4 Benefits of Hiring UK Based Transcription Services
Transcription services have become online commodities.
Unless you are in the market to hire a professional notetaker, you likely won’t give a second thought to the location of the transcription service you are engaging online. This is a mistake.
Transcription services aren’t all the same. The national origin matters. It can impact your total end cost, the security of the service, professional standards and more.
For some people, UK transcription services might not be the best choice. However, there is a clear case to be made that for most: they deliver superior outcomes, lower risk of unexpected costs and improved data protection.
Here is our list of the 4 reasons you should be using UK transcription services.
Data Protection And GDPR
GDPR has been a hot topic over the past couple of years and the regulations came into force in 2018. Businesses need to take extra care to protect their data, and GDPR has helped this. The regulations are essential as it has made all companies responsible for the protection of their data and any security breaches.
Because the UK is the only English-speaking country that follows GDPR, UK transcription firms are restricted in the amount of data and information they can give away to third parties.
As long as you are working with a transcription service that operates within the GDPR jurisdiction, then you can be happy knowing that there is very little risk of your clients’ data or your own going missing or being stolen.
Using businesses that follow GDPR is only the first step. There are other security measures that you should look out for in transcription services, and many UK firms will have these covered.
Most UK transcription firms have ISO 27001 and 9001 accreditation. If you find a company that does have these accreditations, then you can be happy knowing that they have gone through rigorous assessments from third parties. ISO 27001 is all about data management and how to keep their clients’ information as secure as possible.
The majority of UK transcription firms are also more than happy to sign NDAs as well. If they agree to sign, then it shows you that they take their data management and security very seriously.
Accents Are Relative
Depending on where you get your transcription, sometimes it can be more expensive due to the accent being difficult for a transcriber to understand. If the accent isn’t local to that transcriber, they will need to take longer to listen and transcribe the recording. This will make the whole transcription take a lot longer for them, so they will need to charge you more for it.
If you are trying to keep costs down, then that won’t be good news for you. Thankfully, a UK-based transcriber will be able to carry out all transcriptions in a local accent in a lot shorter time, and so you won’t have to fork out a lot for what should be a very simple job.
That’s not all, though, as the English can handle English being spoken in almost any accent, even if it isn’t a native one. That’s because the speaker will still be speaking English, which the transcriber will know inside and out. So, if you do get a UK-based transcriber, they will be able to expertly handle any transcription.
High Professional Standards
Not only are UK-based transcription services GDPR compliant, but they also have to follow a lot of other security protocols. This means that they all work to some very high professional standards indeed.
They also treat their employees a lot better than some other international firms, so you can be happy knowing that you are working with happy and healthy employees. They won’t be quite as stressed as some of the workers from other countries either. This is largely down to the fact that the UK has some very generous holiday schemes and pension plans, which takes a lot of weight off workers’ minds. Thanks to this, you can work with really motivated and enthusiastic transcribers.
Peace Of Mind
It’s true that quite a few of the transcription firms based in the UK are more expensive than international ones, but at least you can know that you are paying for a much better service. The quality of work always matches the price that they charge.
Lots of companies also find that when they outsource their transcriptions to an offshore company, they end up losing control over their project. That is because all of these international transcription services are all based in countries that don’t have adequate privacy laws.
There is a high risk of data being stolen and if that does happen, most firms in these countries do not have much interest in pursuing a case. At least if you outsource to a UK firm then you won’t have to deal with that issue. That’s because all of the firms in the country will be legally obliged to follow all GDPR regulations as well as honour NDAs and the various other important data privacy protocols.
As you can see, it really is important to think about where your transcribers are based. There is no better location than in the UK, as this can bring you all of the benefits that are mentioned above!
You’ve been reading about why you should opt for UK based transcription services. If you’d like to learn more about choosing the right transcription services for your needs, we’ve written The Ultimate Guide to Transcription Services.
