Businesses frequently hold conference meetings to conduct market research. Hence, focus groups are essentials of market research that can deliver the insights required to produce appropriate outcomes. The market research team should make sure their insights are not lost and capture every detail of the focus group discussion. This is where transcription for your focus group would come in handy as you can know who has spoken, when and what are their statements are. Thus, you should look for a quality focus group transcription service provider, so you can get accurate, high-quality transcription for your market research conference discussion. Read on this comprehensive guide to know how to find your focus group transcription service.

Why focus group transcription would be essential for your business?

Market research groups frequently engage in audio and video interviews that offer in-depth data. However, if not conveyed in words, the researchers might lose qualitative data. Thus, they employ in getting their focus group conversations transcribed. Some essential reasons would be:

• To finish writing reports fast

Multiple teams might be engaged in a focus group discussion, which might last for long hours. Writing a report on it can be very difficult, especially if you don’t know which team has spoken what and gave the required information you need to add. It can consume a lot of time if you sit to listen or watch the market research interviews. But if you have a transcribed file, it would be easy to look up the information as you search by specific keywords and finish the report fast. Additionally, the information you add to the report will be clear.

• Confirm a point with the subject’s quotes

Often the research reports require adding quotes from the focus group participants. This helps in reinforcing a point. If you get your focus group interviews transcribed, it would not be very time-consuming to find quotes to prepare your market research report. Plus, you can look for certified transcription services; they would help you identify which subject is speaking and when. You can just copy and paste the verbatim comments required on your report saving you a lot of time listening and pausing the focus group interview audios and videos.

How to find a reputed transcription service?

When you search for reputed transcription services, the internet can turn up many names. However, not everyone could offer you reliable service. Every focus group transcription service has its strength and weakness. Looking at their website would give a fair idea of what transcription service they offer and which experts they work with to provide you with quality focus group transcription service. While you research how to find your transcription service partner, consider these critical elements for quality service.

• Maintaining accuracy

Maintaining accuracy is absolutely essential in any transcription service. However, it’s especially crucial in transcribing market research discussions since you would require to know every opinion of your personnel, which would contribute to progressing your service. Thus, when you are looking for a focus group transcription service, make sure they maintain a minimum of 99% accuracy to provide reliable transcription. Some might charge extra for timestamping. Although you can consider it optional, it can be extremely useful when you need to hear it again. So, they should be accurate about their timestamping service too.

• Preserving confidentiality

Although focus group transcription requires keeping the speaker confidential, your service provider must practice rigorous internal processes to preserve the confidentiality of the information you send them in the audio files and prevent leakage of any sensitive data. It would be wise if you look for an ISO certified focus group transcription service provider.

• Assigning qualified personnel

One essential thing to consider is knowing the qualifications of the personnel assigned to you. The transcribe should be a native language speaker and a subject matter expert in accomplishing a call transcription. They must have experience in specific aspects of transcribing dialects, slang, understanding cultural nuances, and colloquialisms for providing appropriate audio transcription services with improved quality.

• Consider their credibility

It’s essential that your transcription service provider should be able to verify their credibility. For quality service, you should know your potential focus group transcription company has transcriptionists who have experience in your industry, so they would be able to offer you accurate conference transcription services. You can ask for their previous work to know if they are capable of handling your demand, as well as read referrals and testimonials on their website.

• Value for your money

Don’t forget to consider the pricing structure of all the services they would offer you. Know if any hidden cost is attached to their service. Make sure their pricing looks realistic, and they offer qualitative data transcription. Before making your decision, ask if they can provide you with any supplementary or complementary service such as proofreading, timestamping, etc. Then it would be very handy for you and cost-effective.

How did the focus group transcriptions work?

• Transcribing the verbatim

First, your assigned transcriptionist would prepare a verbatim transcript that entails strict word-for-word verbatim without any filler. Strict verbatim might also involve writing the background noises, fillers, non-verbal interactions. You can choose the transcription style, whether or not you want to study participant interaction in a market research focus group interview.

• Identifying the speakers

You need to know who is saying what. This would be helpful for you to prepare most of your qualitative data. The transcriptionist would require to label the participants depending on the focus group size. They can specify them as male or female, use their name or other identifiers, or label them as moderators. However, it’s best to replace the participant names with random identifiers for confidentiality reasons, so anonymity would offer participants to speak their minds in the market research focus group discussions.

• No editing of natural speech

Editing out mispronounced words or expletives might seem good, but it’s better not to edit the natural speech. This would help you determine how accurate the participant’s statement is. You can look back on the statement for any uncertainty since the transcriptionist would add timestamps on them.

• Proofreading

Some of the participants might speak incorrectly. However, the focus group transcription service engage in transcribing subjects’ statements accurately. As a final step, they proofread the focus group discussion and reviewed it for at least two rounds as a quality control process.

As a business operator, you need to frequently make market research group discussions. If your focus group is too jargon-heavy, you can hire focus group transcription to use transcriptionists with specific industry experience. Although it might seem like complex work to choose a reliable transcription service for your market research focus group discussion, if you take your time doing appropriate research considering the above qualities, you will be able to find your exact match. Moreover, it would help you ensure your focus group transcription’s data security and quality and accuracy. Hopefully, this guide will help you save time and money in the finding process of your focus group transcription service.