How to Optimize Your Transcription Process to Speed Up Your Research Workflow

As a researcher, your journey to better understanding your market and audience isn’t always easy. Besides needing to save time and keep costs low throughout your research process, you also need to more efficiently uncover key insights from your research interviews, as well as stay organized in your research and billing. 

That’s why it’s time to reevaluate your transcription process. Transcribing your qualitative data is a key function of any insights team, but too often it can be a hindrance. A transcription service can help you simplify your research workflow — especially one that offers fast turnaround times; accurate, editable transcripts; and features to keep projects and billing more organized. With Rev, you get those benefits and much, much more.

Accurate transcripts you can count on

Transcript accuracy is paramount in the insights industry. Huge business decisions hinge on this research, and inaccuracies in the final reports can lead to embarrassing conversations with clients and stakeholders, and even production delays.

With a transcription service like Rev, you can get 99% accurate transcripts of your interviews, from the nuances of speech to a hushed aside. You’ll be able to focus on your interview process — listen intently, ask the right follow-up questions, and get those key quotes — without racing to take notes or asking your interview subject to repeat themselves. 

If you’ve ever had to repeat yourself, then you know your phrasing changes the second or third time. As a researcher, you want to capture every detail to make sure nothing’s lost. And if your client expects full transcripts as part of the final package, you need to ensure you’re capturing your interviews as accurately as possible.

Interviewing is a process with many variables: Internet connections can be spotty, body language can be hard to read, there’s more opportunity for distraction. That’s why researchers need a verbatim transcript they can count on — one that captures every single word, pause, false start, and verbal tic in the conversation. 

Rev can also help simplify your workflow from the very first step — recording your interview. With the free Rev Call Recorder or the Rev Voice Recorder apps, you can record outgoing or incoming calls and order Rev transcripts right in the app. The app also allows you to easily share recordings and transcripts with your whole team via email or Dropbox.

Finally, if you’re recording your interviews via Zoom (as so many researchers are), you simply upload your Zoom recording file directly to Rev.com when placing your order. No matter how you record, Rev makes it easy to convert your audio or video to accurate transcripts.

Faster transcription means faster insights

All the accuracy in the world won’t matter if you’re getting your transcripts back too late. Clients and stakeholders have hard deadlines, and research teams or firms need to meet those deadlines, no matter the disruptions they’re facing. 

Speed is of particular importance for internal research teams as well, as you need transcripts to start analyzing right away. Getting transcripts back faster can help improve the quality of your analysis — you can take your time with the conversation. Make notes. Highlight. Find the roots of the feedback.

Some transcription services promise turnaround times days after you submit your audio or video files (and many of those services are often dodgy when it comes to accuracy). But with Rev, you can get an accurate transcription of a 60-minute in-depth interview in a matter of hours.

And with a team of more than 70,000 transcription professionals, Rev is a scalable solution for all of your transcription needs, no matter how many IDIs or focus group recordings you need converted to text. Do you have a huge volume of files you need submitted at one time? Or on a regular basis? Rev’s integrations with Google and Dropbox streamline the ordering process, simplifying one more step in your workflow.

A more organized, collaborative speech-to-text solution

With multiple analysts or researchers working on any given project, transcripts need to be shareable to give everyone on the team insight into interview responses. 

With Rev Workspaces, you and coworkers across various departments can work independently or collaboratively within a single account to get more done with less effort. You can organize your file libraries in your Rev account by how you work — whether that’s projects, teams or departments — and collaborate with your team members to share files, place new orders, and update project status without needing to physically be in the same place.

Rev’s Transcript Editor interface gives you the ability to share the transcript with anybody on your team, allowing them to search for particular words or make any necessary changes. That way, multiple people can analyze the same interview, highlight key insights, and speed up the production of the final reports. Plus, you can export those highlighted pieces to use when putting together your final analysis.

In addition to keeping your transcripts organized, Rev also simplifies your billing and reporting so you understand where your resources are being allocated. You can easily review your transaction history, manage payments and schedule reports to be delivered straight to your inbox.

Andrew Sevillia, Director of Customer Marketing at Sage Intacct and an avid Rev user, said it best: “The high accuracy is critical, the turnaround time is great, and the price is right. Rev has alleviated the stress of needing to carve out hours in my afternoon or night to focus on transcription.”