I happened upon a New York Times blog post listing the 100 things restaurant staffers should never do — part one and two — and thought the idea good enough to steal (somehow, “no stealing” wasn’t high on our list). Despite the title, many of the don’ts apply more to agencies and their staff. Some to individual translators. And some to any service related job.
- Never forget to thank the client for requesting a quote (even if you don’t get the assignment).
- Never assume a new client has used translation services before, or the converse. Some customers are new to the experience, and some are savvier than you’d imagine.
- Never leave a request for information without a response. If you were on vacation/your computer crashed/you’re thinking of a career change, respond to all inquiries no matter how late. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I hope everything worked out alright,” confirms your reputation as a professional.
- Never try to impress a client by using industry jargon or acronyms. TRADOS often means little to those in the outside world. In emails and conversations, always use the full explanation of a term the first time it is mentioned.
- Never tell a client, “That turnaround time is not possible.” Instead try, “Here’s what I can do in that time,” or offer to start delivering parts of the project within the deadline. Chances are good that your client’s deadline isn’t wholly within their control. Instead of relaying to their manager that you said the deadline isn’t possible, they will pick up the phone and call another provider.
- On the other hand, never promise a deadline you know you can’t meet. You wouldn’t want a plumber promising to fix your only toilet within a few hours knowing he can’t do it until three days later.
- If a deadline seems tight, do not forget to inquire why it is so. If your client needs to quickly review a document for content, you may be able to deliver a translation “For Informational Purposes Only” by their deadline, and follow up with an edited version shortly after.
- Never respond to a request for services with an emphasis on how busy you already are with other assignments. You might succeed in showing how in demand you are, but you will likely make them think twice about calling again. Thank the caller for their consideration and drop them a note when your workload lightens up.
- Never hesitate to be truthful when necessary. “You may need to use another vendor for that assignment,” shows sincere concern for your client’s project and will encourage them to contact you again. This applies to individual translators — who are more accustomed to the practice of referring colleagues — and to agencies too. Offer a lead if you are able.
- Never let your client hear you denigrate other translators or agencies. Although it is important to get today’s assignment, it is vital to leave a positive impression if you want the client to recommend your services to others.
- Never miss the chance to show respect for your client’s knowledge of their industry. Focusing primarily on your knowledge of translation may indirectly belittle their input.
- Never assume you already know everything you need to know about your language pair(s) or specialty(ies). Translation is one of those professions where you can continue to learn and grow if you remain open-minded.
- Never make excuses for your rate; you are offering a professional service. Do the homework to make sure your rates are within industry standards.
- Never increase your rate based solely on your perception of the client’s wealth or budget. Their budget is subject to change from month to month, and you might unwittingly price yourself out of a long-term relationship.
- Don’t be too rigid about turnaround times or pricing. After an initial quote, there are often ways to negotiate your services to save the client money. Ask the client to prioritize price, schedule, and quality, and offer to work around those priorities.
- Never offer a firm quote without looking at the WHOLE source text.
- Never forget to ask a client for a style preference or style sheet on especially long or ongoing assignments. It is your job to know that these exist.
- Never wait to look at the source text. Examine it as soon as possible even if you are in the middle of another assignment. Two hours before the deadline is too late to ask for a more legible copy.
- Never assume your client has thoroughly examined the source text. You may discover text already in the target language, which is good news; or you may discover text in a third language, which is not.
- Never contact the client the first time you come across a discrepancy in the source file. The answer you seek may lie somewhere later on in the file.
- Never barrage your client with petty questions, like “Which do you prefer, “AM” or “A.M.”? Have your own default in-house style guide. If you want to check the client’s preference for small stylistic issues, send a note with the finished translation leaving the client the option of not responding. For example, “I used ‘AM’ in the translation. Let me know if you’d like me to change it.” Although you may be finished with the project, it’s probable that your client is not and does not have time to discuss such matters.
- Never let the client intimidate you into changing a translation you know is correct. Offer to consult a colleague regarding the proposed changes.
- As a translator, never charge for reviewing your own translation. It’s a given. As an agency, be clear about what your price includes in terms of editing, proofreading and other QC procedures.
- Never forget to ask the client to confirm receipt of the delivered translation.
- Never forget that human translation is an organic product. Be open to reviewing completed translations, be willing to admit mistakes, and be prepared to defend yourself with solid resources beyond, “I’ve been doing this a long time.” You may have been doing it wrong for a long time.
28 responses so far ↓
1 Gary Muddyman // Nov 13, 2009 at 4:53 am
Nice list; very well put together. Thanks.
