What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?
Optical character recognition or OCR is a technology that increases the operational ability of an organization. The technology is developed using different programming languages and large datasets. OCR enables companies to read information from unstructured content. This allows businesses to gather information from the text in images. With more information businesses are able to solve customer queries easily and make more informed decisions in business and a lot more.
It is an exciting business tactic that can help businesses grow and provide better service to their customers. The technology allows companies to utilize the gathered data more judiciously with greater accuracy very fast. The global optical character recognition market size was valued at USD 7.46 billion in 2020. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.7% from 2021 to 2028.
A business that thrives on customer inputs must include OCR in its business strategies. This allows the company to easily take in information from its customers. The marketing strategy of many companies should include this technology for greater profitability in the long run. Some of the advantages of OCR technology in business are discussed as follows.
1. Ease of Access
Companies with OCR technology added to their systems have faster data access systems. The information stored in images becomes text searchable which makes access better.
With OCR installed in the system, searching through large databases containing lots of images and other information becomes easy. Users can directly start searching documents with names and reference numbers without even storing an electronic version of the document previously.
2. Ease of usage and storage
Optical character recognition software automatically converts images into readable text and word files from which users can select information without any hassle. This allows storing large datasets as electronic files that can be shared and edited according to the needs.
With easy storage, the accessibility of the information at hand becomes much more expansive. Employees can find old customer details and case files directly from the electronic database without ever opening the physical folders.
3. Greater accuracy of Data interpretation
The quality of data stored by the organizations increases when OCR is applied to it. Customers can get accurate responses for their queries with the help of OCR that searches through documents for their queries. This in turn leads to greater customer satisfaction.
Also in many cases, companies can use OCR to extract the information from forms and other physical documents to validate it instantly with pre-existing databases. This helps to establish security checks and protect user data easily.
4. Saves Time
The OCR feature can rapidly go through a lot of images to find the relevant data unlike in traditional methods where the data had to be manually filled in. This saves a lot of time for business operations as information from physical documents can also be directly found on a computer. In several cases, the data from the physical documents have to be manually analyzed by the employees. With an OCR system involved all the checking of documents can be done automatically.
5. Greater Speed
In any organization, a large part of the workday goes into managing all the physical documents into different files and manually filing them in word files. With an OCR system set up in the business, the employees can autofill online forms and databases from physical documents very fast. This gives the employees more time to focus on their work, increasing their productivity.
6. Improved Productivity
As discussed in the above point, with the OCR image recognition software in place the amount of daily paperwork to be handled by an employee significantly decreases. This provides them with easier accessible digital data that can be shared and edited in the organization. Ultimately providing the employees with an easier work environment that boosts the productivity and profitability of the company.
7. Cost-effective
OCR requires less processing cost than traditional methods. Also, it can be easily accessible across all kinds of mobile devices with a camera. This really helps businesses as no specific setup is required to reply to the OCR image recognition software. Businesses can create applications that have this feature to directly get input from customers with many complications.
8. Better services for customers
The main aim of businesses is to provide maximum customer satisfaction for better partnerships and business in the market. A good way of taking care of the customers is to provide them access to the information they provide to the company and edit and update it if necessary.
All this can be easily done with Optical Character Recognition. Customers can fill in different kinds of forms but with the help of OCR, employees are able to compile this information in a single folder and provide them to the customers when necessary.
9. Better customer support
All services in the market require a robust customer support service to really make the product a successful endeavor. With the help of intelligent data capture tools, companies can provide great customer support and query solving services.
As the OCR image recognition software converts every bit of information into digital files, any kind of query can be solved by accessing this information at hand. This leads to the customers getting a fast response to their problems and leaves a very good impression about the company.
Benefits of Invoice Automation
As illustrated in the above point, with faster service speeds and clearer communication the overall attitude of the customer towards the company is positive. This inclines them to carry out more business with the enterprise in the future and also boosts the conversion rates of the company. All this is possible with the implementation of Optical Character Recognition as the OCR ensures clients are attended to fast.
Throughout the article, optical character recognition can be seen being used for different purposes in the business sector. The general advantage in all these places is the process’s ability to identify information from a chunk of unstructured data. With the exchange of data being the core principle of many institutions, this feature is very important.
From better speed, more accessibility, increasing productivity, and even customer satisfaction, integrating technology like OCR not only helps the company innovate but also provides the employees a chance to grow and use better technologies. It is pretty evident that the success of a company is related to its customers’ satisfaction.
Optical character recognition is a technology that helps customers convey information to the company without much hassle. They can just click photos of the documents which then are processed using OCR to get all relevant details. This not only increases the ease of doing business with the company but also makes it stand out amongst rivals.
