One of Australia’s top accounting firms Lowe Lippmann has replaced its traditional analogue dictation system with BigHand’s voice productivity solution, including the latest in speech recognition and smartphone dictation technology which has resulted in document turnaround time decreasing by 50%.
The firm chose BigHand to provide their authors with the flexibility to work how and where they wanted. Ray Finck, Manager of Information Systems at Lowe Lippmann explains: “Our authors were impressed with both the BigHand smartphone dictation app and speech recognition after seeing an author from an associated legal firm use it. The firm decided to investigate these technologies as the old analogue system was causing the firm much time and money. We chose BigHand as the solution offered us a complete voice productivity package from technology through to training and support. We wanted to equip our authors with a range of productivity boosting technologies, and allow them to find their own niche way of using them, as we recognise that authors practice in different ways.
“BigHand for smartphone gives our authors the flexibility to work from home or on the move and send dictations directly into the workflow in real-time; allowing work to be transcribed immediately rather than having to wait until the tape is returned to the office. Our PA’s are finding the dictations are not only much clearer but also the instant submission into the workflow makes the work a lot more streamlined and easy to manage than before; resulting in the work getting done in half the time. This means we are turning around work for our clients in a quicker timeframe which has been instrumental in growing our client base.”
Speech recognition has been another key tool to increase productivity. Ray Finck continues: “Prior to installing BigHand we trialled a standalone speech recognition solution to no avail. We weren’t getting the results we wanted and the technology didn’t gain any traction in our firm. When we made the decision to move to BigHand we were a little hesitant about the speech recognition component at first but after seeing the technology in action we were overwhelmed by the accuracy, ease of use and ability to quickly learn a user’s voice even with a strong South African accent. Now our authors can’t live without the technology. It has certainly increased productivity and turnaround time has decreased significantly.”
Ray Finck concludes: “We chose BigHand for its complete and sophisticated digital dictation package, professional approach and superior reputation in the market. BigHand has lived up to every expectation and more. The training went very well and the response was excellent. We couldn’t have hoped for a smoother implementation and the results speak for themselves. Not only this, we expect to have realised our ROI in under 12 months.”