How To Differentiate Your Translation Business with Service
The success of your translation business depends on finding ways to favorably differentiate it. But how? Could one way be with service?
Watch For Vendors You Work With That Make An Impression
Numerous times a week most of us make purchases or somehow interact with people who provide us with products and/or services. Consider the quality of these interactions. Which ones stand out and why?
Our company uses a utility on our website that allows us to chat with website visitors that come to our site during business hours. The vendor recently added a new feature that allows a pop-up message to appear after a set time. On our website we invite visitors to download a free publication about buying translation services. The pop-up is a feature we’ve been testing.
We wanted to include an image of the publication in the pop-up but weren’t sure how to make it work. We sent a casual message to the vendor asking if it might be a feature they’ll add in the future. We received their response within a short time with instructions (the exact customized html code) to use to include our document’s cover image within the website pop-up. We didn’t expect that. We were surprised (and delighted).
Some Ways To Differentiate Translation Businesses with Service
Our company regularly tries to favorably differentiate our translation business with service. Here are a few perhaps obvious but still potentially powerful ways:
- Responding to quote requests and other client communications quickly. Really fast.
- Consulting with clients on ways to lower their costs.
- Working to streamline processes with repeat clients (i.e., speed project throughputs while reducing unnecessary stress).
- Setting up projects for translation as a courtesy (e.g., extracting text within graphics into Excel or another editable format).
- Occasionally calling in a favor with our translators to expedite a time sensitive project.
Clients will often indicate which types of service attention they value most. Sometimes they’ll state it directly (e.g., “I really need this back by Wednesday.”). Other times they’ll be less direct (e.g., “I wish there was a way to make this work better.”).
Listen closely to clients and they’ll often tell you or provide an indication as to what aspect of service they value most.
