Roach-Reid Office Systems

 Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty, based in Canton, OH, provides legal counsel to individuals and clients throughout widely diversified industries on a local, regional, and national level. Founded in 1958, the firm has grown in time to over 40 attorneys practicing in over 25 different areas of the law. The firm takes pride in the expertise, insight, responsiveness and sensitivity they provide to each of their clients. When their analog dictation system began failing, they looked for new solutions. They found WinScribe and new paths to voice productivity.

The Challenge – Overcome Challenges Posed by Use of Analog Tapes

Prior to WinScribe, Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty utilized an analog tape-based solution to meet its dictation needs. The firm experienced many of the challenges often presented by a tape-based solution. Audio files were difficult to manage. Tapes had to be delivered to the transcription pool, and the quality of the audio on the tapes sometimes posed a challenge to the transcription team. When the dictation and transcription equipment began failing and could no longer be repaired, James Clawson, Executive Director, knew it was time for a change.

The Solution – WinScribe Digital Dictation + Workflow

Clawson turned to WinScribe Partner, Roach- Reid Office Systems. “I considered a couple of alternative systems to replace our dying solution, but both were analog. Dennis McBride of Roach-Reid Office Systems suggested WinScribe as a digital solution. He was willing to stake his reputation on the product.”

“We took a look at all factors. When we compared the cost of going digital to the cost of continuing to invest in the analog solution, what became apparent to us was the wider spectrum of benefits that the digital dictation system provides.”

Attorneys and paralegals are utilizing the WinScribe internet author with speech microphones and digital portable devices to facilitate the dictation process. Some of their attorneys were nervous about not having a physical tape to deliver, but they soon learned how much more productive they would become from the switch to digital devices. By not having to deliver a tape, attorneys are no longer subject to the distraction and loss of time that comes with having to physically move a tape from their office to the transcription department.

They now have the convenience of submitting a completed dictation immediately, right from their desk with a simple push of a button. Today the firm has 60 individuals authoring dictation, up from 30 who were authoring dictation when the analog system was in place.

One key benefit to the transcriptionist pool is the ability to slow down and speed up the playback speed of the audio without degrading the quality of the audio. The firm employs a transcription pool of 14 full and part-time typists supporting 41 attorneys and 16 paralegals. The accuracy and prompt turnaround time of documents is driven by the transcriptionists’ ability to clearly understand the words spoken in the dictation. Digital audio files give them this ability.

In order to take full advantage of the firm’s investment into WinScribe, Clawson looked at other ways in which the firm could leverage voice to enhance productivity and subsequently found two other areas where WinScribe could be utilized: within the firm’s time and billing system and voice mail system.

“Early on, we recognized that we could leverage WinScribe to help us capture time and billing information. Most of our attorneys now dictate their time and billing reports,” explained Clawson. WinScribe’s workflow capabilities automatically route captured billing information directly to the individual in the firm responsible for keying that information directly into the time and billing system. The result is immediate access and processing of this information.

WinScribe is also being used to facilitate the transcription of voice mail messages that attorneys want to document. Per Clawson, “It is not unusual for our attorneys to receive long-winded voice messages with specific instruction such as instruction pertaining to executing a will. Our attorneys wanted this information to be transcribed. We now have the ability to export our voice mail messages to a .wav file then import that file directly to the WinScribe system to be routed to our transcription pool for processing.”

The Result – Leveraging Technology to Go Beyond Digital Dictation

WinScribe’s additional reporting capabilities enable supervisors to monitor productivity and control workflow. Authors’ work is currently set up to route to a preferred typist. A transcription supervisor has the ability to go into the system and quickly identify backlogs of work that may be present and smooth bottlenecks to keep production right on track. WinScribe reporting is also utilized to gain an understanding of author workloads in order to give insight to the current workload across the various practices.

“We’ve leveraged everything we can get from WinScribe,” says Clawson. “From standard routing and transcription to the integration of our time and billing and voice mail systems, we have expanded beyond the standard dictation process. We have aggressively tried to take advantage of whatever we can run through the system to enhance total firm-wide productivity.”

 

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