Translation Services: Dialogues - Competition 2

Below are parts of dialogues we gleaned from online dialogues. This information was used in our 2008 state of the industry research. ABC Translationss is NOT one of the companies involved in or mentioned in the dialogues; these messages were posted on the open Internet. These dialogues are provided in order to promote transparency in the translation industry; however, to protect the identities of the companies involved, we have chosen to replace their names with "The Company" and "Our Company."

Our company is far from a "Hobbyist" company, and I am would never call, nor would anyone in my company call, another company that unless I was very familiar with that company and I was protecting my client.  Elevating yourself by putting someone else down is unfortunately commonplace.  It is true that there are some individual interpreters and translators that are uncertified and just hang a shingle because their bilingual.  We have a process by which we screen and double check everything that is done to ensure accuracy.  

We have been around for over 8 years and references are freely available from any of our clients.  It's true that we are not a "multimillion dollar company", but neither was "Londonbridge" earlier in their career.

I am very concerned that "Londonbridge: would be putting our company down as one of "those" companies without knowing anything about us.  I guess this is clear evidence of their ethics and manner of doing business.

I appreciate your concern and following up with me on this matter. I assure you we are not a hobbyist translation company, and I suspect the person who spoke to you did not know us as they would have not said that had they. 

We have been in business for 25 years and our clients include United and Marriott Hotels. We use professional translators and provide quality translations that are error free.

Our approach is a partnership that is based on focusing on the client, providing personalized customer service, and providing quality services. Given you situation, I feel that you are looking for professionalism as well.

If you want a Wal-mart approach to translation, that is not us. If you want to develop a long term relationship with a company that goes the extra mile, does quality work, and takes into consideration your vision, that is us.

The way the translation industry works is that freelance translators who work all over the globe are the people we work with.  Since we've been in business for so long, we know who the best of the best are, and that is who we choose to work with.  We are very reputable in the industry and translators are knocking down our doors to try and work with us.  We can afford to be very picky, only working with the most professional people in the business.  That being said, because they are freelancers, we DO encounter problems.   But we have a zero tolerance attitude towards our translators.  They only have to screw up once and we will no longer use them.  Our clients have come to expect the best and that is what we deliver.

The process for every client is that you send us your files (in this case your website).  We pre-analyze them to see if there might be any issues with translation (certain colloquialisms or Americanism that won't translate well).  If we don't have any issues, we send the files to the translator (always a native speaker of the target language, always a full-time professional translator who is an expert in the subject matter of your documentation).  After the translator sends the files back, they go to an editor who edits the work and provides feedback on the quality of the translation and raises any issues (this step allows us to constantly monitor our translators).  The translator and editor might hash out some terminology choices or style guides. 

The next step is an important one and that is the end-user review.  If you have determined that you need Spanish and Japanese translation, I'm guessing that you and your agents must have identified a need in your market for those.  Do you have any colleagues who might have access to some of the clients that would use your services who are native Spanish or Japanese speakers?  They could serve as your end-user reviewer. 

Translation is subjective by nature, since it is a language.  The same holds true for English.  If you ask 10 people to review your website in English, you'll probably get 10 different rewrites.  Some might be better than the original, some not.  Some might be better but YOU just don't like the style.  That's what happens with end-user reviews and we often have to field upset clients because their reviewer is telling them the translation is useless.  In fact, it's a perfectly acceptable translation but the reviewer just doesn't care for some of the words or styles that were used.

Hopefully this gives you a bit more information on how the process works.  The fact is, The Company uses the same pool of translators that we do.  Pretty much every translation agency out there uses the same pool of translators.  Each agency finds a handful of their favorites and works closely with them.  The Company might tote that they have in-house translators, and they very well might, especially since there is such a need for Spanish translation these days.  The problem with in-house translators is that they can't really be subject specialists.  Working with freelancers offers us the opportunity to find the "right" translator for every job, based on timeline and subject matter.  And since we don't have to employ them all full time, we can keep overhead down and offer very competitive prices.

When finding a translation services vendor, you need to establish a relationship.  That is what you are shopping for.  Who will be handling your translation project and do you trust them?

 

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