An automatic speech-to-text software is a powerful tool that can help you extract insights from your valuable phone call conversations. These transcriptions can save you a ton of time by eliminating the need to listen to hundreds of call recordings all the way through to gain context.
Built on voice recognition software, our Transcription feature relies on this machine transcription technology to give you instant results that would take humans hours to uncover. But if you’ve ever used Siri, Cortana, or Alexa you know – the machine’s don’t always get the speech recognition part completely accurate.
How can you ensure all of your recorded phone calls are of the highest quality to make certain you’re getting the most accurate call transcriptions? Let’s take a look.
Dual-Channel Recording for Call Transcription Accuracy
It’s important to know that your transcript quality can differ based on a handful of variables, particularly with compression and recording styles. We’ve done a lot on our end to ensure the most accurate transcriptions possible by taking both of these variables into account.
You may have heard of mono and stereo recordings in the context of music, but these channels also come into play with phone calls as well. “Mono” refers to recording platforms that use only one channel so the technology records it just like you would hear it; “Stereo” refers to two-channel recording where two speakers are recorded separately from the point of speech. Here at CallRail, we record all phone calls using stereo or dual-channel recording to separate two or more speakers in order to get improved phone call transcription.
The benefits of dual-channel recordings are huge because they can isolate background noise. They also help us accurately identify the agent against the caller, so we can tell you who said what and clearly transcribe each speaker separately even if they talk over one another. For example, if there is some sound interruption on only one channel of the recording (i.e. a dog barking or some background construction), only that speaker’s channel will be affected when we transcribe the phone call. With mono recording, however, both of the speaker’s accuracies would be affected due to the background noise.
How You Can Increase Transcription Accuracy
While we’ve set up some tricks on our end to ensure you always have great transcription quality, there are always a few areas that can be updated on your end of the process to ensure you get the most accurate call transcriptions possible.
- Background noise and echoes – as previously mentioned, any loud background noise or echoes can certainly impact the accuracy of your transcriptions. While we know it’s somewhat impossible to control this on the customer side of the conversation, ensuring your agents are in an environment best-suited for phone calls can go a long way in their half of the recording.
- Accents and diction – If you’re having a hard time discerning who said what on a call because an agent was mumbling, then the machine is going to have the same problem as you when transcribing. Be sure to coach agents to speak clearly when answering phone calls for your business, and to repeat what a customer says if they are having a hard time understanding the other half of the conversation.
- Network connections - Lastly, ensuring the phone lines you’re routing calls to are set up with a solid connection is vital. If you’re using a mobile phone with spotty service, it’s likely that your end of the conversation will break up in the transcription, creating a less than desirable outcome.
Call transcriptions can be a great part of your lead qualification process, helping quickly understand what topics a new customer is interested in and how likely they are to convert into a paying customer. With the right call transcription solution in place, you’ll gain key insights into your team’s strengths and weaknesses, and make sure your sales or customer service desk are always at their best.
To learn more about how Transcriptions can help your business, request a no obligation demo of CallRail or get started with your free 14-day trial.
