Serving and Growing Through Fair Trade

Last Tuesday, we outlined our first Fair Trade Principle, “Create Opportunities for Economically- and Socially-Marginalized Producers.” This time around, we want to focus on another principle that features TLC’s commitment to fair trade business.

Fair Trade Principle #2: Develop Transparent and Accountable Relationships

Our second principle specifically represents two of the company’s core values—“Provide Compelling Service” and “Pursue Growth and Learning.”

At TLC, we love trends. In fact, one of our goals for this blog is to identify trends and write about them so that you—the clients, linguists, prospective clients/linguists and language enthusiasts—might be able to learn more about the language service provider industry.

Some of the current trends in the industry have left us troubled, though. For example, when asking new clients and linguists why they have not found an LSP that works, we often hear stories where an LSP left a client feeling devalued because it delivered mediocre translations and impersonal customer service. And linguists often report lack of interaction with staff and late payment or even no payment at all.

As you can see from our monthly linguist spotlight, TLC does not let its network fall through the cracks because, honestly, that does not embody the “compelling service” to which we are committed.

And these words do not represent empty promises. In the past year, TLC has received dozens of glimmering linguist reviews. Don’t believe us? Check out our reviews on the Proz rating system—Blue Board!

We pride ourselves on competitive, timely and accurate payment for our linguists and we are always willing to address payment questions. Similarly, we provide affordable services for our clients and understand the mutual benefit that comes from sharing and saving resources.

What’s more, if you feel that we aren’t providing compelling service, we ask you to let us know. We want to improve transparency, and that comes through accountability.

Research from Common Sense Advisory has shown that if a client is not happy with its first LSP experience, it is likely to halt services altogether. TLC can proudly say it has never lost a client on those grounds.

TLC strives to affirm its clients’ and linguists’ concerns with attentive ears.  Like any human being, our clients and linguists deserve services that dignify and humanize.

In closing, our in-house staff are proud of their status as pet parents. We were chatting the other day over lunch about the fact that, contrary to popular belief, dogs do not feel shame. But, because dogs have such a strong sense of smell, they can sense the chemical reactions that accompany emotional changes in their humans, which often causes them to “look” ashamed when their humans scold them.

Basically, dogs are so in tune with their surroundings that they can smell emotions.

We want our relationships with clients and linguists to be that good—where we can be in-tune with your needs and address them as they develop.

Thankfully, we are able to use more means of communication than our furry friends, and we are happy to use those to form honest relationships featuring a client base that keeps us accountable to our values.