Translation customers have choices when it comes to who performs their translation work. Their experience with translation vendors can be transactional or relational. What do we mean by this? Here’s how we characterize the two. Transactional Translation Vendor: Business is on the impersonal side. It’s just the facts. We’ll do x-y-z for x amount of […]
Rarely do we have an unhappy customer. When we do (despite our best efforts) we try to address their concerns as clearly and quickly as possible. Responses to concerns don’t necessarily occur immediately, though an acknowledgement of a concern comes quickly. “Dear customer, thank you for your message. We’re looking into the issue that you […]
An interesting business metric to track might be the number of ‘touches’ required with a client before an order for translation services is placed. The more human touches (interactions) required the higher the costs for the project acquisition. What are touches? We consider a touch to be anything that requires human attention. An email or […]
Sooner or later a translation company is bound to make an error in quoting a project. When a client accepts a misquoted project then there’s potentially a decision to make. If the project was priced unnecessarily high, it’s a relatively easy oversight to fix. If the accepted project was significantly under bid then should the […]
Commercial printers are a main category of client for professional translation services. Printing companies frequently call on translation companies for help with developing printed versions of a materials (e.g., small brochures, product sheets, to larger catalogs and manuals) in languages other than English. In addition to translation services, printers often need document design services since […]
Clients sometimes have questions about delivered translation projects. Chances are they don’t work with translation deliverables every day. So things that translators and agencies take for granted and seem routine, are not routine for clients. So they ask questions. Thoughtful answers to questions can resolve translation client concerns immediately. Poorly formed answers can unnecessarily introduce […]
