Why businesses are turning to captioning companies

Captioning companies were few and far between a decade ago, but as demand for captioning increases, so to do the options for businesses.

So what’s with the sudden increase in captioning companies? And why would a business even need them?

Why business may need captioning companies

There are several reasons why a business might hire a captioning company.

First of all, captions are not just for deaf people. As the pandemic made everyone work from home, it wasn’t long before we discovered that online work meetings can be a right pain. People talking over each other, microphones cutting out, delays in the stream and background noise making it difficult to hear what’s going on. Live captioning is a way to cut through the noise, reach everyone, and ensure all your staff, clients and associates are on the same page.

There is also a practical element to captions. If a business has a social media presence, which it almost certainly does, then captioning videos can help with marketing. YouTube is owned by Google, and if you have a video online explaining what you do, then Google’s crawl bots read the transcript of what’s being said in the video and place you higher on Google’s front page. Captions are a simple way to blast your website’s SEO without really trying!

Captions can also keep businesses on the right side of the law. As a business owner, you are legally required to make “reasonable adjustments” to accommodate those with hearing difficulties, and captioning companies are a great way to meet those requirements.

What to look for in captioning companies

Even though captioning is gaining in popularity, it’s still a very niche market, so picking the right captioning company first time round is important.

It takes years to get good at live captioning, hours and hours of practice on a stenograph, and an ear for people’s conversations, so experience is the number one thing to look for.

But just because a company has been around a while, doesn’t mean they’re any good. This is where a company’s reputation comes in. Good captioning companies should always be happy to provide previous happy customers for you to make your own inquiries as well as previous work examples.

Of course, on a practical level, speed and accuracy are important. In most cases, accuracy is more important than speed, especially in official capacities like legal dispositions, courtroom settings and contract negotiations. Speed is important when things are moving at a rapid pace and the audience needs to keep up, like in live speeches or conferences. Ideally you want a company who can do both.

Call the best in the business

As one of the best captioning companies in the world, we pride ourselves on having all of the above criteria.

When it comes to experience, our founder Tina Lannin has been profoundly deaf from birth, so knows a thing or two about the deaf community.

Her reputation is second to none in this industry, with the team she has assembled including court reporters and captioners, professional lip readers, certified lipreading teachers, deaf awareness trainers and sign language interpreters.

121 Captions has years of experience live captioning events, lectures, and conferences, all over the world and in many different languages.

Hand-picked from across the globe, our speech to text reporters (STTRs) and CART Providers can caption word for word at up to 360 words per minute – that’s as fast as someone speaks – with only a one-second time lag and in multiple languages!

With credentials like these, it’s no wonder some of our clients are famous and respected names around the world, including the BBC, Facebook, the Foreign Office, the University of Oxford, and many more.

Contact us today if you would like to know more about how we can help your business.