Certified Arabic Translation Agency – Importance of Breaking the Language Barrier
Help your translation project, read about 3 most common myths about translation agencies…
Myth #1. “Why do you need the whole working day to translate just 200 words?!”
One day a customer calls us and says:
– “I have a 200 words letter to translation from French to English, can you please give me a quote?”
LingvoHouse Customer Service replies:
– “It will be £xxx with turnaround 1 working day.” The customer seems very surprised to hear that and goes like:
– “1 working day? Why do you need the whole working day to translate just 200 words?! I can do it myself in 1 hour….”
What the customer does not understand is that translators are not sitting and waiting the whole day until somebody calls with 200 words translation. They are working on other translations, and cannot just abandon them the get the new document done…
So while it will indeed, take a professional translator an hour or so to translate a short document, translation agency still needs some time to get hands on this customer’s order in the first place.
Myth #2. “Why don’t you know what your translators can and cannot translate?”
Another customer calls us the other day and wonders if we are able to translate documents related to private equity. I’m dealing with this personally and reply:
-“Yes, we have a solid experience in translating financial documents, we translate for XYZ leading financial institution among others so I’m sure we can help.”
He goes:
– “I specifically want a translator who has experience in private equity translations. Do you have a translator who has translated private equity stuff before?”
My response:
– “We have a rather large team of translators in this language pair and I’m sure that most of them have translated private equity before. I will get in touch with a few of them to double check for you…”
The customer seems totally unsatisfied with my answer and goes:
-“You are the Managing Director, how come you don’t know for sure? Why do you need to check anything?”
Translation agencies in UK do not actually employ translators. Contrary, translators are independent contractors who work for several agencies at the same time.
We have a huge database of them – for every possible subject matter and language combination. Not only I cannot physically remember who translated what in the past, more important I cannot possibly know, what one or another translator may have translated for other agencies he or she works with. That is why to be able to answer this client’s question properly I, in fact have to double check with translators first…
Myth #3. “They said your translation doesn’t match their guidelines”
A customer calls and says he needs translation of documents from English into Russian, and asks for a quote and turnaround time. He provides no other information whatsoever and asks no questions. We provide him with a quote and he places the order. Day later translation is completed and a happy client goes away. 2 days later he comes back furious and says:
-“This translation was needed for Russian Embassy in London, I took it there, they’ve said your translation doesn’t match their guidelines. I’m not happy with you service!”
Client manager goes:
– ” I’m sorry, Sir, we are British translation agency, we translate and certify our translations according to UK guidelines, so that the translations are accepted by UK institutions such as UKBA and NARIC. Had we known that you were planning to take translation into foreign country institution, we would have advised you in advance to check if there’re any specific rules in this country.”
The client goes: – “You provide the service in that language. You should know.”
Well, we as other translation agencies provide translation services in more than 200 languages of the world. Each country has their own rules – what we know for sure is what the rules are valid in the UK. We cannot possibly know what one or another embassy may require. It’s actually up to the client to check…
More to follow next week….
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