Confidential outsource typing services
September 9, 2008
Loading ...Outsourcing has received some bad press in the past. Using typing services offshore has proved very unpopular, especially as we have a very willing and able workforce on home turf. One of the reasons for outsourcing offshore has not been related to cost but an assurance of confidentiality.
What more can we do to ensure confidence from our local workforce? At Document Direct we ask each of our typists to sign Confidentiality Agreements and refer our clients to our terms of business which set out our position with regard to confidentiality. Should we go a step further and have our candidates CRB checked? Answer our poll and let us know.
What’s your reason to outsource your typing?
August 14, 2008
Document Direct is here to provide you with the best outsource typing service that you want and need. We’ve found many reasons why businesses and individuals choose to outsource their dictation. Answer our poll and let us know your reason. If you choose “other” then please leave a comment in the box at the bottom of the page.
Loading ...Feasibility of outsource typing
August 2, 2008
A busy lawyer dictates 30 minutes per day. This costs £36 per day to outsource. Over a month (20 days) this equates to £720, that’s less than £9,000 a year. The average cost to employ a secretary is £20,000 a year when on-costs are taken into account. It’s possible to slash the secretarial overhead by 50% yet still have 100% efficiency.
Preparing a cost analysis for a business which is already using a digital dictation system is quite easy. A digital system with workflow management allows reports to be created so it’s easy to see the length of the recording, how long it’s taken to be typed and who by. Document Direct uses the reporting system from its dictation system to calculate the charges on per minute of recording basis so costs comparator between in-house typists and outsourcing can be given almost immediately.
For those businesses still using analogue tapes, it would be useful for the length of the dictation to be recorded manually (for at least a week) as the dictation is being completed. Otherwise, quite often the only comparator will be the number of typed pages and completed documents.
A useful guide will be to “see” how much dictation a busy personal injury lawyer produces each week and how many typed pages that equates to.
In the documents available below it can been seen that a busy personal injury lawyer has produced 3 hours 11 minutes dictation in one week in June, which has produced 142 typed pages of text. The costs for this, at our current charge of £1.30 per minute, equates to £248.30. The length of typing time is irrelevant as the cost is fixed to the dictation time. Needless to say, all deadlines for completion of the work were met in good time. What is interesting to note is that the dictation was received during the working hours of 8.30am and 6.00pm, Monday to Friday, so costs should be compared to the emloyment of a temporary or permanent secretary in-house for those hours.
There are many different reasons to outsource and just as many benefits. Don’t take our word for it - click on the links below to download case studies from Document Direct clients.
- Case Study from Parkin S Booth, Insolvency Practitioners
- Case Study from India Buildings Chambers, Barristers
- Case Study from Brown Turner Solicitors
BigHand systems are helping increase profitability
July 24, 2008
The current economic climate is an opportunity for firms to look at their systems and ways to improve profitability and save costs.
Moving from stage 1 digital dictation, the simple transportation of dictation from fee earner to secretary, and onto stage 2, managing workflow, means firms can allocate their dictation to a larger pool of available secretaries. The “Big Brother” type technology means all work is visible and gone of the days when a secretary would sit and twiddle fingers with nothing to do. The benefit of workflow systems means it is now possible to analyse the type of work being dictated by individual fee earners and how individual secretaries perform.
BigHand’s recent press release gives some amazing statistics from some of their larger clients, for example, Venters Solicitors have saved £50,000 in only 12 months.
You can download BigHand’s press release by clicking here.
Of course, it goes without saying that being able to outsource typing will bring a huge cost benefit to firms. A good legal secretary is an unqualified fee earner and outsourcing the typing not only helps those secretaries be more productive but also improves services to client with faster turnaround times of documents.
Click here to have your own free trial of outsourcing.
Legal Experience + Microsoft Training = Great Results
May 27, 2008
Being a great legal secretary isn’t just about typing letters. Experience and specialism in working in the various aspects of law, understanding the needs of fee earners and clients and how to support them come with experience and on the job training. Now that we have Microsoft Office 2007 (yes, another version) it is vital that practical skills are kept up to date so that we can give our best. After all, computers and software are the tools of our trade.
Microsoft Office 2007 (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook) can be learnt in depth, online, in your own time and a qualification awarded for module. You don’t have to be a whizz in Word or an expert in Excel to get yourself Microsoft certified.
Document Direct will work with the best legal secretaries who have proven experience and skills and if you’re one of them, we want to hear from you.
