Property specialists improve service delivery with network dictation

The Challenge - Analogue to Digital

GVA Grimley LLP is one of the UK’s leading firms of property advisers with over 640 fee earners in twelve offices, and with fee income of more than £95 million. It provides a full range of property-related services including agency, planning and regeneration, rating, building consultancy, investment, management and valuation consultancy. A founding member of GVA Worldwide, its global reach extends throughout Europe, North America and Australasia, with real estate representatives in 120 offices serving 35 countries.
With a network of 12 offices located throughout the UK and Ireland, it combines a broad range of business and property related expertise with in-depth local knowledge. This enables it to provide creative solutions to client’s complex property issues at all stages of the project lifecycle, from property acquisition through to completion of award winning developments. It is selective and innovative when advising clients, constantly striving to add value through the application of web-enabled technologies and individually crafted solutions. GVA Grimley assist clients ranging from major blue chip organisations to private individuals across every major market sector.

All fee earners need access to a reliable dictation service, to dictate notes on-site and have them transcribed quickly by support staff back at the office. GVA Grimley had previously relied on an analogue tape-based system. This meant surveyors would have to post dictation tapes over night to be picked up the next day by their secretary, or even the day after depending on the reliability of the postal service. Neither did this guarantee the completion of urgent jobs on time, as the dictation authors had no control over when the tape would arrive or to whom it would be allocated for transcription.

“The old system worked well up to a point but, as technology developed and set people’s expectations of more immediate results, we needed a reliable dictation solution that would enable us to produce documents for our clients much more quickly,” said Robert Bagshaw, Birmingham systems operations manager, GVA Grimley. “Of course, the tape-based system was prone to breakdowns and sometimes a tape would be lost in the post. We needed something that would help us deliver a more timely service.”

The Solution – Globally connected with WinScribe

GVA Grimley selected WinScribe to provide a new network dictation system. This connected all dictation authors with a central system, giving them access to a pool of secretaries, located across the UK.

Authors can now dictate on-site, using one of the many digital hand held recorders available, or alternatively dictate using their mobile telephone. All dictation is automatically downloaded onto GVA Grimley’s central WinScribe server.

The WinScribe software can allow an author to select which secretary or typist is allocated the work, or opt for the system to automatically allocate jobs to the next available transcriber to reduce completion time. Previously, a tape would have been sent to a single transcriber and multiple dictation jobs on that tape would have to have beencompleted by that person. Now multiple dictations can be spread amongst the available transcribers, expediting the completion time.
The system can now also be accessed remotely by secretaries and typists. This has allowed GVA Grimley to employ off-site workers which has extended the service operating hours, resulting in a quicker turnaround on all documents.
“The WinScribe system means that authors can dictate from anywhere so an urgent job can be sent as a priority to a transcriptionist for immediate typing. It’s been a huge time-saving solution for us, both in terms of time saved by the authors and giving the secretarial staff more control over their workload,” continued Bagshaw.

The Result - workload control

Transcribers can access the WinScribe system to view what jobs have been allocated to them, as well as the jobs waiting to be completed in the general typing queue. The system also allows them view the length of the dictation and the deadline for its completion. This has allowed them to manage their time more effectively as they can now prioritise both transcription work and other tasks as one.

The WinScribe system also allows transcribers to slow or speed up the dictation, to keep pace with their typingspeed, or to help them breakdown unintelligible words and phrases. WinScribe also automatically calls up the appropriate template as it recognises the dictation type, such as a letter, invoice or report, saving the transcribers time trying to download the correct template.

The system was easy to install and it was simple to train staff because of its familiar Microsoft Windows look and feel. This also makes it effective from a system integration and maintenance perspective for the IT department.
“As well as being simple to deploy across the IT system, the take-up amongst staff has been rapid as it uses an easily recognisable interface. The system also allows us to effectively manage workflow in terms of assessing how efficiently it is allocating and managing transcription jobs.”
“It’s also easy to get stats on people productivity and we can manually reallocate tasks to other transcribers if it looks like a job will not be completed within deadline, due to illness or work overload of a particular individual. It’s delivered an incredible amount of flexibility, both in terms of how we use dictation and the rapidity with which we can now deliver results to our clients. The amount of time saved, increased flexibility and efficiency throughout the Firm is incredible,” concluded Bagshaw.

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