Get serious about transcription

Some ads promise a lot. Almost free, nearly perfect, delivered yesterday.

Getting a good deal is always good. Getting something cheap never is. Cheap transcription is easy. Do it in the Third World. Skimp on quality and service. The cheapest transcription is even easier — run it through software and leave the laughable result up to you to clean up.

What does "99% accurate" mean? Whatever they want it to. If we're talking characters, that's an error every other line. Ever wonder why some vendors charge you a lot more for time stamps? Because you can't check accuracy without them.

It's the same with "fast" and "next day". The ad giveth, the fine print taketh away. You'll get it when you get it.

Maybe all of this is OK if you need to transcribe your Dad's memoirs. But it's not OK for serious research.

Qualitative research projects are no joke

You deal with clients, recruiters, facilities. You can be in different places every other day. You have too much do to and no time to do it. You deal with inflexible budgets and deadlines on one side and surprises, problems and delays on the other. Transcription is one small but critical piece, but it's near the end of your pipeline and the last place where you want to experience any kind of headache.

Transcription for research is not trivial. It's not one size fits all. You have specialized needs. You have guides and stimuli. You need specific elements noted and marked; others you want excluded. You have markets, segments, and respondents to track. You need help pulling recordings from all over the place. You need help dealing with wrong, incomplete, fragmented and poor quality recordings. You need help keeping track of where you are.

Now multiply all of the above by however many projects you have in front of you to get done.

Things go wrong. When they do, you will either have someone who will help you, or you won't.

We've transcribed over 10 million minutes of market research

We work with hundreds of research clients, including firms like Kantar, Ipsos, Westat and GfK. We think about projects, not transcripts.

We are focused on consistent, reliable quality. Everything we do is reviewed, proofread and reviewed again. Anything not up to our standards is redone. Everything is done by human beings, not software, and by native speakers, not offshore. Nothing is subcontracted. Everything we sell is something we actually do.

Turnaround for most work is two days. For challenging work, three. For however many recordings you need handled.

We answer calls and email promptly. We answer questions and solve problems. We do a thousand little routine things every day to save you time and help you meet your deadline. We make no promises we can't keep.

And finally pricing. We offer some of the lowest prices for serious, full-service, reliable research transcription on the market. Pricing that's consistent over time and free of surprises.

Did we mention translation?

If your project includes non-English recordings converted into English-language transcripts, Babbletype can help with that too. Recordings in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish are delivered as English language transcripts in three days at prices much lower than traditional translation providers. Other languages cost a bit more and take a little longer.