What Is Automatic Transcription, and Why Does It Have a Monthly Service Fee?

What automatic transcription is

In the article on call transcription we explained what transcription is: turning a call recording into written text. Here we look at a different question: when the transcription happens, and who decides.

With automatic transcription, the decision is made once, in advance. You turn the service on for a certain line, and from then on every call that goes through the line and meets the threshold is transcribed on its own, after it ends. Nobody needs to remember to ask, look for the recording, or click a button.

The other way is on-demand transcription: you pick one call that was already recorded and ask to transcribe only that call. Both ways work from the same recording. The difference is who decides, and when.

A simple picture: automatic transcription is like a clerk who sits by the phone and writes up every real call, without anyone asking him to. On-demand transcription is like asking that same clerk to write up one specific call, only when you need it.

Where you turn it on: each line separately

Automatic transcription is not turned on for the whole office at once. You turn it on for a specific line. A "line" here is any point in the PBX that a call passes through, for example:

• Extension — the phone of a specific employee.
• Number — calls that come in through a specific phone number.
• Queue — calls waiting for an agent, for example in a service center.
• Hunt group — several phones that ring together or one after another.
• Routing code — calls that pass through a specific code.
• Voicemail — the messages people leave in the voicemail box.

The advantage of turning it on per line is control. You can transcribe all the calls of the sales queue and leave the accounting extension without transcription. You can start with one line, see how it works, and only then add more.

So it is worth thinking in advance about where exactly the important calls go. In a small office it is sometimes one extension. In a call center it is usually the queue. And in an organization with several departments, perhaps only one department needs a record of every call.

What happens to a call, step by step

Once transcription is on for a line, every call follows the same path:

1. The call takes place and is recorded — as usual. The caller and the employee who answers don't need to do anything differently.
2. The call ends — the transcription does not happen during the call, but after it.
3. Threshold check — did the person who answered talk for at least 20 seconds? If not, the call is not transcribed.
4. Transcription — the recording goes to transcription and becomes text.
5. Email and screen — the text is sent to the email you chose and saved in the "My transcriptions" screen at Kesher.

Two things are worth remembering about this path. First: this is transcription done after the call, not while it is going on. In the article on call transcription we explained the difference between the two types, and why for most offices transcription after the call is quite enough.

Second: the path repeats for every call, without anyone stepping in. On a busy day, every call that passes the threshold is transcribed. On a quiet day, only the few calls there were are transcribed. You don't need to do anything to keep it working.

The threshold: 20 seconds of real conversation

Not every call needs a transcript. Some calls in an office are very short: someone dialed the wrong number, someone asked if the office is open, someone asked for David and heard he isn't in. Transcribing calls like these adds no information, but it does cost money.

That is why automatic transcription has a threshold: only calls with at least 20 seconds of real conversation are transcribed. "Real conversation" means that the person who answered the call talked in it for at least 20 seconds. The time the phone rang before it was answered does not count.

What is not transcribed automatically:

• An unanswered call — the phone rang, and nobody picked up.
• A short call — someone answered, but the conversation lasted less than 20 seconds.

You don't pay for calls like these, because they are not transcribed. This way the threshold protects your bill: the money goes to calls that have content in them, not to rings and calls of a few words.

And what if a short call was actually important? For example, a customer who called, quickly gave an order number and an address, and hung up. You can always transcribe that call by hand, with on-demand transcription, as long as it was recorded. There, a short call has a minimum charge. The threshold only decides what happens on its own. It doesn't stop you from transcribing a call you need.

What you get: email and screen

Every call that was transcribed reaches two places:

• The email you chose — the transcript is sent to the address you set. Whoever is responsible for the line sees what was said without logging in to any system.
• The "My transcriptions" screen at Kesher — the transcripts are kept in one place in the control panel, and you can go back to them from there.

Email is convenient for day-to-day work. It arrives in an inbox you already check every day. You can forward it to another employee, or file it in the customer's folder.

The screen is convenient when you want to go back to a specific call: what did Yossi say when he called last week? When exactly was Avraham promised a delivery? Instead of searching through emails, you open the screen and see the transcripts in one place.

It is worth choosing an email address that someone actually reads. A transcript that arrives in an inbox nobody opens helps no one, and it still costs money. In an office with several employees, decide in advance who should receive the transcripts, and who handles what is written in them.

Why there is a monthly service fee per line

The price of automatic transcription has two parts: a monthly service fee per line, and a per-minute charge for the minutes that were transcribed. A natural question is: if you already pay by the minute, why is there also a service fee?

