do you deal with corrections and revisions?

The first copy sent to the client is a draft which will have been checked through by Assured Transcription, however the client is responsible for final proofing. Errors are obviously corrected free of charge but once final approval has been given any revisions are charged at the usual hourly rate. Errors caused by the client’s incomplete instructions are also chargeable.

Q What software do you use?

All assignments are completed using the Microsoft Office suite of programmes - Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, Publisher as required.