Today we have a special guest post from Vic Marcus, Vice President of Business Development at NWI Global, a language translation & interpreting company based in Vancouver, Washington, USA.
You recently learned that the content you produced in English will now need to be translated into 16 languages, including Spanish, Arabic and Simplified Chinese. You also know that your organization requires you to go out for a bid to find the best possible supplier that will meet your quality, cost and turnaround time requirements.
Your supplier database of language service companies is fairly thin and you believe more companies need to participate in the bidding process, so you go on the web to search for more potential suppliers. This is a great way to bolster your competitive bid process, but what if you could eliminate certain suppliers before they can even submit a bid? This will save you a lot of time and ensure you choose the language service company best suited for your project.
Here are the five reasons not to work with a language service company that came up in your Google search results. Eliminate these companies prior to starting your formal bidding process.
- Outdated Content – Blast From The Past
You clicked on a link and it took you back in time. The company’s website was last updated years ago. In today’s market, it’s about customer engagement using various online and social media tools. One of the primary marketing tools a company has is its website. Having an outdated website is a red flag. If the company doesn’t care about its own online content and appearance, why should you trust them to deliver quality content translated into other languages? - No Contact Information – Don’t Contact Us, We May Contact You
You found what seems like a legitimate company and you are interested in having it participate in your bidding process. You’d now like to communicate the bid information to this company. You look everywhere on the navigation menu and can’t find a clear way to contact them. Sure, it could be a poorly designed navigation structure, but it could also be that this company doesn’t want you to contact them by making it really difficult to do so. At a minimum, every company must have a contact page and the contact page should contain the following elements:
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- Company’s Name and Physical Address
- Contact Form or an E-mail Address
- Links to the Company’s Social Media Channels
- Telephone number if there is no physical address listed, does this company really have an office they operate out of? This is something to think about in your search efforts.
- Spelling and Grammatical Errors – Your Smart, My Smart, We all Smart
The company didn’t take the time and effort to proofread and edit the content on their website. If that’s an indication of how they approach their translation projects, I’d head for the hills now.
- We do Everything – Jack of All Trades
This company claims to do it all and do it well. All professional fields have their areas of expertise. You wouldn’t go to a psychiatrist for brain surgery (a physical one, anyway). And it’s very unlikely that a psychiatrist is a brain surgeon and vice versa. It’s also unlikely that a company can do patent translations and community interpreting. There are language service companies that do a lot of things well, but they are few and far between. Finding a speciality shop that can scale with your needs is your best bet.
- We do it Fast & Cheap – Race to Zero
Since you will be going out for a competitive bid, pricing is most certainly a factor in your decision. Keep in mind that not all language service companies deliver the same level of service. If quality is important to you, be prepared to invest in it. There will always be a company out there that can do it for less, but at what cost?
There are many good language service companies out there and a few not so good ones. Keep the above five reasons in mind when putting together your list of bid stakeholders. It will save you a lot of time and make the competition a lot more interesting. Good luck in your search!
Vic Marcus is the Vice President of Business Development at NWI Global, a language services company specializing in B2B and B2G content translation & interpreting. Vic has over 10 years of experience in the language services industry and is continuously involved in educating all stakeholders about the translation & interpretation process.