2 Sol // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:03 am
Excellent advice! thank you very much! I noticed how I have erred in the past… but as much as I love to translate, I sometimes feel contempt for my clients. Especially when they ask for a translation, then change it and ask me to review their awful messes.
3 Guillermo Matías // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:18 am
Stopped reading at “Never tell a client, “That turnaround time is not possible”, ’cause that is the biggest piece of s**t I’ve read in a long time —and I read a significant amount of BS everyday, my friend.
4 Jenn Mercer // Nov 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
Great list. A lot of these emphasize good customer service, which is often simply respect for the customer. I think my favorite though is the last line of the last step. It is so true.
5 Glenn // Nov 13, 2009 at 9:51 am
Thanks for the comments, all!
Guillermo, sorry, I stopped reading your comment at “Stopped reading.” Joking. I wish you had just read as far as the very next item, where I qualify this. But thank you for checking out the post and reading as far as you did!
Glenn
6 Miiram // Nov 13, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Someone should finally come up with a list for clients rather than for us.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but none of the points in the list were new to me in any way. They have always been part of how I do business.
It’s time the clients were educated rather than the translators.
I am sick and tired of getting requests for “urgent” texts to be done “as soon as possible” for “competitive prices”. We are doing high-profile work, but while respect and good customer service are expected of us, the majority of clients don’t even know the difference between an interpreter and a translator, let alone show any respect for the work we do or any understanding of what translating entails.
7 Glenn // Nov 13, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Miiram,
Excellent point. I don’t know if anyone has come up with a list for clients. There have certainly been many attempts at client education, by bloggers and others. One of my attempts can be found here.
However, setting down ground rules before dealing with someone assumes you are in control. And because translators compete for clients, not the other way around (in general — the soup nazi is one example of “the customer is always right” turned on its ear; I’m sure there are examples from our industry), we do not demand behavioral changes from them. We can set our rates, offer a turnaround time, guarantee a level of quality and see if that offer is competitive.
Getting respect for what we do is another story (ask a teacher); it seems to happen one by one.
Thanks so much for reading!
8 Eve // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Great list. I disagree with the idea that everyone does these things already - as both a freelancer myself and someone who hires other freelancers, I can tell you that 90% of more of people do NOT follow this list most of the time. Great list - always timely reminders!
9 Christoph Rupprecht // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:20 pm
As Miiram said, most of these rules are good standard practice.
There’s another point I would like to add: never feel bad about getting no response from a potential client. Our business is very complex, and not getting a job doesn’t say anything about one’s worth as a translator. More importantly, these bad feelings stand in the way of the eternal optimism needed for business. But especially for new translators looking for work it can be a hard lesson to learn.
Thanks for taking the time to write this list!
10 Peter Garner // Nov 14, 2009 at 11:45 am
Good list. I would think that most good translators have already learned by trial and error to follow the majority of these suggestions, but even so, there are a few items that I sometimes forget. Thanks for the reminder.
Re Miiram’s comments about a list for clients: If I were ever to develop a website for my business, I would consider including a “friendly suggestions” page for prospective clients that would include ways to make transactions go more smoothly. That said, I have found that with a little patience, it is possible to “train” long-standing clients so that they understand your requirements. Once they trust you to deliver high-quality work on time, they feel more comfortable in giving you more specific deadlines. This trust goes both ways: you have to be able to trust that when they say a job is “rush” it really is urgent. And when you reach this point, price becomes secondary, since most clients won’t quibble about a few ¢/word when they know they can count on you when the proverbial sh*t hits the fan.
11 Glenn // Nov 14, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Thanks for the comments, all.
@Eve: I agree. However, this list may not make a clear enough distinction between the client-agency relationship and the agency-freelancer. I’ve mostly been in the agency role and find, as a rule, we tend to have a more formal relationship with our clients than freelancers have with agencies. Freelancers often let their hair down with project managers at agencies, which is good and bad.
@Christophe: excellent point. We can’t take rejection personally. There are a lot of factors that go into decision making. Like actors, there’s a lot of rejection. But when we get the part, we have to make sure to give it our all.
@Peter: A “friendly sugguestions” page is an excellent idea. At times, I think having a storefront where potential clients could see you work and what you put into it — like a cobbler or breadmaker — would help garner respect. Because when I tell people I’m in translation, they either ask, “don’t computers do it all now.” Or they say, “Yeah, I guess someone has to do it,” which I think would be my precise reaction to someone who told me they change the mothball cakes in urinals!
And I agree with you about the possibility of training clients with whom you have a longstanding relationship. They often come to appreciate the value of good work.
