Why do you use manual entry for transcription and not OCR ? OCR is usually inaccurate, esp when it comes to business cards where there are no standards. Then there are types of cards which OCR cannot read. Different designs and fonts on cards makes OCR all the more difficult. A small error in a contact name can be risky and a single wrong character in email address can result in an undelivered email. Accurate data is at the heart of Contactous. While we do capture OCR output, we provide correct reliable data of your business cards through manual data entry.
What information is captured from a business card ? We enter the following information from the business card (if it is available): Full Name, Title, Division, Company Name, Full Company Address (first), Tel (of first address), Mobile (all), Email (all), Website, Blog and Social Media handles.
Who does the transcription ? It is done by Contactous' full time operators, based in Philippines and India.
My data is in an unstructured text file. Can you help to import it in Contactous ? Yes, but we will accept it after studying a sample of the file. We will take this task if the minimum number of records are 1000.
My data is in handwritten papers like warranty cards. How can I use Contactous ? We will need to study some samples of this data if we can directly enter the data. Depending on the task, we might direct you to one of our partners to enter the data in Contactous.
What languages do you support for transcription ? Currently we only enter the data in English. However, we plan to support more languages by late 2016.
A business card has information on both sides. Do you consider this card as 2 records ? No, we treat it as a single record in the system.
What do you do with handwritten information on business cards ? We capture it, esp when it is a key information of business card. For example, if a mobile number on a card has been scratched off and another number has been written on it, we will capture the handwritten number. In any case, the image of card is available in the system so that the information can be re-edited at any time.
There are fields of First, Middle and Last names in the system. How do you split the card's name into them ? If our trained operators can decide on what part of name is first and last, they will input it accordingly. However, it is not always possible. When in doubt, the entire name on name card is entered in the first name. The system has a different field for full name which adds the first, middle and last names to give the name on the card.