Insider Tip Six: Finding the Right Transcriptionist for You

You wouldn't think it would be hard to find a good transcriptionist today with the economy the way it is and so many people desperately looking for work. However, there's a lot more to finding a transcriptionist than just Google-ing for one.

First of all, there's the matter of training and experience. Not every transcriptionist has had the right kind of training to be able to do your job correctly and quickly. At the very least, your transcriptionist should have a Bachelor's degree as well as some type of special training in English grammar and spelling or medical transcription training which teaches all of the above and more. Grammar is not taught well in many schools these days, so don't naturally assume your potential transcriptionist can spell, type, or even speak English correctly. Ask for a resume or CV, and check out the person's references.

Then there's the matter of speed. Not everyone types at the same speed or has the same error free result that you would like. I personally only type 75 corrected words per minute (CWPM removes any typos before the speed is calculated). That's not as fast as many transcriptionists, but I am also keenly aware of errors and typos and try to avoid them the very first time around if possible (hence, the slightly slower speed). Just because someone can hit the keys at 100 words per minute doesn't mean you'll be able to read what they typed when they're done! Whether or not they proofread their documents is also crucial and something to ask about when looking for a good transcriptionist.

Along with the typing speed, you need to consider turn around time. It costs more to get your documents in 12-24 hours. So perhaps you could plan ahead on your audio or video files and then allow your transcriptionist a little more time to work on them (like 2-3 days, or 4-6 days). That would be significantly cheaper for you.

The last consideration when choosing a transcriptionist is, are they agreeable or disagreeable? This is very important consideration because, believe you me, there are some very disagreeable transcriptionists out there! They can be some of the most grouchy and touchy people around. Part of the reason for that is transcription is an intense job if you do it full-time. Put yourself in their shoes. Sitting at a desk in some corner typing as fast as your sore fingers and carpal tunnel syndrome can go for 10 or 12 hours a day does not a happy person make. That's why I would suggest that you conduct some correspondence with your transcriptionist before hiring them and try to ferret out their personality traits, true feelings, and work ethic. It could save you a lot of trouble in the long run. One of the reasons I only do transcription part-time is because I want to continue to be a happy transcriptionist with smiling satisfied customers.

Insider Tip Five: How to Prepare Your Audio/Video for a Transcriptionist

Let's say you've conducted a webinar, teleseminar, call-in program, or conference of some sort, and you're now ready to have your audio or video transcribed into a document to post on your website. There is an important step that will help your transcriptionist tremendously when s/he transcribes your document for you. This step is to figure out how many people in total are speaking on the audio or video. If there are a lot of speakers or people asking questions, this may be a bit difficult for you to figure out. However, it's definitely worth your time. It's also worth it to preserve the sanity of your transcriptionist!

Once you've figured out how many people are speaking, you'll need to clearly identify each caller, spelling their first and last names correctly on a list in the order in which they're speaking. These people will need to be mentioned by name on the transcript of your webinar/teleseminar, and they will want their names spelled correctly in the document (who doesn't?!). This is a huge help to your transcriptionist, and it will prevent them from listing people simply as "male speaker" and "female speaker" which gets very confusing, especially in a group setting where there are multiple males and females speaking.

Another thing you will need to do, especially for video conferences, once you have the number of people speaking and the list of their names is to identify the person in some way. You can mention the color of their hair, the length of their hair, their lack of hair (if it's a guy), the color and type of their clothing, or possibly even their accent ("Australian accent" for instance). This will help your transcriptionist more than you could ever know, and the person speaking or asking a question can even be picked out with their back to the video camera (which is often the case with conference videos anyway).

By following Insider Tip #5, you will make a fast friend of your transcriptionist, which leads us right into Insider Tip #6.

Mispredicted Words, Mispredicted Futures

The accuracy of computer speech recognition flat-lined in 2001, before reaching human levels. The funding plug was pulled, but no funeral, no text-to-speech eulogy followed. Words never meant very much to computers—which made them ten times more error-prone than humans. Humans expected that computer understanding of language would lead to artificially intelligent machines, inevitably and quickly. But the mispredicted words of speech recognition have rewritten that narrative. We just haven’t recognized it yet.

