Way WithWords Group: Going Global With Transcription

Here’s the question: How does a business service provider with a South African operational base take a typically home-based non-professional secretarial service, transcription, and go global, so much so that they have and retain notable and recognisable clients all over the world?

And the client list is truly impressive!

• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Bank of New York in the USA;
• Financial Times and the British Museum in England;
• The Welch Assembly in Wales;
• The World Health Organization in Switzerland;
• The International Criminal Courts at the Hague in the Netherlands;
• The ITER Organization in France;
• SASOL and Harith and Naspers in Africa;
• universities around the world:  Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich; Universities of Georgia, Vermont, and Minnesota in the USA; John Molson Business School of Concordia University in Canada; the University of Cape Town in South Africa; the University of Melbourne in Australia; Universities of Northumbria, Cambridge, Essex, Sussex, and the London Business School in the UK.

Or in other words, how is it that a ‘local’ group of people provide a single service to over 2500 prestigious clients all around the globe?

It boils down to the Way With Words Group marketing philosophy: “global yet local”.

Managing Director Adam Kossowski has banked on a ‘global yet local’ marketing strategy that is resulting in an influx of clients from all over the world.  Kossowski is convinced that people like to find a ‘local’ service, and so when they search for a service such as transcription, they often google the service as well as their location.  With that in mind, Kossowski has created global ‘local services’ of Way With Words Group Transcription Service.

Here’s how it works. Way With Words Group offers seven regional services: TranscriptionAustralasia; TranscriptionAsia, TranscriptionMiddleEast, TranscriptionSouthAmerica, TranscriptionNorthAmerica, TranscriptionEurope, and TranscriptionAfrica.

Beyond that, Way With Words Group offers services by country as well. For example, there are, among many others, TranscripitonSouthAfrica; TranscripitonUnitedKingdom; TranscriptionBrazil; TranscriptionAustralia; TranscriptionSingapore; TranscriptionUnitedStates; TranscriptionCanada; TranscriptionDubai; and TranscriptionGermany.

This strategy is powerful in that marketing is ‘global yet local’ at the same time.

So, for example, when a divorce attorney in Sydney googles ‘transcription’ and ‘sydney’ she finds TranscriptionAustralia, a service of Way With Words Group (Australasia); and when a businessman in Rio de Janeiro googles ‘transcription’ and ‘Brazil’ he finds TranscriptionBrazil, a service of Way With Words Group (South America); and when a tax auditor in Alaska googles ‘transcription’ and ‘Alaska’ he finds TranscriptionUnitedStates, a service of Way With Words Group (North America); and when a market researcher in Japan googles ‘transcription’ and ‘japan’ she will find TranscriptionAsia, a Way With Words Group Transcription Services.

Then, since Way With Words Group is an English-only transcription service, the cover page of each of these web sites around the world are in the local language, a page which offers an introductory overview of the company and its service and which clearly states that all work and communication beyond that cover page are solely in English.

Then, after uploading from wherever they are situated, anywhere in the world, the client receives a quote in the local currency, and the sound file is transcribed by the deadline specified in their local time zone.

All the while, clients usually do not realise that the operational hub of the Way With Words Group Transcription Service is anywhere but ‘local’ to them.