Chesterton Completes Digital Dictation Pilot

LONDON, UK - Property firm Chesterton's Glasgow office has completed a six month pilot and is investigating further roll out of a digital dictation workflow solution from SRC. SRC's digital dictation solution is installed in Chesterton's Glasgow office, where 25 fee earners, five support staff and the regional director use the system. The solution replaces analogue dictation tapes and allows fee earners to capture dictation in electronic form, which can then be transferred across a Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN) for transcription. The system gave Chesterton the opportunity to apply work-flow to transcription which had traditionally taken up 30 - 40% of support staff time. "Feedback from support staff has been unanimous and almost immediate. Digital dictation allowed our secretaries to achieve faster document turnaround with fewer inaccuracies. Staff are also happy to have made a 40% time saving allowing them to concentrate on other key tasks aside from administration," Chesterton business analyst, Tony Murphy, said. Chesterton Commercial financial director, Colin Stacey, said he was confident of the financial benefits a wider scale roll-out could deliver for the organization. "By replacing existing analogue dictation equipment with digital technology in our 21 UK offices, we can expect to make substantial savings," he said. "These savings will be accrued through reduced use of temporary support staff as well as reduced turnover of permanent support staff. We could also save on releasing fee earners time by allowing them to transfer more administration to support staff and having extra time to concentrate on their key job roles." SRC's digital dictation solution includes automatic routing of electronic dictation to any available workgroup for fast completion. By utilizing available resources throughout the branch, time can be used more effectively and money saved by not paying for temporary staff when one workgroup is short of staff from holiday or sickness. "At a time when rising secretarial costs and demands for flexible working are placing pressure on organisations, digital dictation is proving to be a popular solution in addressing these problems," Colin Howman, managing director of SRC Desktop Solutions, said. "It's clear that Chesterton are committed to investing in the best technology to improve working practices. Digital dictation workflow has proved to be the ideal solution in aiding both support staff and fee-earners in their core job roles. "The SRC digital dictation workflow solution that Chesterton selected automates an existing process in property firms and provides payback in between 6 to 12 months." Mr Murphy said Chesterton had considered other digital dictation technologies but felt that SRC's overall solution was clearly the best of the range. "We are extremely happy with SRC's work and support in implementing the six month pilot. They picked up very quickly on where our business need was, and how digital dictation could assist with our business."