Translation Quality: The One Thing That Matters The Most

What matters the most to you as a translation buyer? That you  get your quote quickly and know we start processing your documents right away? The speed of our responses? Communication in general?

To some, the cost is the most important thing. To others, it is all the additional services they can get from us, like desktop publishing.

Let me tell you a secret. No matter how well we run our business, no matter how much attention we pay to customer service, what matters the most is whom we hire to do the actual translation.

As you know, we cannot have native speakers of 130+ languages at the office translating for us. Instead, we have spent years growing a network of freelance translators who live all over the world. Yes, we actually need them to live in the country where their language is spoken. And this is where the rubber hits the road.

Operating on such long distance basis, it is pretty hard to uncover the gems in an industry where everybody who is at least partially bilingual wants to translate. It takes time to find, qualify and recruit people if you cannot have them come by your office to introduce themselves. It is time consuming and expensive to verify references and test people. And, it is cumbersome, to say the least, to monitor quality of their performance throughout their lifetime with the company.

Altogether, this process is so hard and sometimes so ineffective that most of our peers do not bother with it at all. Jobs are offered and awarded on job sites where hiring resembles speed dating. If the translator has a good looking profile, they get the job.

To us, quality translators are the foundation of the business. Sure, there will be a rotten apple or two in every bucket. But we find them and separate them out quickly. Our reputation, your satisfaction and our future stand or fall with the team we put together. Our team consists of the best of the best. And to us, that is the one thing that matters the most in what we do.