After a long gestation period in academia, speech recognition bore twins in 1982: the suggestively-named Kurzweil Applied Intelligence and sibling rival Dragon Systems. Kurzweil’s software, by age three, could understand all of a thousand words—but only when spoken one painstakingly-articulated word at a time. Two years later, in 1987, the computer’s lexicon reached 20,000 words, entering the realm of human vocabularies which range from 10,000 to 150,000 words. But recognition accuracy was horrific: 90% wrong in 1993. Another two years, however, and the error rate pushed below 50%. More importantly, Dragon Systems unveiled its Naturally Speaking software in 1997 which recognized normal human speech. Years of talking to the computer like a speech therapist seemingly paid off.

However, the core language machinery that crushed sounds into words actually dated to the 1950s and ‘60s and had not changed. Progress mainly came from freakishly faster computers and a burgeoning profusion of digital text.

Speech recognizers make educated guesses at what is being said. They play the odds. For example, the phrase “serve as the inspiration,” is ten times more likely than “serve as the installation,” which sounds similar. Such statistical models become more precise given more data. Helpfully, the digital word supply leapt from essentially zero to about a million words in the 1980s when a body of literary text called the Brown Corpus became available. Millions turned to billions as the Internet grew in the 1990s. Inevitably, Google published a trillion-word corpus in 2006. Speech recognition accuracy, borne aloft by exponential trends in text and transistors, rose skyward. But it couldn’t reach human heights.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology Benchmark Test History (borrowed from: http://robertfortner.posterous.com/the-unrecognized-death-of-speech-recognition)

Insider Tip Four: How Long to Make Your Audio/Video/Articles

Quick Summary: Don't record more than 30 minutes at a time--it will be too cumbersome a document to read otherwise, unless you plan to create several chapters in an e-book or it is part of a larger body of work.

As I have transcribed articles for various Internet marketing experts, real estate big wigs, and teleseminar gurus, I've noticed something quite interesting. They lose me after about 30 minutes of their "expert" audio/video. In spite of the fact that you can cram a whole lot more useful information in a one hour or a 1 1/2-hour audio file, you're just going to lose people along the way. They'll be dropping off like melons off a cart on a bumpy road. That is especially true when your audio/video is transcribed into a document.

A 30-minute audio recording will render about a 13-page document. From my perspective, I can tolerate reading 13 pages at one sitting. However, your average reader today who often reads on an 8th-grade level or below will take longer to read 13 pages. People who speak and read English as a foreign language will even take longer than that. Others are used to short synopses or summaries on various Internet sites and blogs and don't have the patience for longer articles. As I mentioned in Insider Tip Three, considering your audience is crucial, so you need to remember these aforementioned groups when you're planning your audio/video or article.

If your recording is an hour or longer, it will produce about 26-30 pages once it has been transcribed. That's a fairly long document to weed through for most people. I would say unless you plan to make your document into an e-book or a printed book with chapters of some sort, you're better off sticking to the 30-minute rule.

There are always exceptions to the 30-minute rule, for instance, sermons, which are often a bit longer. That's to be expected. However, if you're writing for the Internet, keep it short and sweet. Use your words carefully and succinctly--they will cost you in the end.

Insider Tip Three: Remember Who Your Target Audience Is

As any good writer knows, one of the most important things to remember when writing an article is this: Who is my audience? Is my audience professionals? Are they adults or children? Are they native English speakers or speakers of English as a foreign language? Are they educated or not?

Once you've narrowed down your target audience, it's important to be consistent in your writing.

One of the problems I often see in audio files that I transcribe for people is not staying on topic. This is intimately tied to who your target audience is.

Many people these days who do teleseminars or webinars tend to do things off the cuff. This makes for very annoying and tedious reading. It causes a lot of grief for transcriptionists, too--believe me!

If your audience are speakers of English as a foreign language, then it's important not to go down a bunch of rabbit trails, using English idioms that are obtuse to this target group, and confusing them by wandering from your topic at hand.

Another related concern is talking down to people or making ones readers feel like they're a bit daft. Some speakers and writers have a tendency to do this. In my personal opinion, writers should always assume their readers are intelligent, concerned about the topic, and have interesting opinions and knowledge of their own to share. This is especially true in certain venues like call-in webinars or teleseminars.

