Speech-to-text

Speech-to-text is speech recognition technology that turns spoken audio into written words, either after a recording ends or live while someone is still talking.

You may already use it without thinking: voicemail transcripts in your inbox, dictation on a phone, or captions on a video call. The software listens to the audio, breaks it into small sound units and matches them against patterns it has learned from large amounts of recorded speech, choosing the most likely words in context.

Batch and streaming

There are two broad modes. Batch transcription processes a finished recording, which suits voicemail and call notes. Streaming transcription works as the person speaks, sending words back within a fraction of a second, which is what any system holding a live phone conversation needs. Streaming systems also detect when the speaker has paused or finished, so the other side knows when to reply.

What affects accuracy

Phone audio is harder than studio audio. Background noise such as barking dogs and traffic, speakerphones, poor mobile signal, strong accents and two people talking at once all lower accuracy. Unusual words matter too: pet names, street names and some veterinary terms may be misheard unless the system is given hints about the vocabulary to expect. Good systems handle more than one language, and some can follow a caller who switches between English and Spanish.

Why it matters to a clinic

For a front desk, speech-to-text is mostly invisible plumbing. It is what turns voicemails into readable notes, makes calls searchable, and lets automated phone tools understand a caller's request instead of asking them to press buttons.

An example

At a two-vet clinic, the practice manager notices that voicemail transcripts sometimes spell client names oddly but almost always capture the reason for the call. The team starts checking the transcript first and the audio only when a detail looks wrong, which shortens the morning voicemail round without losing information.

How Tilly handles it

Tilly uses streaming speech recognition to understand callers in English and Spanish in real time, then replies, books in supported practice software and records a summary of every call in your dashboard.

For context on why answering live matters, see the missed-call cost guide. Related: text-to-speech and IVR.