11 million meetings take place in America every day. In those meetings, important ideas that can help improve the success of the businesses conducting them come to light.
The problem is that the vast majority of those ideas will be lost.
Think about it, 11 million meetings all lasting an hour or longer… At what point does an employee’s attention start to wonder? At what point do people stop retaining information?
Therein lies the value of transcription.
With a transcriptionist in your ranks, you can get a typed out charter of exactly what was said in meetings, during interviews, and in every other facet of your business.
Unfortunately, transcribing effectively requires more than just a keyboard. It takes audio recording equipment, high-quality headsets, good software, and a solid transcriber’s foot pedal.
But is investing in transcription equipment really worth it? It is, and here’s why.
1. Increased Value in Meetings
A lot of businesses conduct meetings because doing so seems like a necessary means to achieving success. But how productive are most meetings?
Chances are, not very.
As we alluded to in this article’s intro, meeting attendees tend to have other things on their mind during these hour-long blocks of time and that’s a big problem.
Think about it, if you have a team of 25 people that you’re paying $20.00 per hour, it costs you $500.00 per hour to conduct a team meeting. If everything that’s said is in one ear and out the other, that’s money wasted.
With transcription equipment, you can empower a team coordinator or secretary to improve your return on meeting investment by ensuring that every valuable word that’s said gets persevered for later reference.
2. Improve Company Culture
When you have transcription equipment, important conversations get saved for team members to reference later. The impact that has on work/life balance is immense.
If you’ve worked in a corporate setting, you know how important it is to not take time off when a “big meeting” is taking place. That pressure can make it so employees begrudgingly come into work sick, forgo vacationing for the holidays, and ultimately build resentment towards their company.
Transcription equipment allows employees to take passes on meetings when they need to because employees can simply reference the meeting’s record after it takes place.
That level of flexibility leads to employees being a lot happier in their work environment.
3. Miss Less Leads
If your business has prospective customers calling in to book services, it’s inevitable that a voicemail will get past you every now and then. That missed voicemail could mean missing out on thousands of dollars.
If your secretary has transcription equipment however, s/he will be able to quickly transcribe the message and email it to important team members.
Think, how much easier would your life be if voicemails could be delivered straight to your inbox where you could organize them with everything else?
Transcription equipment makes that dream a reality.
4. Boost Employee Productivity
We’ve run into a lot of business owners that have coordinators transcribe meetings using nothing but a poor audio recording and a keyboard. While it may seem that this set up is cheaper than investing in transcription equipment, it’s not.
Transcribing without proper equipment is mistake-prone and takes forever. That lost time means lost productivity which is going to cost you more in the long run.
5. Save Outsourcing Costs
A popular trend when it comes to transcribing is outsourcing. It’s usually cheap and turnaround is quick.
Depending on the volume of transcribing you need doing though, outsourcing can cost you way more in the long run than just investing in your own transcription equipment.
The better you can answer the question, “What is transcription?” and the better you understand how the process applies to your business, the better you can deduce whether or not you’ll save in the long run by doing it in-house v.s. spending money on contractors.
6. Keep Sensitive Data Safe
Trade secrets are often what makes one business vastly superior to its competitors.
Do you have trade secrets? If so, how would you feel if another company were to get a hold of them?
When you have 3rd party vendors transcribe your sensitive meetings, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re letting prying eyes in on your biggest secrets.
For most companies, the convenience of outsourcing just isn’t worth the risk.
7. Equipment is Tax Deductible and Holds its Value
As is the case with most business investments, transcription equipment is fully tax deductible. Furthermore, if you decide later that you don’t need it, quality equipment holds its value exceptionally well.
You should be able to sell any used transcription equipment at very close to the value you bought it at.
8. Prime Your Business for the Video Revolution
Transcription equipment isn’t just about meetings. It’s also about media.
People are watching billions of hours per day worth of video content on YouTube. Because of that, chances are your company is or soon will be leveraging streaming media platforms to start promoting your brand.
With transcription equipment, you’ll be able to quickly caption your video content so you can remain compliant with internet best practices and some state’s disabilities laws.
Wrapping Up Ways Your Business Could Benefit from Transcription Equipment
If you’re on the fence as to whether or not transcription equipment can bring value to your business, get off the fence.
Investing in transcription equipment is almost always worth the spend. And if it turns out not to be, you can always write equipment off and sell what you bought!
Want more tips on how you can take your company to the next level? Then browse more of our uplifting business content on View from a Blue Moon today!
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