Are you looking for a language service provider for your translation project? Have you been working with a translation company and you are no longer satisfied with their results? Competition is on fire with thousands of translation companies on the plant, so how can you make the right choice!
Go and get fresh air and start reading our checklist that will assist you while selecting the right translation company for your projects.
- Specialty
Specialization, concentration and consistency is the key to outstanding performance!
That’s why you should partner with a translation company that is specialized and have in-depth expertise in your field so they can deliver the best results. You might find a translation company that has a single specialization like medical, legal and financial where as some translation companies might have all kinds of specializations.
- Certification & Accreditation
It’s the Crème de la Crème translations that are created by the most experienced, qualified translators. Mainly, it’s used for legal, academic and financial documents that need certified translations.
- Native Linguists
Why natives? Simply because only linguists are capable of knowing and using the most used and appropriate terminologies that are used in their locales. For a common language like English, the language in the US is mainly different than in the UK or Australia. From here comes the importance of having a native linguist to work on your translation projects.
- Meeting Deadlines
Some translation companies are working with translators who are living in different time zones, which might affect the company’s ability to meet the delivery time. So before partnering with your language service provider, you should ask about their turnaround times and how they are committed to meeting deadlines, which is exactly what you are looking for.
- Quality
“Quality is not an act, it’s a habit”
Let’s agree that quality is always what you are looking for and it’s nothing that can be compromised. Before hiring a translation company, you should get an answer to each of these types of questions;
– What is the quality assurance program you’re applying?
– What kind of training do translators get to maintain project quality?
- Pricing
Price is a critical factor when choosing your language service provider. If you choose a cheap quotation from your vendors, you certainly expect a low-quality of service t so, always try to come to a compromise to get a good deal in terms of price and quality.
- Confidentiality
The possibility of having a confidential document that needs to be translated is always there, so you should ensure that your language service provider follows the best data security system.
You should ask if your translation provider will sign nondisclosure agreements or confidentiality agreements to guarantee that the data will be secured.
- Ask for a Sample
If you started to draw up a shortlist for all companies and you can’t decide which one you will go for, simply, send a sample document to your business with guidelines including the terms and abbreviations and ask for a sample test from each company to evaluate them and decide who is the best.
- Project Management
Why is project management important? Running a translation project with an efficient project management process will save time, money, and effort for all the parties involved .
It will ensure what’s being delivered, who is having a full control of the project and it will ensure that process is implemented as agreed.
- Feedback
Word of mouth is one of the best ways you can use to support your decision while choosing a translation company. Testimonials about companies can give you a green light. You can get these testimonials from:
– Check the social media accounts of these companies.
– Tap the companies’ websites to read clients’ testimonials.
– Contact companies from your industry and ask about their experiences with translation companies.
– Communicate with the shortlisted translation companies and ask for customer referrals.
- Translation Tools
Technology plays an important role in translation, as it can save money and time for your project, how? Assuming you selected a translation company and you have a huge project with large documents that you need to send, what if this company doesn’t have a translation management system (TMS) to upload these files on it?! Tens of hours will be lost in sending the files and distributing them among the working team.
Other irreplaceable tools like Glossaries, Style Guides, and CAT tools like Trados, MemoQ, SmartCAT and many more.
- Stability and Reliability
If your translation company said it’s a reliable and stable one, don’t take this for granted. You should validate this by having them answer the following questions:
- What are the services they offer and what is the availability of these services?
- How long they have been in business?
- How many clients they have?
- What clients do they retain?
- What’s their daily and annual volume of translation on average?
- Scalability
Modifications are always applied to future plans, and the same might happen to your translation plans. While planning a partnership with a language service provider, you should consider how the chosen provider will behandling these modifications, such as: If they can provide other services like website localization or subtitling, if they can translate other languages or handle a huge volume of translation.
Scalability here includes tools, software programs, human resources, vendor management, project management and linguists for sure.
We – at LatinoBridge – have tried to gather all the most important criteria that you should consider when looking for a translation company. We tried our best to tick all of the above boxes to guarantee that our clients will get the best results for their translation project.
We have hundreds of clients referrals and testimonials that confirm how we are a reliable, stable and efficient language service provider. You can browse our website to get more details about our services and if you have any inquiries feel free to contact us and we will get back to you the soonest.