One last thing to remember is try to visualize the person you're writing the article to or doing the teleseminar for sitting there in front of you as you have a personal talk with them on your specific subject matter. That will help you remember your target audience and it will keep you from straying from your topic at hand.

Tired of the Office? The Various Ways Medical Reports Transcription Allows You to Work from Home

Tired of the Office? The Various Ways Medical Reports Transcription Allows You to Work from Home

Posted using ShareThis

Insider Tip Two: Always Make Sure Your Audio Is Top Quality

This area of dictation and recording audio or video is crucial for transcription. I have transcribed many audio files that were barely audible. The worst was some medical dictation in a room full of echoes and someone sneezing and coughing right into the microphone (perhaps the camera person?). I had to listen at full volume, and when the person sneezed or coughed into the mic, my hearing went dead for 15 to 20 minutes each time! I actually lost some of my hearing during the course of transcribing for those people, and that's not worth any amount of payment! Hearing is priceless.

To avoid audio problems, you need to check the following:

1. Do you have the best quality microphones that you can afford? It is worth the investment.

2. How close or far away are the people speaking from the mic? They need to be a comfortable distance away, and this needs to be tested several times in the actual venue before you begin your recording to make sure it's not too soft or too loud and distorted.

3. Turn off phones, alarms, radios, or any other electronic or noisemaking devices so they won't interrupt your recording or obscure the voices. You'd be surprised how many people try to talk over a ringing phone or a room full of people talking, laughing, or shouting.

4. Make sure you're talking slowly and articulately. If your recording is an interview, repeat what the interviewee said for the transcriptionist if you could tell they were mumbling or stumbling. This will help the transcriptionist tremendously.

5. If you're making a video recording, make sure you mic the people who are speaking up close. If the mic is on the video camera, then the loudest person will be the camera person--not always your intention! Using lapel microphones is very helpful in videoing a conference or group, and if you must, pass a microphone around and make sure the person is holding it before they start talking or until they are finished. A common tendency is to let the voice trail off at the end of a sentence, or be passing the mic to the next person while still finishing a sentence. Believe me, it's very difficult to transcribe what that person is saying if they do that.

6. If you're using Voice Recognition Software, the person dictating must have great English speaking skills and a large vocabulary. If they don't, you will get inferior documents full of grammatical mistakes as well as unintelligible words. Accents are a problem with VRS. I wouldn't recommend using this type of software. You will still have to pay a transcriptionist to proofread and edit your transcripts even after they are done. It's just not cost effective.

7. Lastly, just try to remember the transcriptionist when you're recording. Think about how easy or hard it is to hear what you're saying and adjust accordingly. Your transcriptionist will love you for this!

Insider Tip One: Voice Recognition Software versus Transcriptionists

What do hospitals, teleseminar hosts, songwriters, and e-book writers have in common? They all need their audio or video files to be transcribed into excellent documents. Which is better? Is it better to have an expensive voice recognition program that will automatically create documents from your dictation? Is it better to hire a live transcriptionist to transcribe your audio and proofread and edit as they go? That's the question we'll explore here.

I suppose you've heard a lot about voice recognition software, especially with companies like Google marketing Google Voice. There are a lot of people selling this type of software on the Web. The thing that they don't tell you in their sales pitch is, in order to get flawless documents from your dictation/audio is to speak perfectly, with perfect annunciation, perfect grammar, without false starts or "Um" or "You know" or "So..." and then you have to count on the software to work perfectly. The problem is, no dictator is perfect, and no voice recognition software is perfect. Thus, you end up with garbled unintelligible mush that you or someone else has to deal with. In the end, you would be much better off hiring a reasonably priced transcriptionist to transcribe your audio or video perfectly the first time. If you don't, you're paying for very expensive software that doesn't do the job completely, then paying for it to be gone over with a fine tooth comb by a paid transcriptionist for errors. That's just not a good use of your money or time. The answer? Hire a freelance transcriptionist to work for you who has your best interests in mind and who is willing to follow your document needs to the letter. You don't have to use a large corporate transcription service. They're too impersonal and deal with such a large volume of documents that you get lost in the shuffle. Find an IC at home transcriptionist who will work for you personally and be your personal transcriptionist. They aim to please, and you will be delighted at the great quality of work they turn out in record time!

