About SMG Financial Services

Uncertain economic times call for the assurances provided by a financial service.

SMG Financial Services has helped its clients through many storms. The origins of the company date back to the early 1900s and they have been providing expert Independent Financial Advice for many years.

Running pension schemes for small companies is at the centre of this independently owned company.

Additionally, SMG also assists with personal financial planning and wealth management.

Dragon Voice To Text – An Investment for the Future

Based in Harewood, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, currently, four of SMG F.S Ltd’s ten staff are using Dragon. Primarily the team is using the software to correspond with their clients in the form of either letters or emails.

Created by Nuance Communications, Dragon is the world’s best-selling desktop speech recognition software.

John Mott, SMG’s Joint Managing Director, explains: “Like many people, I am a one-fingered typist. For me, it’s a slow and laborious process.”

“My time should be spent doing client-facing work, not bashing about on the keyboard.”

Before using Dragon, John stated that he would dictate a letter to a digital voice recorder. The secretary would then type it up. They would then return the document to John for a final check.

John admitted that this model was not ideal because: “I could dictate all my correspondence on a Monday, but if the secretary was off on a Tuesday, it may not get transcribed until Wednesday, and then not approved until Thursday.”

“Dictation would take two or three hours and take a fair chunk of time. Our secretary finished at 14.00 and I could get work completed if she had nothing in the queue.”

“However, if she had a backlog, it would get delayed. These delays just elongated the correspondence process.”

Change Drives Progress

A chance to resolve this challenge presented itself when one of the secretaries left.

“This was a great opportunity to rethink our workflow processes. Speech recognition offered the potential to be an alternative to employing a new secretary.”

“We wanted to turn around more letters faster and have the option of being self-sufficient when it came to producing correspondence. Especially because some of our correspondence is quite technical.”

After conducting research into the solutions available, Dragon stood out as ‘fit for purpose’, SMG F.S Ltd decided to call in Nuance-authorised reseller VoicePower to find out more.

Expert Training

“VoicePower came in and listened to our challenge and explained how Dragon could help us. They also explained how Dragon could be easily integrated with Volume, our electronic paper store. VoicePower also provided us with training which was organised quickly and managed efficiently within one day.”

“An hour was spent with each individual, and about 20 minutes was needed to prepare their PC. It was not an especially disruptive process.”

“I’d certainly be more than happy to recommend their excellent service. The team provided fantastic telephone support whenever we needed it. They even came back to provide refresher training.”

Using Dragon daily, John is qualified to comment on its role as an essential part of the company’s workflow process.

John is pleased with Dragon voice-to-text software: “The accuracy is fantastic. The more I use it, the more it’s being trained and the better the accuracy becomes. Now, the text appears and it’s virtually spot on every time with nearly no mistakes. It’s better at transcribing than I am at typing!”

John attributes his ongoing success to Dragon’s accuracy rates of up to 99%. Needless to say, its ability to effortlessly transcribe at up to 160 words per minute also helps.

While the company hasn’t produced more correspondence since deploying Dragon, the turnaround time has improved: “Our volume of letters and emails is the same, but they are processed much quicker.”

John’s productivity has seen a marked improvement, too: “A 40-line email would take me all afternoon to type. It now takes minutes. Our workflow and workload are now more consistent and easier to regulate.“

John is pleased that: “A feast or famine scenario is no longer. The secretary isn’t getting bombarded and then nothing the next minute.”

Dragon Voice To Text – Boosting More Than Productivity

John is adamant that the performance boost realised by Dragon has a further knock-on effect.

“It improves customer service because the enhanced turnaround speed means you can prepare an acknowledgement quickly. In the modern, always-on world, clients increasingly expect a response will be swift and not delayed because of a workflow that pre-dates the digital era.”

Correspondence is more detailed compared to when it was being typed.

A further benefit of using voice-to-text for any professions which need to keep an audit trail is that it makes this task much easier.

As John explains: “It also helps with the audit trail. Let’s say on the phone with a client discussing a financial product and I suggest to a client they switch from product A to B. There needs to be a trail of this discussion.”

“Using Dragon, I can dictate right after the call and send them an email confirming the conversation we had and the agreed actions. With Dragon, the trail is there within 30 seconds.”

Success for Now and The Future

Due to his satisfaction with Dragon voice-to-text, John states that he wouldn’t just recommend it to Independent Financial Advisers.

“I’d recommend it to all sorts of people because the accuracy, performance and productivity advantages can benefit so many users.”

“I’m often extolling its virtues, doing demos to people. They are largely impressed by how quickly and accurately the words appear on the screen.”

We can’t predict how the economy will evolve over the next few years, but thanks to Dragon, SMG F.S Ltd is now better equipped.

Equipped to keep customers regularly updated and even better informed about the well-being of their own financial investments and future plans.