Digital Dictation Overcomes Traditional Tape Issues at Bedell Cristin

One of Jersey’s leading law firms, Bedell Cristin, wanted to move on from traditional tape based dictation. As a progressive and rapidly expanding firm, the perennial issues of tape based systems were becoming increasingly restrictive – WinScribe digital dictation provided the solution.

The Challenge - digital dication

The issues faced at Bedell Cristin are common to all tape-based dictation:
• Tapes break, and with them are lost an unknown number of jobs – more often than not impossible to recreate until their absence was realized.
• The systems are slow - skipping through jobs on a tape to find priority tasks is slow and further weakens the tape. Once transcribed, the job needed erasing to prevent duplicate completion, again slowing the task.
• Tape systems do not lend themselves to prioritization.
• Physically moving tapes between author and secretary and back further slows the process.
• A lack of remote working capabilities is out of step with modern working practices.


The Solution – WinScribe

“With ambitious growth targets we knew that we would face significantly increased administrative costs if we did not address the dictation challenge,” said Leo Cavendish, Head of IT at Bedell Cristin.

“For all the obvious drawbacks of a tape-based system, there was comfort and security in the tangible nature of tapes. However, the advantages that a digital system could bring to the firm and its clients were clear, so we pushed forward with the WinScribe solution.”

The WinScribe software is free for authors – customers simply pay for concurrent transcriptionist licences. An initial order for eight transcriptionist licences was placed. “Our staff have enjoyed using it,” says Leo. “The recordings were significantly clearer than with a tape system, whilst the software is intuitive to the point where we were pleasantly surprised at the need for relatively little formal training.”

“We believe that it has helped us to consistently deliver exemplary service to our clients, and that’s what matters most.”


The Result - Increased level of functionality & Management

The installation has steadily expanded within the firm, with a growing number of authors rapidly “converting” to digital. Today, the entire firm is using WinScribe.

HR Manager, Joan Hodge, adds “From a team perspective, WinScribe has allowed secretaries to take more responsibility for the management and sharing of the workload across the whole business and this has generated a new team spirit. Staff now enjoy a ‘one team’ feel, which has been greeted enthusiastically internally as well as proving to be a very attractive selling point when attracting new recruits.”

“The product has lived up to its accolades: it provides us with the functionality we need, it is simple to use, it has been stable and new releases have consistently increased the already excellent level of functionality,” concluded Leo. “We are delighted by the success of the initiative.”

The last two years have seen a double digit compound growth in business for the firm, without an increase in the secretarial headcount. This has been achieved, in no small part, thanks to WinScribe digital dictation. Bedell Cristin has been at the forefront of providing legal advice to the international banking and finance industry in Jersey since the 1960s. In an increasingly competitive market place, it is ranked as one of the leading commercial law firms in the Channel Islands, and is highly rated for the professional and technical expertise of its lawyers.

Digital Dictation Overcomes Traditional Tape Issues at Bedell Cristin
One of Jersey’s leading law firms, Bedell Cristin, wanted to move on from traditional tape based dictation. As a progressive and rapidly expanding firm, the perennial issues of tape based systems were becoming increasingly restrictive – WinScribe digital dictation provided the solution.

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