For six other "Insider Tips" see the article below.

Getting Great Documents from Your Audio or Videos: Seven Insider Tips

1. Don't bother with voice recognition software. You will have to have someone proofread and edit your transcript heavily afterwards anyway. Get an affordable speedy transcriptionist instead right from the start. You'll save money in the long run.

2. Make sure your audio is clear, free of static and background noise, and that the person(s) speaking is being as articulate as possible. Using a good quality microphone is key. Also testing your audio equipment in the same environment in which you will be using it first will save you a lot of headaches later.

3. Remember who your target audience is and stay on topic. Try to remember that you are being recorded and omit the types of verbal trackbacks that you use when talking casually. Write things down if it helps.

4. Don't record more than 30 minutes at a time--it will be too cumbersome a document to read otherwise, unless you plan to create several chapters in an e-book or it is part of a larger body of work.

5. If your audio/video is a webinar or teleseminar, make sure you clearly identify each caller and spell their names for your transcriptionist ahead of time.

6. Find a transcriptionist with whom you can relate to well personally and who is willing to transcribe your transcripts just the way you like them done. There are disagreeable and agreeable transcriptionists. Shoot for the latter!

7. Make sure your transcription service is US-based (no outsourcing--it's just not worth the potential savings), affordable, quick, and uses English accurately.

I will expand upon each of these seven tips individually in my next article.

New Editing and Proofreading Pricing

Do you need some editing done on a book, an e-book, a website, a term paper, or thesis? You've come to the right place! How much do I charge for such services? Here are my very affordable prices:

• For heaving editing = $3 per page (1 1/2 to double-spaced). For single-spaced, it would be $4.
• For light editing and/or proofreading = $1.50 per page (for 1 1/2 to double-spaced). For single-spaced, it would be $2.

Contact me at aaatranscription@sbcglobal.net or leave a comment on this blog after this article. I will be in touch.

Transcriptionist for Hire

• Are you looking for someone to transcribe your audio or video files?
• Perhaps you need someone to proofread your latest book or e-book.
• Maybe you've gotten some comments on your website stating that you have lots of spelling errors or poor grammar.
• Maybe you own a general or medical transcription company and are looking for independent contractors to work for you.

If you said, "Yes!" to any of the above, then you've landed at the right place. It would be a pleasure to work for you and make your products more appealing, more marketable, and more gramatically correct.

Check out "A Bit About Me" for my qualifications, and feel free to ask me any questions you have.

Help Me Navigate Your Blog, Angela!

Okay. Are you new to this blog and you're wondering where to go? Here are 10 friendly suggestions of what you can do here:

1. Read about the author to the right, and check out the photos of our family.

2. Subscribe to the RSS feed and/or follow me (I just installed that module today).

3. Weigh in on the short poll in the righthand column.

4. Read about what transcribing is all about (see Posts).

5. Read about what types of transcription we do (see Posts).

6. Sound off in the short survey toward the bottom.

7. Play around with my favorite music on my Playlist Player toward the bottom. I have varied and perhaps unusual tastes when it comes to music. :)

8. Read about my prices and especially my 1/2 off special deal.

9. Check out my other interesting lenses on Squidoo (they're like web pages on a number of topics).

10. Leave a comment, suggestion, or contact. I'd love to hear from you!

There. Now you know some of the things you can do on this blog. What do you say?

What in the World Is Transcription?

Some of you may not have heard of the term or are just dropping by for a look. Here is a quick explanation of transcription:

• Typing dictation from audio files (MP3 or WAV usually) using a pedal and transcription playback software on the computer.
• Some transcription is verbatim--typed exactly as dictated. Usually this is done with medical transcription as it is very exact.
• Other transcription of internet calls, teleseminars, webinars, or similar conferences need more editing to get rid of exterraneous words like "um," "So...," "Well...," etc.
• Some transcription is still done by typing from a tape, although today usually digital recordings are used.
• Everything is transferred over the Internet: Audio files, study guides, and the final transcript is usually emailed to the client.
• Transcription involves checking grammar, substituting better word choices for the speaker or writer, sometimes rearranging sentences so they flow better, fixing punctuation, etc.
  
