"If I were to count the number of times that's been said to me by prospective new clients," Transcription 2000's founder recently remarked with a laugh, "I'd need a few hundred more fingers and toes."

But her tone became more serious as she continued. "It's true that we do lose some transcription services business due to our rates being higher than many of our competitors. That being said, I firmly believe we cannot expect to attract and retain the level of professional transcribers we've built this transcription service business around by paying them rates on a par with those paid to workers in India and other off-shore locations, or even at the rates being paid to many transcribers here in the U.S. by some transcription service companies trying to win business by price rather than quality."

As we've noted in this blog before, today's professional transcribers are not simply speed-demon typists mindlessly spewing out transcripts. In addition to their mechanical skills, they must be intelligent, resourceful, highly focused, technology-savvy, and able to work within the context of multitudes of environments, often under immense pressure due to time deadlines and/or audio quality issues.

We'll talk more about this important subject in future posts. But for now, let's just say to those who might expect our transcription services team of professionals to be paid at rates that often equate to less than minimum wage: Now, that's ridiculous.