“Ignore the hype, and focus on the fundamentals” (BusinessSolutions, January 2012, “Taming the Mobility Monster,” Matt Pillar, 49).
Human dictation and human transcription are FUNDAMENTAL to efficient CRM data entry and current, accurate, and complete CRM databases.
Sales reps hate to keyboard sales information into the CRM system, so serious missing information and user adoption issues plague the entire CRM industry. Sales reps find speech recognition useless for inputting anything other than a number or word. So, regarding data entry into CRM systems, especially with longer, paragraph-length text, follow the advice of Mr. Pillar’s father as reported in Business Solutions: “Ignore the hype, and focus on the fundamentals.”
What is needed for efficient data entry into CRM? Simple, fast, and effective data entry. What are the most natural and intuitive tools to get this done? What is the most fundamental here? Every sales rep has a mouth and language and loves to use them; every sales rep has a phone and loves to use it. Nothing could be more fundamental than this!
Why not, then, ignore all of the hype regarding keyboarding and speech recognition and focus on voice-based CRM data entry into a human transcriptionist?
Dictation to a human transcriptionist, in particular for longer, paragraph length text, is far more effective AND EFFICIENT than either keyboarding or speech-to-text software. Why?
1. Quality Data. A solid voice-based CRM data entry tool relies on human transcriptionists to covert the audio information into digital form for database entry and processing. Human transcriptionists (native English language speakers, citizens who live and work in the U.S.) hear and listen to what is being said, helping the speaker to make good sense out of what he/she is expressing. The right words are chosen, the sentences are correct, the paragraphing is logical. Thus, the human transcriptionist is a partner with the speaker, helping the person get the ideas out, arrange them, and put them into a professional document.
This partnership between the speaker and the transcriptionist is critical when the text is longer, the ideas more complex, and the vocabulary and names more difficult. The human transcriptionist is like the Administrative Secretary of times gone by who knew exactly what the boss was saying (even though the person was struggling to say it) and knew exactly how to express it and make a high quality, professional document.
Human transcription in a quality voice-based CRM data entry system can be very reasonably priced when we take into account the cost of the speakers’ time, the value of the information, and the importance of having quality information entering into the CRM databases. Most CRM databases are “empty filing cabinets” regarding useful information from the field, on the ground.
2. Accurate Data. A solid voice-based CRM data entry tool with a human transcriptionist means the dictation is understood properly and put into correct language to express it. Words are spelled correctly, sentences are punctuated corrected, with correct grammar and spelling. Paragraphing is logical and well formatted. Thus, the speaker has to speak the text once, with the human transcriptionist following along as his/her partner, to end up with a near perfect text.
LONGER TEXT – ONE TIME THROUGH TO 98% ACCURACY! Possible only with a human partner.
This means when the document is ready for syncing into the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database, it is correct the first time. The speaker does not need to spend hours trying to keyboard it in him/herself, and, especially, does not have to spend the hours required to figure out the meaning of a text mangled almost beyond recognition by a speech recognition system in an open dictation environment. With keyboarding and speech recognition entry tools, the speaker will spend twice or three times as long getting a good copy as just dictating it in to a human transcriptionist in the first place.
A voice-based CRM data entry solution is a kind of RETRO competence, going back to a fundamental tool that has worked well for many years – the partnership of the sales person with a human transcriptionist. If a vendor company can make that partnership workable and profitable, it can provide one of the most cost-effective solutions available today to the CRM data entry and user adoption problems that have plagued the CRM industry since its beginning. Companies should be searching for such a tool. FROM YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WE ALL KNOW IT WORKS!
HOW DO YOU GET THE SALES REP TO USE CRM EFFECTIVELY?
Simple. Use a voice-based CRM data entry system to let them speak in their information, with an intelligent human transcriptionist on the other end, working together to get the information accurate and complete in the first place, and the document 98% correct the first time.
Three to four minutes of dictation time equals hours of keyboarding or speech recognition editing time for longer, paragraph-length text. Speak, hang up, and get on with selling and working with customers and potential customers.
1. The value of sales reps actually using the CRM system is immeasurable because of the QUALITY OF accurate, complete, and timely information streaming in from the field for management understanding, decision making, and action.
2. The value of ACCURATE information, professionally presented, streaming into the CRM databases – rather than missing, bad, or incomplete information - is invaluable.