The most common complaints about translation services
Within past years modern electronic communication has created
extensive business opportunities for freelance translators. They
are able to reach clients from all over the world and perform
their jobs at their own convenience. It appears to be a dream
profession, but yet so many translators report that it's
challenging to keep their previous clients, and that the number
of clients they served has diminished. One would like to know
why this takes place.
First of all, one need to be aware that nowadays there is a
great competition on the market, and clients are very selective.
So how do I make sure that clients will return to me, not to my
competitor? There are clients who constantly need translation
services, and they actually prefer to use the same translator
for many different projects. They will only cooperate with you
again if they were satisfied with your previous services. It is
also to your advantage to be familiar with complains the clients
have made about translation services in the past. The most
common ones are:
1. The project was not finished on time. 2. The translator
demonstrated poor language skills: grammar, spelling,
punctuation, omitted words, etc. 3. The translator misunderstood
the formation of the translation project. He/she used different
font, style. He/she did not translate the images. He/she did not
include tables, etc. 4. The translator showed poor communication
skills. He/she was not flexible enough. He/she has never
notified when a problem occurred during the translation process.
5. The translator was hard to reach at his/her office. He/she
did not provide adequate mailing address and all the documents
kept returning to the sender. 6. The translator turned out to be
not reliable. He/she assured he/she knew the dialect of the
language but did not demonstrate this skill. He/she advertised
himself/herself as a legal translator but never certified
his/her work. When returning the project he/she did not include
the original seal. He/she never corrected his/her previous
mistakes even though he/she promised to do so. 7. The translator
was not culturally sensitive. He/she presented himself/herself
as a native speaker but did not know all the aspects of the
culture. 8. The translator never returned money. He/she admitted
that the translation was poorly done and promised to recompense
but never did. 9. The translator did not respond well to
constrictive criticism.
In order to stand out from the competition, and have your
previous clients come back to you, one ought to perform self
-evaluation after each translation project. Be critical about
your skills and ask your clients for feedbacks. Even the
negative ones might provide you with another perspectives and
ideas on how to improve your skills and develop your
professional growth. Sometimes constrictive criticism leads to a
positive change. And positive feedbacks guarantee good
promotion, trust among clients, and more projects. Good luck.