4 key reasons businesses use call transcriptions and the best solutions

Real-time phone calls can help you build relationships and solve your customers’ problems fast, but without a solid record of your conversation, you could face other problems. Imagine winning a sale but missing one of their requested contract terms or getting a five-star customer support rating but forgetting what made your phone call so great.

With call transcription, you can quickly find the information you need with zero disruptions to the customer experience. We’ll explain what call transcription is, how it can help your business, and how you can transcribe your calls.

What is a call transcription?

A call transcription is a phone call that’s been converted into plain text. It’s essentially the “script” of your conversation. Also known as speech-to-text transcription, it provides businesses with a written record of their calls.

Though you can manually write out your call transcriptions, the painstaking process of listening to audio files and typing every word is no longer necessary. Many businesses use call transcription software to automate the process — and some transcription tools support real-time transcriptions, so you don’t need to upload a call recording after the fact.

Benefits of call transcriptions

A simple audio recording isn’t always enough. When you want to make your records more helpful and actionable, creating call transcriptions is key. Here are four ways that audio transcriptions can help your business.

1. Improve employee training

Want to turn your new hires into star employees? 🌟 Providing examples of winning conversations during your onboarding process can help you set clear expectations. New employees can read through call transcriptions to get a sense of what clients might ask during phone calls and understand how they should respond.

2. Create a centralized reference for your team

When you create a shared database with all your call transcriptions, you make it easy for your team members to refer to past conversations. Before jumping on a call — or even while chatting on the phone — your employees can skim through transcriptions of previous interactions with a client, so they can personalize their conversations with ease. 

Team members who share a phone number can quickly pick up conversations where they left off — no need to ask clients to repeat themselves.

3. Make your conversation searchable

One of the biggest advantages call transcriptions have over call recordings is the fact that they’re highly searchable. You can quickly find specific details within a conversation by searching for specific words (just hit Command + F on a Mac or Control + F on Windows).

On the flip side, audio recordings only allow you to mark timestamps at best. If you haven’t already bookmarked the most important parts of your calls, it can be difficult to find the exact information you need.

4. Get legal protection for your business

You never know what might happen in your business. When an unexpected legal situation arises — for instance, if a customer claims they were never informed about a charge — regularly recording and transcribing calls can ensure you have evidence to review. This can help you clear your name or identify which reps mishandled a situation. 

Transcriptions specifically can make it easier for lawyers to review your calls and suggest a course of action.

How to automatically transcribe your business calls

Generating call transcriptions is simple when you use OpenPhone’s integration with Gong, a sales intelligence tool that helps you capture and analyze your customer interactions. Each time you record an OpenPhone call — a process that you can set so all your phone calls automatically record— your integration will instantly send your audio file to Gong as soon as your call ends.

Gong will automatically generate a transcript from your call recording once it’s received. This sales tool will even highlight points of interest within your audio, which can make finding information easier.

To set up OpenPhone’s Gong integration, you’ll need to be an owner or admin user in OpenPhone, have a Premium plan on OpenPhone, and have a Gong account. Once you’re ready, follow these simple steps:

1. Go to the OpenPhone web or desktop app.
2. Tap “Integrations” from your settings.

3. Select Gong and click “+ Connect to Gong.”
4. Confirm that you want to connect your Gong account to OpenPhone.
5. Once you’re redirected back to your integration settings in OpenPhone, scroll down to “Phone Numbers” to select which phone numbers you’d like to sync recordings from.

How call recording works in OpenPhone

Another way to transcribe your calls is by using call recording software to create an audio file of your conversation, then uploading your file to a third-party transcription tool. With OpenPhone, the call recording process is simple and free for all users. OpenPhone provides two options for call recording:

1. Auto-record all your calls associated with a specific OpenPhone number by adjusting your number settings.

2. Tap the red record button on your call screen to start recording a specific phone call.

Once your recorded conversation ends, your audio file will appear right in your conversation thread. Download it and you’re all set to use an external call transcription tool.

Third-party call transcription tools

If you want to save time on transcribing recorded calls, you’ll next need to choose the call transcription software that supports your needs. Different tools can support different languages, industries, collaboration features, and more. Here are four call transcription tools to consider.

