24/08/2020
A LETTER FROM KRYS
Hi everyone, just going to kind of post this publicly and see if we can solve a problem we're having at Skoth Transcription, LLC.. Since COVID started, we have really been struggling. One of our clients is not getting in anything, and the other gets a super discounted rate, which is fine if we're running a super high volume, like we used to with them, but when we're barely getting anything, it's terrible margins.
For those of you who follow me on my personal profile, that's pretty much why I haven't been vlogging about Skoth since COVID started. There's just...nothing to say. I wish I had better news, but I don't.
But we're not giving up and throwing in the towel just yet, and I want to keep as much work going to my team as I can. So this means I'm definitely willing to ask my friends to help connect us with some potential new clients.
Our industry may be slow with these two major clients, but several small businesses, like podcasts, YouTubers, lawyers, government agencies, authors, educators, doctors, bloggers, journalists, etc., use transcription and translation services.
And we are really good. Like...really good. We work with both native and dual-language English speakers. This means they're raised either only speaking English or speaking English and another language, sometimes several, from a very young age. We also work with non-English native speakers for foreign language transcription and translation. Our transcribers are language experts. I have about 25ish people on my team right now, and you can learn about several of them over at SkothTranscription.com.
We maintain a 99.5% accuracy rating. Now numbers are just numbers unless we have something to compare that with, right? Industry standard is 97.5% accuracy. This is what you would see on Netflix, Hulu, cable news. A few mistakes here and there, but readable, especially in comparison to autocaptioning, which runs about 80%. We train each transcriber rigorously over the course of two weeks to two months, depending on how quickly they can reach the accuracy required, before they go live on any files. Each file is transcribed, proofed, and then audited by QA before being sent to the client, and we will correct and retrain as we go to make sure that accuracy rating stays constant.
If you want to see an example of our closed captioning work, please check out the original episode of Hitchhiker's Guide to Humanity on YouTube. Our very own Erin Manimtim Francisco transcribed this episode!
And just a bit more about the team: we partner almost 90% people of color. The majority of our team is in India and Kenya, with a few in the US and two in Europe (myself included). We work with people who are disabled, who have mental health issues, who are LGBTQ+, who are immigrants, who are small business owners themselves, who are from all different religions, backgrounds, cultures, and political beliefs (no Trumpsters, as they do not know how to get along with people from all of these demographics -- sorry, not sorry -- but OG Republicans from before Trump years are among our diverse bunch).
So...I'm asking you to share this with your friends and family, with contacts you have in the industries mentioned above. We love working with small businesses. We love working with minorities. We love working with people who don't have a lot of financial resources and need to make their dollar stretch. We love working with nonprofits, charities, churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, and any other organization that brings good to the world, secular or spiritual.
Feel free to reach out to me or pass my info on to anyone on your friends list, any groups you belong to, or any of your colleagues. Thank you in advance for the global community support that we have in all of our followers on our FB page!
Krys Copeland
Client Liaison Lead Link and CEO,
Skoth Transcription
[email protected]
