How Can Confidential Transcription Help Your Market Research?

Before jumping on a new business venture or launching a new line of products, executives do not solely rely on a leap of faith. Instead, they make decisions primarily based on market research. It is a systematic process of gathering all relevant information about the potential market or customers and analyzing such data to determine the feasibility of a product or service to be offered in the future. These very crucial details make the field of market research sensitive and confidential in nature.

In conducting market research, one of the most effective ways of collecting data is through interviews. It can be in the form of one-on-one sessions or focus group discussions. As respondents share their personal information during the interview, data privacy and confidentiality becomes an issue in terms of who can get such details and how it will be used.

In the rising need for secure and private conversion of audio recordings to text files, confidential research transcription plays a very important role in market research.

Here’s how confidential transcriptions help your qualitative market research:

1. It keeps accurate records of files in textual format.

Whether it is a casual dialogue, an in-depth conversation, or a group survey, transcripts will help you maintain an organized compilation of all your research interviews in printed format. With this resource at your disposal, you can set emphasis on the essential parts of the interviews only – things like what the customer needs, or what product the person thinks as another option, which can tell you about possible competition. Just highlight the important parts during the study. This way, it will just be easy for you to return on these sheets. Also, transcripts are vital in documenting your research. Obviously, you can’t just store the audio in a disk and stack it between the pages of your documentation. Especially when your research is under review and approval, these transcripts shall be your supporting documents in verifying your assertions. This is why you need to convert all of your voice recordings into text for it to be readily available and understandable to the panel. However, you should keep in mind that there must be an extra layer of security added when such transcription will be handled by a third-party company.

2. Transcripts make your content easily searchable and shareable.

Apparently, there is still a very limited number of reliable applications available online that can search for words in an audio file. This leaves you no option but to rely on file readers with search features that are dependent yet on keywords, not audios. Hence, by translating the voice recordings into text, you make your interview more accessible. You won’t need to go over the entire file repeatedly, just looking for a single word or sentence. All you have to do is press Ctrl + F and type in the word you are searching for.

With this, transcription also makes your interviews easily available to your teammates or bosses. By handing down only the valuable information during the interviews, it will spare them a significant amount of time instead of entirely listening to your audio recordings one-by-one.

3. Confidential transcription guarantees protected transfer of information.

When turning into a third-party company that offers confidential transcription services, do not hesitate to ask for certain certifications such as being compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Such law primarily aims to safeguard protected health information (PHI), which includes the health and medical information of the people subject in the research. To have peace in mind that your files are in safe hands, make sure the transcription company has updated security standards and has strictly implemented security measures to avoid a client data breach.

As may be deemed necessary, your files must also be handled by experienced editors and transcriptionists who may be required to sign a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Availing a confidential transcription service from a third-party company is not only a way to improve your market research and prevent lawsuits when a data breach occurs. As the participants partake in your market research, they also place their faith and trust in you that all of their personal information will be held confidential and only be used for research purposes. With this, it is your utmost responsibility to ensure their privacy. One of the ways to do this is by choosing a transcription company with an intact security system.