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Best Practices to Transcribe Business Meetings Efficiently

by Julie Clements Promoter
Every organization conducts periodic meetings to develop staff skills, leadership, boost morale and to make informed business decisions. Business organizations conduct several discussions such as board meetings, inter-organizational meetings, disciplinary meetings, performance review, strategic planning meetings and so on. Important talks, discussions, meetings, and seminars are common in a business set up and these talks can be recorded and transcribed into well-structured text that can be used for future reference and also circulated in the office or among officials who did not attend the meetings. It prevents misunderstandings and inter- office conflicts from crippling productivity. Transcribing meetings and discussions using business transcription services can bring clarity and also helps in making decisions based on clear points expressed in the meeting. This helps organizations to improve their productivity and functioning. Meeting transcription has the following advantages. 

  • It helps to have a textual copy of the meeting.
  • It allows people with hearing disabilities and auditory processing disorder understand what was discussed in the meeting.
  • It helps to quickly understand and assess the content and relevance of the meeting.
  • It resolves the problem of voices that are difficult to hear or understand.
  • It makes computer searches for specific words and phrases from a digital text file easier.
  • The transcripts can be used as content for a website, which helps search engines to index your website and allows more people to find your website.

Common Challenges Involved in Transcribing Meetings

Transcribing meetings or discussions is a not an easy task, and it involves some challenges. This is mainly because meetings always have many participants and understanding each voice can be difficult. 

Following are some of the challenges that one may face while transcribing business meetings.

  • Getting familiar with different voices with a different tone, pitch and speed.
  • Difficulty to understand when people speak over each other and interrupt each other.
  • Problems with identifying the speakers.
  • Issues with understanding different speakers in a meeting.
  • Hard-to-hear words when recording contains low speaking voice.
  • Speakers often use incomplete and truncated phrases and incorrect sentence construction and the recording may include repeated words and phrases, false starts, interjections, pauses, mispronounced words and noises like “ahs,”“uhs” and “ums.” These filler words are distracting and it makes it difficult to understand what the speaker is saying. 

To overcome these challenges here are some effective tips to transcribe a business meeting recording.

  • Identifying your speakers: Meetings involve interaction of more than two people and more the people are attending, the more voices will be there in the recording. Some companies will ask to identify the speakers but other companies may not because they may use the transcripts for internal reference purposes by the people who were present at the meeting. Identifying the speakers by name can be difficult for transcriptionists as they don’t know the speakers and they will have to identify the speakers themselves. Another alternative is to mention the speakers generically as Male 1, Male 2, Female 1, Female 2; or Interviewer or Interviewee; or Moderator and Respondent.
  • Choosing a transcription format: Meeting transcript formats are usually simple, but clients could insist on particular formats. It is best to use a new paragraph when changing speakers and identifying the speakers. 
  • Use of the right equipment: Having the right set of equipment is important for error-free transcription. Some of the important equipment that you need are:

    1. Headsets: Using high quality headphones enables transcriptionists to listen to the recording carefully and this ensures error-free transcripts. Make sure to use noise cancelling headphones so that transcribers can hear everything that is spoken without any distractions.  
    2. Foot pedal: Using a foot pedal helps you pause and stop the transcription tape and this helps avoid the use of hands. This enables you to transcribe the recordings comfortably and quickly without interruptions. 
    3. Software: There are several software to transcribe the audio file into text format. 

  • Type of transcript: Transcription can be of two types, verbatim and non-verbatim. In a true verbatim transcription, everything a person says is transcribed as it is. A transcriptionist providing a true verbatim transcript takes down every detail heard in the recording whereas non-verbatim transcription is more reader friendly, and a clean text that eliminates all repetitions, false starts and other non-verbal utterances. A non-verbatim transcriptionist does not type the words as spoken. They remove fillers or repetitions that occur during people’s speech patterns and also paraphrase statements so that they convey the same idea but with more clarity. Non-verbatim transcripts are more preferred for business purposes. However, any type of transcription can be done depending on the requirements of the client.

  • Knowledge of specialized terminologies: Every industry has its own set of terminologies and it is important for transcriptionists to have a good knowledge of terminologies specific to the industries they are working for. Following are some of the tips for making transcription easier:

    1. Ask clients to give a list of unusual words and the names of the speakers or spell them at the beginning of the meeting recording.
    2. Do enough online research and look for specialized glossaries.
    3. Compile a list of words handy with you that you will often encounter for the industries you’re working with. This list of words can be used for reference when transcribing.
    4. Read industry publications and visit industry websites.

  • Confidentiality: Businesses often deal with sensitive information. So, make sure that the files are transferred through secure lines. Highly confidential files should be encrypted and secured with passwords so that they do not fall into the wrong hands. 

Recording meetings ensures that the decisions and actions of meeting are not lost or forgotten. But accurately transcribing these complex discussions that have multiple voices requires exceptional hearing and typing skills. Taking the time to record proper meeting notes helps you to review them later. Most businesses outsource meeting transcription work because it takes too long to do it themselves and they need to focus their energy on their business. With the help of a reliable business transcription services provider, you can transcribe meetings into accurate transcripts that are vital for intelligent decision making.

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About Julie Clements Freshman   Promoter

7 connections, 0 recommendations, 42 honor points.
Joined APSense since, September 4th, 2012, From Tulsa, United States.

Created on Sep 4th 2020 08:48. Viewed 294 times.

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