When conducting professional phone calls, there are plenty of situations where recording and transcribing the call might come in handy. Perhaps you want to use exact quotes from the conversation for an article or a report, or you want to use the transcript for training purposes. Maybe you want to keep a record of the conversation for legal purposes, or maybe the thought of taking accurate notes while staying on top of the conversation is just too much.

By taking the pressure out of note-taking, you can fully engage in the phone call, knowing you'll get a full transcript once the call has ended. In this guide we'll outline how to record a phone call using your phone or computer, followed by step-by-step instructions for how to transcribe your phone call.

Note: If you want to record a call, always ask the other callers for permission first and inform them how you'll be using the recording. Not only is this the polite thing to do, it's also the law in many jurisdictions.

Jump to:

• Why record & transcribe phone calls?

• How to record a phone call

• How to transcribe a phone call using the Transcribe app

• Why choose Transcribe?

• Get searchable, shareable notes

A written transcript is easy to skim-read and search, so that you can quickly find important parts of the conversation and pull out important quotes. This might be particularly useful if you're a journalist or you're in charge of your company's marketing efforts.

• Keep records of conversations for better customer service

If you work in a customer-facing role, then recording phone calls means that you can keep track of conversations, refer back to your notes and pick up where you left off, avoiding repetition of conversations for better customer service.

• Use the transcripts for training purposes

Call transcripts can be shared as part of the training and onboarding process, as an example of what works well (and what doesn't) when communicating with customers.

• Keep transcripts for legal reasons

Hopefully you won't ever be in this situation, but there are times when phone call transcripts can be used as evidence of what's been said and as proof of how situations have been handled.

Recording phone calls is a common business practice, but it isn't as straightforward as it could be, as neither iPhone nor Android have a built-in function for recording calls. But fear not, there are solutions!

• Record a call on speakerphone

The simplest way to record a phone call is to put your phone call on speakerphone and then use another device - either another phone or your computer - to record the call. Simply open up the Voice Memos app on your Apple device (iPhones, iPads and Macs all have the same built-in app) or the equivalent on your Android/PC and start recording. Make sure the device is near to your phone's speaker so that it captures the audio effectively. The clearer the conversation is, the more accurate your transcription will be.

• Use a third party app

If the speakerphone method is a little too rudimentary for you, then using a phone call recording app like RingCentral, Cube Call Recorder or Google Voice is a great alternative. Download your preferred app and follow the in-app instructions to record your phone call.

If you're making a phone call from your computer, then chances are you're using a platform like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet. Check out our individual guides on how to transcribe a Zoom recording, a Teams meeting and a Google Meet call for step-by-step instructions on how to record and transcribe calls made on these platforms.

Once you've recorded your phone call, it's quick and easy to turn your call into a transcript using the Transcribe app or online editor. Here's how:

1. Download the Transcribe app or launch the online editor

2. Upload your recorded phone call

You can import audio files from any app or cloud storage system, including Google Drive and Dropbox. Supported file formats include mp3, m4a and wav. If your phone call is in a format that isn't supported, get in touch and we'll help you to convert your file.

The clearer your phone call recording is, the more accurate the transcription will be, so take care to ensure that voices can be clearly heard, speakers don't talk over one another and there's no background noise or echo.

3. Choose your language

Select the language of your recorded phone call from more than 120 languages and dialects.

4. Start the transcription process

Your phone call transcription will be ready in a matter of minutes. Have a tea break, stretch your legs, and we'll send you a notification when it's finished.

5. Your transcription is ready!

Now that your phone call transcript is ready, you can proofread and polish the text in the app, online or in your preferred file format - with or without timestamps. When you're ready, export it to TXT, PDF, DOCX, SRT or JPG.

And there you have it - a written version of your phone call recording that's ready for you to skim, repurpose, condense and share.

Transcribe uses AI-powered technology to automatically transcribe your phone call recordings, so you'll receive a clear and accurate transcription in mere minutes. It takes even professional transcribers four hours for every hour of audio, so it would take you even longer to do it yourself.

Since we're not relying on human transcribers, we can keep the costs right down too. The average price of human transcription sevrices is 75 cents to $1.50 per minute, whereas with Transcribe, an hour of transcription time costs as little as $2 with our PRO subscription.

Ready to transcribe your phone call? Download the Transcribe app or launch the online editor to get started.

Written By Katie Garrett