12 Leah Aharoni // Nov 16, 2009 at 5:01 am
Thank you for this very useful list.
Many translators complain that our industry is not perceived as a “profession.” If we’d like to change that, we should strive to adopt a set of best practices as one way of differentiating the professionals from the charlatans. With time, the clients will catch on.
13 C. M. Rawal // Nov 19, 2009 at 8:59 am
I find these home remedies very useful. Each and every translator ought to follow these trade secrets to get new translation jobs and also to survive in the business. We do follow most of these points as a matter of routine. However, I take it as a good check-list. And lastly, I don’t see any substance in the suggestion that we should try to teach our clients by giving them a separate list of do’s and don’ts. We should mind our own business. They know their business well and that is why they are in their business. Who knows if many of them must not have already read this list!
14 Janine // Nov 24, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I would like to suggest “never ignore an email from an agency contacting you for the first time.” The project they are contacting you about may be small and you may be busy, but a simple response stating you are unavailable keeps the door open for bigger projects in the future. I’m always surprised at how many translators don’t respond to emails.
15 Martin Cassell // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:04 pm
One guide you can point your clients to is this: https://www.atanet.org/docs/Getting_it_right.pdf
European versions available at http://www.iti.org.uk/indexMainG.html (EN FR DE CZ NL)
16 Antonio // Nov 24, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Brilliant. Thanks for piling all this suggestions together.
17 Technnical translator // Mar 18, 2010 at 4:04 pm
I can not disagree:-)
There are some assignments we sometimes do not want to take so “offer a very high rate for translation you do not want to do”
18 Glenn // Mar 18, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Technical Translator,
Thanks for reading. An interesting approach. I always appreciate when a translator informs me, however, that he stands to make too little money for the time it will take — compared to the other, easier, work he currently has. Rather than just throwing out an arbitrarily high rate, which might make me not come back to him in the future for easy stuff.
19 Roman Mironov // Apr 8, 2010 at 6:45 am
“Never offer a firm quote without looking at the WHOLE source text.”
“Never offer a firm quote without looking at the WHOLE source text.”
Amen to that. You should be also cautious when asked about the availability for proofreading someone else’s translation that is currently underway. I made a point of quoting in such cases only after seeing the ready translation, because you never know what is coming at you. The quality of translation might be substandard, forcing you to either thoroughly edit the translation free-of-charge instead of proofreading it, or refuse the “proofreading” job, which means not being able to follow through on your original commitment.
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21 Sara // Feb 23, 2011 at 1:55 am
Excellent list and a great refresher course even for those veterans who think they are doing these things already.
@Miiriam, beyond sending a copy of “Translation: Getting it Right” with a project proposal, I try to limit “client education,” which is difficult, if not impossible, to do without sounding whiny or pedantic.
We are in a *service* industry, which means it is our job to solve clients’ problems. Our company also works on high-profile corporate communications, marketing, and finance projects and it is indeed very frustrating that the deadlines for the translations always seemed to get squeezed when other project contributors go over schedule.
However, we have accepted this reality and built it into our pricing. Clients get fast, friendly service (i.e., a no-headaches solution to their problem) and we get paid well for the added service of putting out fires with a smile.
Sometimes we just don’t “click” with a client, and we don’t hesitate to let that client go. I don’t think it is a question of “getting respect”. If you behave in a professional manner and communicate openly with your client and things *still* aren’t going well, it could just be that the relationship isn’t a good fit.
22 María Ferreiro // Mar 15, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Great compilation. I utterly agree on every single point.
23 David Rumsey // Mar 16, 2011 at 11:01 pm
This is an excellent list! As both a former project manager AND and freelancer - it’s important to understand that translation is ultimately a TEAM effort that requires, honesty, flexibility and respect.
24 Mykhailo // Mar 19, 2011 at 4:51 am
Great list, thanks! It’s worth translating and sharing with the author’s permission
25 Norwaybill // May 6, 2011 at 5:42 am
Hi Glenn!
Nice list, and quite helpful even for those of us a bit long in the tooth!!
I was especially impressed, though, by your gracious response to Guillermo Matías, whose rudeness was only matched by his extreme bad taste in posting in that way! You obviously follow the spirit of these suggestions yourself. Good luck to you! I will be a regular reader of your blog after today!
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27 Glenn // May 17, 2011 at 10:33 am
Norwaybill,
Thanks for your kind words. And for becoming a regular reader. I wish I were a regular poster! Life seems to be getting in the way of blogging these days but I am going to make a renewed effort.
Glenn
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