For a business to be successful, many different aspects must be considered. First, it is important to become known and draw the attention of potential clients, as well as design and carry out an effective business model that creates interest and successfully integrates all of the elements it comprises. Second, we mustn’t forget about the role of the work force, which consists of different types of professionals who pool together their skills and knowledge to better serve the corporative project, from the most basic levels all the way up to corporate management. Third, we must highlight the importance of the technological resources that allow us to work more easily and adapt to the needs and demands of clients to whom we provide our services. However, if there is one thing that is even more important from a qualitative standpoint, it is the positive impression we make on our clients, understood as the achievement of a high degree of satisfaction. In other words, a satisfied client is a client who believes in our business project and who is much more willing to come to us again in the future when they need our services. This is why companies have specific departments that specialize in quality control and monitor client satisfaction. In language service agencies the goal of these departments is to ensure the products delivered (translations and other similar products) comply with a series of preestablished criteria so as to guarantee there are no errors which could undermine the end use of the products. Furthermore, these departments are in charge of communicating with clients to know their degree of satisfaction with their experience from beginning to end, in other words, from the time they get in touch with the company to the time they receive their products, including follow-ups, and assessing whether they would hire the company’s services again or recommend them to a third party.
This is why in the past several years there has been an increasing focus on learning how to measure client satisfaction and on creating criteria to do so. In this regard, regulations have been established and constant changes to workflows have been made in order to better adapt to clients’ expectations, with the aim of creating a successful mutual long-term commitment and optimizing internationalization. However, in spite of all of the work translation professionals do, this profession continues to face several obstacles that continue to make it difficult to completely satisfy clients, and it is the intrusion of fraudulent translators and the stereotypes about what translation really is which lead to erroneous preconceived notions that often prevent clients and agencies from fully understanding each other.
With that said, in this article we want to have a look at clients’ most common complaints, which can help us better understand their point of view and bridge the business gap to allow us to forge long-lasting business relationships based on transparency.
The most common problem is communication. We must keep in mind that a client who hires translation services is putting all of their trust in an agency that will have access to their corporate and business documents. Therefore, conveying trust and professionalism is a key aspect, and this is achieved by being in constant communication with the client. More specifically, many clients would like a more complete language consultant (someone who explains to them if what they need is translation or another language service, who explains the work dynamics, who responds to their questions and comments within a reasonable time period, etc.). Although as translators we know that in our sector there is stiff competition when it comes to deadlines, sectors with many clients have deadlines requiring decisions to be made at breakneck speed. Thus, when giving instructions and answering the questions about the same, ideas must be clear; if not, tasks cannot be carried out correctly.
Moreover, many clients must sadly deal with problems related to quality, such as when they receive translations that have errors in translation, spelling, grammar, style, omission or terminology. The consequences of these errors can be disastrous, since they can prevent the translation from fulfilling its purpose or, even worse, lead to legal responsibilities in official procedures. That’s why translation agencies must put all of their efforts into eradicating these errors by establishing translation quality control measures using the tools at their disposal: qualified professionals who are knowledgeable in their field of expertise, quality assurance computer programs, etc.
Lastly, we come to the thorny issue of deadlines, and the fact is that there is nothing that can foul up an organized plan more severely than not receiving a translation before the established deadline. That is why it is essential to stick to specific deadlines, make human resources aware of the need to meet these deadlines, communicate any possible setbacks as soon as possible and be responsible when accepting a project based on the amount of work we can actually take on.
All in all, knowing clients’ most common complaints can be a unique opportunity to optimize our language services.
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