The answer is that there are two different jobs here, and each has its own cost.

The first job: watching the line. For transcription to happen on its own, a server of ours watches the line's calls all the time. When the recording of a call is ready, it downloads it and sends it to transcription. This server runs all the time, even when there are no calls at all, and that costs money. The service fee pays for this job.

The second job: the transcription itself. The transcription engine charges only for the minutes actually transcribed. It does not charge for the time the server is running and waiting for calls. So this part of the price depends only on the amount: more minutes transcribed, a higher charge. Fewer minutes, a lower charge.

A familiar comparison: a guard at the entrance to a building is paid for the hours he is at his post, even in hours when nobody comes in. A translator, on the other hand, is paid by the number of pages he translated. Automatic transcription has both: the server that watches the line is the guard, and the transcription engine is the translator.

The service fee is for each line that automatic transcription is on. For a line where you did not turn on automatic transcription, you pay no service fee. That is one more reason to turn on the service only on lines that really need it.

What does this mean in practice? In a busy month with many long calls, the per-minute charge will be higher. In a quiet month it will be lower. The service fee stays the same, because the server worked all month, just as in the busy month.

One more thing: automatic transcription has no minimum charge per call. Every call that was transcribed is charged by its length. Short calls are not transcribed anyway, because of the 20-second threshold.

We won't list the current prices, per line and per minute, here. You can get them from us, through the contact page or by phone.

For many businesses: it saves the need for a CRM

A CRM system is a system for managing your relationship with customers. One of the main things businesses look for in it is memory: what was agreed with each customer, what he was promised, and what he asked for the last time he called.

Automatic transcription gives a large part of that memory without another system. Every call has a written record that arrives by email and is saved. When you need to check what was said, you search and find it. For many small businesses this is enough to remember what was agreed with each caller, without setting up a separate CRM system, without teaching employees to use it, and without asking them to type a summary after every call.

Example: Menachem runs a small moving business. He answers the phone himself, between one move and the next, and has no time to take notes. With automatic transcription on his extension, every call that passes the threshold reaches him by email. When a customer calls and says "we agreed on Tuesday", Menachem finds that call and reads exactly what was said in it.

It is also important to say what transcription does not do. A full CRM system usually gives a card for each customer, a task list, order tracking and reports. Automatic transcription does not replace all of these. A business that needs those tools will still need a CRM. But for a business whose only need is to remember what was said on the phone, transcription saves a lot.

Who It's For

Automatic transcription suits anyone who wants a record of every important call, without having to remember to turn it on each time. Some examples:

• Call center — several agents answer calls, and the manager wants to know what happened in each call, even in calls he didn't hear.
• Sales — every call with a customer can include a price quote, a discount or a date. When everything is in writing, the next agent knows what was already said.
• Service — complaints, requests and problems. The record helps handle the request, and go back to it when the customer calls again.

What they have in common: there are many calls, and most of them matter. When most calls on a line are ones you'll want to read, automatic transcription saves you from choosing again each time. It also makes it less likely that someone forgets to ask for a transcript of a call that later turns out to be important.

Anyone who needs transcription only now and then, for example for one or two calls a week, will usually do better with on-demand transcription. There is no service fee there, and you pay only for the calls you chose, with a minimum charge for a short call.

And you can also combine them: automatic transcription on one line, where the important calls go, and on-demand transcription on the other lines, only when needed.

A basic condition: the line must be recorded

Transcription is made from the call's recording. So there is one condition you can't skip: recording must be on for the line. On a line that isn't recorded, there is nothing to transcribe.

The right order is: first set up call recording on the line, and only then turn on automatic transcription for it. If you turn off recording on a line, remember that without a recording, transcription can't work either.

It is also worth remembering that transcription turns calls into text, and text is easy to read, copy and pass on. Everything that applies to recording privacy applies to transcripts too: who receives the email, who can see the transcripts, and what to do with sensitive information said in a call.

Questions to ask before you turn it on

Before you turn it on, it is worth answering a few simple questions. It takes a few minutes and saves surprises:

1. Which line? — where do the calls that really need a record go: an extension, a queue, a specific number?
2. Is the line recorded? — without a recording there is no transcription.
3. Which email? — an address that someone reads, and whoever reads it also knows what to do with what is written.
4. How many long calls does the line have? — this is what sets the per-minute part of the charge. A line with dozens of long calls a day will have much more transcribed than a line with two.
5. Do most calls there matter? — if most of them are sales pitches or calls nobody will read, on-demand transcription may suit you better.

Whoever answers these questions before turning it on knows in advance what he gets, and roughly what it will cost.