1. oTranscribe

oTranscribe is a free web app that simplifies the process of transcribing calls. While it doesn’t offer any automation features, like instant audio-to-speech transcriptions, it does allow you to type out your call transcriptions on the same tab you’re using to play and pause your audio file, video file, or YouTube video. This way, you don’t have to constantly switch between your computer’s audio player and your documents app.

2. Otter.ai

Otter.ai uses artificial intelligence to take your call transcriptions to the next level. On top of automatically transcribing recorded and live calls, Otter.ai uses speech recognition technology to identify who’s speaking and when. Once your transcription is complete, you and your team members can add annotations to highlight takeaways and assign tasks to employees.

Otter.ai offers a free plan that allows up to three total call transcriptions of audio files. You’re also limited to 30 minutes of audio per transcription. If you want unlimited transcriptions, you’ll need to upgrade.

3. Happy Scribe

Happy Scribe is an audio transcription and video subtitling platform that uses AI to automatically transcribe your calls, as well as instantly translate them into over 60 languages. It also makes editing your transcripts easy by providing an interactive editor for correcting errors.

Happy Scribe is an affordable option for businesses that only need a few short calls transcribed each month since it charges per-minute pricing, starting at 20 cents per minute.

4. SpeechText.ai

SpeechText.ai is a call transcription tool that offers domain-specific speech recognition technology. This means it takes into account your specific industry or audio type — for example, conference call, sales call, or podcast — when creating your transcriptions, so you get more accurate results. SpeechText.ai also supports over 30 languages and accents.

You can use SpeechText.ai for $10 per month, but you’ll need to upgrade to access its signature domain-specific services ($19 per month for their personal plan and $49 per month for their standard plan).

5. Trint

If you’re looking for an audio transcription tool that can work seamlessly alongside your VoIP phone provider, look no further than Trint. You can streamline your workflow by using Zapier to connect OpenPhone to Trint, so your call recordings are instantly sent to Trint for transcription.

Once your call transcription is complete, you and your team members can highlight, mark up, and comment on the text. Trint facilitates easy collaboration on both its web and iPhone apps, so you can easily switch between your computer and mobile device.

Call transcription services

AI isn’t always accurate. When your priority is getting an error-free call transcription, it can be worth investing in a human-led transcription service. This approach involves professionals carefully listening to your audio files, which is helpful for particularly important or jargon-filled calls. Here are three call transcription services to consider.

1. Rev

Rev is a well-known audio transcription service that offers manual and automated transcriptions for customers. It guarantees 99% accuracy for call transcriptions delivered within 12 hours, which cost $1.50 per minute of audio.

Want your call transcription ready faster? You can expect to pay an extra $1 per minute of audio. Getting timestamps on your audio will cost another 25 cents per minute.

2. Scribie

Scribie is one of the more affordable call transcription services on the market. You can access automatic transcription services for 10 cents per minute of audio and manual ones for 80 cents per minute. 

While manual transcriptions require a 24-hour turnaround, it comes with timestamps on your audio file. However, you’ll need to add 50 cents per minute if your audio is noisy or your speakers have a strong accent. Add another 50 cents per minute to get your audio strictly transcribed verbatim.

3. Amberscript

Amberscript offers manual transcription services in 11 different languages. When you use this service, which costs $1.40 per minute of audio, your transcribers will differentiate between speakers for you, so you don’t have to guess who said what.

Amberscript also offers automatic transcription services in 39 languages.

Make call transcriptions easy with OpenPhone

Businesses can use transcriptions in a variety of ways, from improving employee onboarding to making conversations more searchable. No matter how you plan to use your transcriptions, you can use OpenPhone to automate the transcription process. 

OpenPhone integrates directly with Gong for automatic transcriptions — or, if you prefer to record your phone calls in advance, you can use our Zapier integration to instantly upload your recordings to Trint, a third-party transcription app. Start your free trial of OpenPhone to begin exploring this feature and more.

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Emily Liu

Emily is a freelance business and marketing writer based in the desert, though her writing is anything but dry. Her passion is writing compelling, human-friendly content that helps growing businesses perform better.