Language services are an essential resource for any business that wants to offer its commercial activities at an international level. Localizing the content of a product or service to the target audience helps to create a better overall impression, thus resulting in greater trust, further dissemination of said business and its activities, and a higher success rate. For this reason, it is important for companies to carefully select their translation providers, since low-quality services may have a negative impact on corporate interests and lead to a number of regressions that will cause all efforts to be in vain. This may occur when a company chooses a supplier for financial reasons, in other words, because they do not want to increase their expenditure, or because they have to stick to a limited budget, or because they do not check whether the supplier has the right experience for their specific needs. In the current context, strong competition exists between translation providers and it is determined by set price ranges that are more or less competitive. Moreover, there is evidence of existing fraudulent companies, which charge their fees without providing the agreed services or procure such services without offering proper quality. Therefore, this seems to have created the belief that getting a quality translation is associated with paying a disproportionate amount of money. Nevertheless, it is in fact possible to find a balance between accessing the services of top professionals with higher rates and respecting the specific budget of each interested company. In today’s article we talk about a series of tips that companies in need of language services can take into account if they want to have a positive impact on final pricing and, likewise, improve the chances of obtaining a localized product of the highest quality.
First of all, as mentioned above, it is essential to choose language professionals based on suitable criteria. To do this, we must first know that not all linguistic needs and language combinations have the same rates, for example, English to Spanish translations (a common combination) are much cheaper than Hindi to Belarusian translations, due to a matter of supply. This also applies to translations into specific variants of a language, such as Canadian French, Swiss German or Spanish from a specific Latin American country. Therefore, when we are offered a suspiciously low price for very specific needs, the company is likely reducing costs in some other aspect, so it is better to invest in a good translation or, at least, in subsequent revision processes. In this vein, we must also consider the areas of expertise, since technical translations for a particular industry or institution are inevitably more expensive as they are handled by specifically qualified professionals. This should be a wake-up call for companies, since they must know whether the materials they want to localize belong to a technical field or not. If they do not correspond to a technical field, the price will be lower and hiring specialized translators will not be necessary, so there will be more freedom when selecting candidates.
Another important aspect with a direct impact on price fixing is time. Many agencies and self-employed professionals charge an urgency surcharge when the deadline proposed by the client conflicts with the temporal organization of human resources. Alternatively, the price may increase if more than one translator has to be included in the workflow in order to complete the translation stage on time. For this reason, it is important that companies detect in a timely manner when they are going to need the translation of the material and send it to the language service provider as far in advance as possible, or not set a shorter deadline than what they actually have.
Furthermore, there is a whole section on the fees and, therefore, the total investment in each translation project. Of course, it’s not about paying the highest price or relying on the lowest price. In the translation market, the “fee” parameter must be included in combination with other parameters, such as the review of these suppliers (e.g., based on the experiences of acquaintances), the level of specialization that the material requires and, of course, by how much we want to reduce the margin of error. Agencies with more positive reviews should be one of our main objectives, since their clients trust that their investment is on target and their needs are met. Here it is a good idea to ask agencies or self-employed professionals about their quality control procedures, communication with clients and incident management, since in these cases it is easy to see which candidates are best qualified, especially with a view to becoming a long-term partner. Here it is also worth considering whether it is better to choose a translation agency or a self-employed professional. In our article Working in-house or freelance, we further explore this issue from the translator’s point of view, but it is important to remember that although both options are perfectly valid, each one has a series of advantages for specific cases. In the case of agencies, they are a better option when it comes to managing projects with a high volume of words or with a view to delivering similar projects in the future. Furthermore, they have a much easier time finding professionals in various combinations for projects that need to be localized in different languages.
In short, quality translation does not always have to entail a high cost; we can better understand the type of material we send as well as our needs in order to minimize the expenses derived from additional work or increases due to special situations.
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