• Proofreading involves checking grammar, checking punctuation, making suggestions to the author of alternative ways to say something that sound better, etc. These are usually gone over more than once, depending upon the exacting nature of the author (I once heard that C.S. Lewis never wanted any editing done on his manuscripts--some people can do that).

Now that you know a little bit about what transcriptionists do, check out the articles below on pricing, our limited time discount, as well as blog posts on how to treat clients and how to fix audio problems in your recorded material.

I Can Turn Your Transcripts into Excellent...

...Articles – These could be for your website--they're one of the best free ways to get loads of visitors to your site. They can also be used as freebies for your opt-in list.

...E-Courses – Build trusting relationships with your email subscribers with a multi-part series of emails on specific topics. They'll be impressed by your excellent grammar and punctuation--a rarity these days online!

...Blog Posts – Blogs are incredibly easy, powerful, and routinely scoured and selected by the search engines. A one hour teleseminar or webinar can easily turn into several blog posts.

...E-Books – Do you have an existing manuscript or a collection of articles? They can be made into an e-book and used very profitably on your website.

...PowerPoint Slide Shows – Just narrate over your slides and get huge exposure on video sharing sites or turn your narration into hard copy documents for your websites.

Legitimate clients may contact me for more information or to set up a schedule for your transcription at: aaatranscription@sbcglobal.net.

We Do Medical Transcription

Triple-A Transcription has created a medical transcription 

service designed for its clients in the medical field whose subject matter necessitates specialized knowledge. We provide medical transcription for pharmaceutical firms, medical meeting planners, and Continuing Medical Education organizations with verbatim medical transcripts and summaries for external and internal communications and publishing.
 
Our medical transcriptionists are specialized, with extensive medical backgrounds. Whether you are holding an advisory board meeting, roundtable discussion, lecture, symposium, or panel discussion, we can document your event in our medical transcripts.
 
Triple-A Transcription also offers medical reports and summaries. 
 
Ask for an estimate for our medical transcription service.  We will get back to you within 24 hours.
 
Want to get the best possible quality of audio recording?  See the article above on audio recording.

Tips for Getting Better Audio Recordings

Poor transcription is often the result of bad recording. I recently transcribed a teleseminar where I could hear the guest fine, but the interviewer was so staticy that I could barely hear him.  Not only was this irritating, but I actually was not able to transcribe some of the things he said.

It doesn't have to be that way.  Below are four simple suggestions for improving the quality of your recordings and, consequently, the quality of your transcripts.

1.  The recorder or microphone should be as close to the speaker as possible

For presentations, tape directly off the microphone. Usually, if you explain to the A/V technician that you want an audio tape of the presentation, they will make one for you. For an interview, place the recorder closer to the person you are interviewing than to yourself. For a group discussion, a roundtable or a focus group, use an “omni-directional” microphone. Inexpensive ones are available at Radio Shack or similar stores.

2.  Keep the background noise down

Tape your interview in a quiet place. Restaurants are never quiet enough. Cars, other people, coughs, and paper shuffling will always be louder than you and your subject, even in a small group. Give your speaker a lapel microphone.

3.  Make good equipment choices

Use standard size cassettes whenever possible. They provide better quality and durability. Check your batteries. If you don't know how old they are, replace them. Turn off voice activation. Set the recorder on standard speed, not slow speed (most micro-cassette recorders have two speeds). Buy a telephone record coupler that connects between the phone and handset to tape directly from the phone instead of recording from the speakerphone. Last, if you record on a regular basis, invest in a good quality recorder and microphone. A couple of hundred dollars invested in equipment will save you thousands of dollars in transcription costs and improve the quality of your transcripts.

4.  Facilitate the recording

Announce and spell the names of subjects at the beginning of the recording. If it is important that individuals in a 2- or 3-person group be identified in the transcript, please have them identify themselves at the beginning of the session. Note that more than three people in a discussion are usually impossible to identify on an audiotape. If you want us to match a name with a voice, they must identify themselves every time they speak. Give us a terminology list whenever possible; any document or PowerPoint presentation will help. Last but not least, test the recording. Stop and listen after a few minutes of conversation to make sure everything is working properly and the most important voices can be heard clearly.
 

from PASS (Professional Association of Secretarial Services)

Verbatim or Edited Summary?

