Technical tips for customer interviews

I conducted a brilliant customer interview this morning where I learned a lot; it's left me inspired for an upcoming marketing campaign.

I've also learned some things around the technicalities of running a customer interview but I'm looking for any tips from the community;

1. Call recording.

I used one of the most popular call recording apps on the app store (iOS). I've got to say, it was a bit complex - didn't actually work the way the docs said (may be because I'm from UK). It worked for about 20 mins, then suddenly the call cut out. Cue 5/6 attempts to start the call again with the recording app and would cut out almost instantly. It just started to get embarrassing.

In the end I drove 30 mins to the customer to finish the interview face-to-face and recorded via the Voice Memo app with phone on the table. It actually did a good job.

Fortunately, the customer is amazing and happy, so no big deal. Also, I think it actually was better face to face. However, I might not be able to do this every single time. What does everyone else do/use?

2. Audio transcribing.

Now the task of transcribing. Tried Amazon Transcribe for the first time and ended up with one of those viral movie scripts written by AI - it's terrible (see attached image.. the conversation did NOT go like this 😂).

I don't know if this is just a UK/Yorkshire thing but Amazon Transcribe did an awful job. There's an hour of audio and I really don't fancy doing this by hand. Can anyone recommend a service?

I have a feeling manual transcribing might be the way to go. I've just come across https://otranscribe.com/ that looks useful.