SUBCONTRACTING TRANSCRIPTION WORK
You may wish to perform transcription work from your home office. Perhaps you are already doing so and would like to know how to be more successful.
As a business offering a service to the community, think like Burger King and “do it their way” by accommodating the client whenever possible. Sure, you’re self-employed and get to set your own rules, but you need clients. As you are offering a service to the community, make sure you have a clear understanding of what it means to serve people. If you are unwilling to do so, your client can easily find another company who will serve them.
When you are subcontracting work from a transcription company, the transcription service owner is paying you out of their own pocket. All consumers are disappointed when they pay for a product or service and do not get their money’s worth. Remember the person you are contracting with is a consumer and may view the transcript you return as not worth the money they have agreed to pay you. Offering shoddy service will result in less work, if any, and of course less pay, not to mention the damage to your reputation if you are seen as lazy and careless.
Transcription companies will pay more to the best performers. Many transcriptionists complain their pay per line or page is too low. If the company is not willing to pay you more, it could be your work product is inferior to that of your peers and you never improve. Also, think about how you want to be treated when you purchase a product or service and watch what you say when speaking to your clients. If you are unpleasant to do business with, this may be the reason a transcription company is not offering you work.
Consistency is important to a consumer; therefore, you will want to perform your work to the best of your ability day in and day out. Being pleased with a particular transcriptionist’s work, the service owner may decide to pay more, but then change their mind when they see work performance fall. Frankly, this is not unusual. If the quality of your work is up and down like the waves of an ocean, you’re unlikely to receive more money for your work and you will never know that you’re missing out. If your work is fraught with errors due to carelessness, rest assured this does not go unnoticed by the service owner and ofttimes you will not be told the obvious. Mature business people do not perform poorly and then wait to see if their clients notice.
All humans experience personal difficulties. Some people may use their personal problems as an excuse to perform their work poorly; however, this is not in the least professional. As a frame of reference, imagine what would happen if dentists, mechanics, surgeons, landscapers, etc. used their personal difficulties as an excuse to perform badly. Doing business in America would be a nightmare, as you would never know if the person you want to do business with is in a good frame of mind. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect to be paid as a professional in any business endeavor if you let your personal circumstances dictate the level of service you deliver. Develop techniques to deliver a fine work product and stick to it even when you’re experiencing difficultly. Although your work may have more errors than usual during times of stress, it will be readily apparent to the transcription company that you did try your best. Do not hesitate to inform the transcription service owner that your work may not be at its best so they can be sure to double check it. If this happens to you a lot, consider charging less for your services if the service owner will agree to keep you on.
Do you do good work on clear recordings, but drop the ball on less audible recordings? If so, this too will result in less work and pay. As a rule, a transcription company receives both clear and somewhat inaudible recordings. A professional transcriptionist will do their best regardless of the audibility factor of the recording.
Be willing to expand your vocabulary. If you are not willing to look up words you are unfamiliar with, your business will not expand either. I think you will agree it is peculiar to only be willing to type words you already know. If you cannot find out how to spell a word, ask the service owner rather than type inaudible. Then keep a vocabulary list of words the service owner has identified for you so you will not have to be told over and over again how to spell a word. Punctuation counts as well. After all, if grammar and punctuation were not important, service owners could receive the same work product for less money by having the transcription work performed out of the country. Your skills in this area will keep your job in America.
As a beginner, your earnings may not be much for difficult transcription projects because it takes you a long time to complete the work. This is the line that makes or breaks a career as a transcriptionist, particularly if you’re transcribing many types of recordings (medical, interview, phone call, etc.). In two to three weeks, the transcription work will become easier for you. No one would work in the transcription field if the money earned was not equitable to the work performed. If you only want easy transcription jobs, you are being unrealistic and may never have the business you hope for.
With the above in mind, always be thankful when someone is willing to do business with your company. You will find the occupation of transcriptionist is very nice indeed.
TRANSCRIPTSLTD.COM
An Arizona transcription company offering audio transcription and data entry services worldwide.
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SUPPORT AMERICAN WORKERS
You must be a US citizen and work in the United States of America to subcontract work from Transcripts, Ltd.
Phoenix transcription service providing medical transcription, interview transcription, hearing transcription, phone call transcription, and data entry.