If you're having a hard time deciding which type of transcript you will need, here are some helpful hints.

You need verbatim transcription if: 
·         every word matters (depositions, focus groups, etc.);
·         for statutory reasons, you need to keep a legal record;
·         you want a record with which to edit audio or video (timecoding).

You need a summary or edited report if: 

·         you want to give your readers a better-presented, more efficient document that does not include all of the unnecessary information;
·         you have no time to edit a transcript yourself;
·         you want to increase the impact of your meeting or event. 

No matter what document you choose, we can work from all types of audio files (digital or on CD).   We can tailor your project according to your needs.  Please be sure to ask for an estimate for your particular job and let us know your specifications (if any).  We will get back to you within 24 hours.  

In These Days of Internet Marketing, One Just Can't Do It Right without Transcribed Hardcopies!

Are you in that classification?  Are you an internet marketer, a salesperson, a CEO, a seminar and conference speaker, a podcaster, or a preacher?  I'm sure you've found that you really can't do without excellently transcribed copies of your audio or video productions.  

You need hardcopies for those who couldn't attend, for freebies on your website, for a book that's in the works, or just for your own records.  That's what Triple-A Transcription is here for!  We transcribe your audio or video files with Accuracy, Alacrity, and Amiability.

Perhaps you have manuscripts already typed which are in need of proofreading or editing or both.  We do that too!  Check out our great prices and quick turnaround time, and send those projects on over.  We'll be happy to help your business succeed!

WHAT ABOUT VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE?

What about it?  Can voice recognition software do the job?  

From my experience, it doesn't.  Here are some of the reasons:

• It is very expensive to start with
• People speak differently than they write
• It often can't understand foreign accents
• It transcribes verbatim, which is just not up to par
• You still need a transcriptionist in the end to proofread and edit what the VoiP has delivered

My transcription service is inexpensive, quick, and accurate. I'm an independent contractor so you don't have to deal with a lot of red-tape. Just let me know what you need and I aim to please.

Listen to what someone Tweeted on Twitter about the inferiority of Dictation Software to live transcriptionists:

"One of our medical transcription Virtual Professionals has discovered Voice recognition is incorrect. Proofing costs more than physical transcription."  Friday, 12 December 2008, 7:33 am

Really, now! I couldn't have said it better myself!

The problem with voice recognition software is that no one talks perfectly when they record audio files unless they're working from a well-written script. If you're doing an internet call-in program, teleseminar, or webinar, there will be a lot of "false leads," "ums," "So uh," "like, yeah, like," etc. in casual interviews. If you're using voice recognition software, it will transcribe all that useless talk verbatim and your transcript will end up being very hard to read and quite confusing.

Even in medical transcription where many hospitals use voice recognition dictation software, they have to have professional MT's proofread and edit heavily when the virtual transcription is done because parts of the body, medications, and procedures are mispronounced (and even misspelled--I know, I've done 600+ actual doctor dictations when training to be an MT) by doctors or nurses dictating at the end of a long tiring day. That just adds up to way too much money, especially if you own your own small business.

The solution is to hire someone like me to do the transcribing, editing, correction of grammar and punctuation, and final proofing in one fell swoop. You sure can't beat the price! (See prices below and special limited-time half-off offer above.)

11 Secrets to Gaining and Fostering Online Trust

by Peter Wink (from the ClickBank eNewsletter)

As an online publisher or affiliate, it is always important to do everything you can to encourage repeat business. After all, first-time customers are not only the easiest to re-sell if you follow my tactics below--they are the least expensive.

So how do you gain and foster trust in the eyes of your new customer? How do you get them to spend their hard-earned money with you again and again?

Over the years, I've identified 11 important keys to gaining and fostering online trust with your customers. By consistently keeping these tactics in mind when selling online, you'll keep your customers happy and take your sales to a new level.

#1: Establish a Track Record

This is the most effective way to build trust. Each time you sell a product or make a promise, make sure you do exactly what you say. Over a period of time, your customers will feel comfortable with taking you at your word without question.

