Captioning Companies – 3 things to look for before hiring

Captioning companies cater to a very specific job description, and because it’s a niche market, the best will quickly stand out from the others.

Conversely, because it’s such a specific task, you want to get it right first time around.

So how do you pick a captioning company that’s right for you and your needs?

We’ve whittled it down to these three things…

Experience

One shift at McDonalds and you’re pretty much trained. Captioning isn’t that easy.

It takes years to get good at live captioning, hours and hours of practice on a stenograph, and an ear for people’s conversations.

On top of that you need an understanding, insight and appreciation of the deaf community and the hardships faced.

Experience isn’t something you can buy, and it’s certainly not something you can fake. Anyone who tries to will soon be found out.

Only the best captioning companies will have staff who are both familiar with the disability and are skilled stenographers.

Reputation

The captioning companies with the longest experience will also usually have the best reputations.

That’s not to say new business who don’t have a reputation aren’t any good… it’s just hard to tell.

If you ask someone for testimonials or references and they keep changing the subject, then you might want to look elsewhere.

An honest and reputable firm will always be happy to provide previous happy customers for you to make your own inquiries as well as previous work examples.

Speed and accuracy

Yeah, this one is kind of important for a captioning company.

Accuracy is more important than speed in most cases, 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.

Live captioning is a good example of when a fast writer is essential, as the entire point of it is to keep deaf and hard of hearing people up-to-date with what’s being said, not reading what’s happening minutes later.

The real goal is to have both speed and accuracy, something only the best captioning companies can offer.

We have all three

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

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

Before setting up 121 Captions, Tina worked as a finance director, expert witness forensic lip reader, C&G ATLA lip reading teacher, deaf awareness trainer, and CEIGHE higher education careers consultant.

Her reputation and that of 121 alongside her is second to none.

Our team includes court reporters and captioners, professional lip readers, certified lipreading teachers, deaf awareness trainers and sign language interpreters.

We also work with a hand-picked, international network of over 300 professionally-qualified captioners, all of whom are registered and accredited by internationally-recognised professional associations to provide on-site and remote captioning services.

If you are looking through captioning companies and wonder which one is right for you, then let’s stop you there – you found us.

Contact us for more information or with any questions you may have.