KENYA · GUIDE 0670 · EDITION 4.2
Video captioning service in Kenya: Customers and Market Demand
The buyer and the buying decision
Creators, trainers and organizations improving accessibility and comprehension. The offer to test is: Add accurate captions and readable subtitle files to client-supplied videos.
Agree whether hesitation, overlapping speech and meaningful background sounds belong in captions, especially where training content depends on accurately distinguishing different speakers.
Separate interest from an accepted order
Caption a short sample and agree language, timing style and terminology.
The purpose of this test is to establish whether the buyer accepts the specified result, delivery arrangement and payment terms. An encouraging interview does not establish repeat demand. Ask what the buyer currently uses, what would make them change supplier and who has authority to approve the first order. Record a refusal as carefully as an enquiry so that unsuccessful offers do not disappear from the evidence.
Collect evidence specific to this offer
Record transcription corrections, unresolved names, timing adjustments and device readability observations, retaining the terminology decisions that would accelerate another episode from this client.
| Question to resolve | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|
| What exactly will the buyer accept? | Replay the exported video on a typical phone and compare names, amounts and speaker changes with the source rather than trusting automatic transcription. |
| What is included in the first trial? | Agree whether hesitation, overlapping speech and meaningful background sounds belong in captions, especially where training content depends on accurately distinguishing different speakers. |
| How will a prospect see the offer? | Show before-and-after samples using material you are authorized to share. |
| What must happen before repeating the trial? | Captions accurately reflect speech and remain readable within the specified frame. |
Decide whether to continue
Review the specification with the buyer before committing to tools or stock. A trial is commercially useful only if actual costs, rejected work, time spent and cash collected can be reconciled. Correct words can still produce unusable captions when line breaks split phrases, text covers demonstrations or rapid exchanges become impossible to follow.
If a buyer changes the required output, record a new scope and re-cost the test. Do not count a request for a different product as proof of demand for the original one. Keep personal contact details in your private records and use customer statements publicly only with permission.
Turn the example into a buyer test
Fictional sample order: caption three supplied English-language training clips, each five minutes long, for a Kenyan sewing workshop. Deliver three UTF-8 SRT files and three review MP4s with visible captions. Include speaker labels when voices cannot otherwise be identified and meaningful non-speech sound cues. Translation, transcript rewriting and burnt-in final masters are separate options. The buyer supplies the final locked video, a terminology list and the authorized reviewer.
| Buyer discussion | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|
| Specification to confirm | All three source videos play from beginning to end and the reviewer confirms their versions. |
| Output to inspect | Each delivered SRT has the correct filename, full final cue and no overlap introduced by a late correction. |
| Failure that can defeat acceptance | Captions gradually drift |
Ask the buyer to describe one acceptable and one unacceptable result. Record the decision maker, price basis, quantity, handover point and payment date privately. A sample request, an encouraging conversation and an accepted order are different evidence. Keep the first commitment within your demonstrated capacity; no customer interview or successful trial is asserted here.
What a failed test should change
Compare a cue at the start and another near the end with the locked source.. If the offer cannot meet that check, revise the specification or process before promising a repeat. Keep rejected offers and reasons in the same register as positive replies so that your record does not exaggerate demand.