If you breach this trust or betray them, it will cost you future sales in the long run. Establishing a track record takes time, but it's well worth it.

#2: Follow Up
After making a sale, make sure to contact your customer within 24 hours and find out if they're happy with your product or service. People will respect you for following up. This shows your customer that you care about them.

#3: Keep in Touch

This is a long-term version of following up. After you make a sale, keep in touch. Send an email asking the customer how they liked your product. If possible, and if you have their permission, call them as a follow up. Find out if your product is performing as promised. This builds a bond with your customers.

Usually when a merchant rips someone off or makes a shady deal, they disappear. Many online merchants make returning a product or getting customer service support almost impossible. By staying in touch, you demonstrate a level of integrity that'll put customers at ease when they do future deals with you.

Here's another idea--start a newsletter and, as long as you have their permission, reach out to your customers at least once a month, or send them an online survey to fill out. You can send surveys using Zoomerang.

#4: Go the Extra Mile
I think Harvey McKay, author of Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive, says it best, "Underpromise" and "Overdeliver." This means doing more than what's expected. Unfortunately, it's usually the other way around. By doing more, you add more value. It's more than just delivering quality--it's delivering a level of quality and integrity that goes above and beyond the initial promise.

When you go the extra mile and truly satisfy the other party, you make yourself indispensable to them. An example would be sending a special email every once in a while to all your customers with an article or tip relating to your product (just make sure you have their permission first). This will not go unnoticed.

#5: Show Empathy
Most prospective customers are not just poor decision makers--they're terrible. They may be terrified to buy online or spend a certain amount of money. Understand this is a weakness and help them. Be willing to assist customers in making a decision. Give them an outstanding no-questions-asked promise. Provide multiple testimonials. Provide an 800# where customers can call if they have questions. Put yourself in your prospective customers' shoes and think like they do.

#6: Be Trusting of Others
This is very tricky during your first sale. Don't be afraid to give your customers a better-than-average money-back promise, and highlight that fact. Most customers are honest and will not keep your product while asking for a refund. It may happen occasionally, but it is the exception, not the rule. Most people have good intentions.

#7: Admit When You're Wrong
Sometimes you may sell a product that, for whatever reason, does not deliver as promised. For instance, your product may contain audio or video files that do not work as planned. It happens!

If you want to build trust, proactively admit when you've made a mistake and then do everything you can to quickly correct it. By admitting you're wrong, you show you're trustworthy. Your customer knows that when you admit to being wrong (especially if you're proactive), you're demonstrating a high level of honesty and integrity. Just make sure to do it quickly!

#8: Be a Team Player
Approach every sale as if you and your customer are on the same team. Keep in mind that the goal of every deal is to find a winning solution for everyone. You make a sale by solving someone's problem, and they pr

ovide you payment in exchange. A sense of teamwork builds friendship and camaraderie.

#9: Communicate Clearly
To build trust with customers, you must be clear, articulate, and precise every time you communicate. If you're not clear, or seem to be hiding information, customers will automatically think you have a hidden agenda and start to distrust you and/or your organization.

#10: Be Fair with Everyone
Being fair means treating people equally. Have a genuine respect for everyone you sell to. All things being equal never give a special discount to one person and not another. You never know which customers will turn out to be the most profitable in the long run, so it's best to treat everyone as if they were your top customer.

#11: Walk Your Talk

Stand behind what you say, do, buy, and sell. If you say something, mean it. If you sell something, use it. If you do something, do it with the highest level of integrity.

Be genuine about who you are and never misrepresent yourself or your product. If you tell your customers that a product will do something, make sure it does. If you tell a customer that you provide a special guarantee, honor it.

If you make a habit of using these techniques as often as possible when interacting with your customers and making sales, you'll develop stronger relationships and have customers who buy from you again and again!

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Peter Wink, www.peterwink.com, is an authority on negotiation strategies and dealmaking. He is the author of Negotiate Your Way to Riches and Buying Secrets Retailers DON'T Want You to Know About.  

These are the policies I firmly believe in and try to always practice with my clients.  I believe these show integrity and fair business practices.  If you are a client and your transcriptionist/transcription company does not live up to these aforementioned qualities, you might want to consider finding another transcription service with integrity and who underpromises and overdelivers! 

 

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