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West End property consultancy Churston Heard is rolling out BigHand TotalSpeech, a cutting edge Digital Dictation system, in an effort to offer a streamlined service to clients. The firm wide initiative follows a successful pilot of the technology during which Churston Heard found BigHand TotalSpeech to offer many significant improvements over the traditional analogue tape - including easy off-site recording, improved workflow and clearer playback for secretaries.

Churston Heard Director, Chris Powell, commented:

"BigHand TotalSpeech enables Churston Heard's professionals to switch easily between Digital Dictation and Speech Recognition technologies. Digital Dictation will be rolled out throughout the company, whereas Speech Recognition is only suitable for certain professional staff."

"Digital Dictations can be created in the office or off-site, and can be easily shared between secretaries in different departments depending on resources available. The likelihood of dictation tapes being accidentally deleted or corrupted has now been eliminated and secretarial efficiency has been improved."

BigHand TotalSpeech, a digital dictation 'workflow' technology that is proving to offer many efficiency gains for firms in the property sector, will replace traditional analogue tapes across the firm. Speech Recognition will only go to select staff.

Matt Aitken, IT Manager at Churston Heard stated:

"In contrast to the increasingly outmoded analogue tape, Digital Dictation provides an integrated, robust and efficient way of managing transcription through our network. Considering the amount of work that is currently dictated we expect BigHand TotalSpeech to become one of our core IT systems."

Churston Heard will have around 30 users of BigHand TotalSpeech by March 2002, and the project will also include selected use of Speech Recognition. In contrast to Digital Dictation, Speech Recognition is particularly beneficial when secretarial support is unavailable. Professionals are able to create letters and reports out of office hours and Speech Recognition can dramatically help those with poor typing skills. Recent developments in Speech Recognition technology means that after one session of training it is possible to dictate at 100 words per minute into a computer, with 95% accuracy.

Notes

Established in 1969, Churston Heard have evolved to provide a comprehensive commercial property advisory service fulfilling all the consultancy needs of property investors, developers and occupiers.

BigHand are the leading digital dictation and speech recognition consultancy in the UK, maintaining the highest number of digital speech installations in the property & legal sectors. BigHand clients include CB Hillier Parker, Taylor Woodrow, Lamberts Chartered Surveyors, The British Land Company, and Akeler.