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Imagine the following situation: you  are responsible for hiring the document translation services for corporate documents of the company you work for and, after sending a new project for your translation provider, you receive a final file full of spelling and terminology mistakes.

You choose to make the corrections on your own, but, since the time is short, you need to interrupt your daily activities to focus on the content that needs to be translated as soon as possible.

After all, delivering it after the deadline or with mistakes is out of the question. This could stain your reputation with your work colleagues and even cause serious problems for your company, such as, for example, the risk of fees, need for product recall, delay on materials for fairs and events, among others.

While you review the material, your demands start to pile up – generating the so-called “invisible costs” for your company. That is, what could be simply avoided by hiring a good-quality document translation company, becomes a snowball.

Hard, isn’t it? However, unfortunately, this scenario still happens on companies that do not know how to evaluate and identify a high-quality document  translation provider.

At major companies, for example, the Purchasing Department is often responsible for hiring this kind of service for other departments. However, if the buyer sees translation as a commodity, and not as an extremely strategic service, he/she will be very likely to choose a service provider based solely on price, which usually doesn’t represent the best service or cost X benefit.

If you identified with this scenario and you no longer want to be part of the group of people who suffer because they don’t know how to hire a high-quality document translation, we can help. After all, knowing how to choose a good partner to work with is half the way to success!

Where to start when evaluating a document translation

Searching for a company specialized in document translation requires analyzing different aspects, such as the infrastructure used by the supplier, their know-how with linguistic services, their ability to deliver the service and the technologies involved.

If you want to make a successful choice, always choose agencies that have the qualities we will list below:

Selecting the market’s best document translators: through a contact, screening and selection system, the main agencies rely on a database of native translators with the best linguists on the market, categorized by nationality, language and area of specialization.

The main stages in this hiring system usually involve: selection and résumé analysis of translators; a test to evaluate the professional’s ability in the translation source and target languages; analysis of consistency in following instructions and meeting deadlines; and finally, periodic evaluation to verify performance, consistency and adequacy in relation to the quality standards required by the agency.

Skill with technologies and preparation structure: professional agencies combine more comprehensive versions of translation tools (CAT Tools) with a preparation structure that ensures proper handling of files by analyzing and fixing any problem that could impair translation in software.

This will benefit your company in many ways, ensuring file integrity and leading to time and money savings, as well as gains in terminological consistency provided by facilitated look-up in the glossaries and translation memories saved in such tools – which will help to avoid terminology mistakes.

Correction stage at no additional cost: market-leading translation agencies are equipped to offer a stage of fixing possible mistakes and implementing the client’s preferences after the return of the translated material, at no additional cost. This is a posture adopted only by partners that assure the quality of their services and it reflects a work methodology focused on deeply understanding the specificities of each project at the beginning of the work, thus, assuring a high approval rate with the clients, since the very first delivery.

Backup and storage of the client’s history: companies specialized in document translation use robust servers that, when synchronized with translation tools (CAT Tools), run real-time backups of the work, thus eliminating the risk of losing any information in the event of mishap.

Additionally, after the translation is completed and delivered, the files are stored in a secure environment, facilitating traceability of documents anytime the client needs it.

Dealing with the most varied file types: a good document translation company will have no problem in dealing with files in different formats, because it will undoubtedly have a team of DTP specialists available. Hence, no matter the format of your document (PDF, JPG, PNG, EPS, TIFF, PSD, AI, IDML, CDR, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, HTML, MOV, MP4, WAV, etc.), it can be delivered 100% translated and formatted, with layout faithful to the original file and ready for use, in case you opt for this complementary service.

Have the best professionals at your side

I bet that when we talk about document translation, the first image that comes to your mind is of the translator. However, a good result will depend on a series of factors that only a high-performance translation company will be able to offer!

The first of them is the involvement of the commercial team, dedicated to understanding your scenario and demand, to then propose the ideal solution for your project. Only after this detailed analysis – which involves knowledge about your company, the kind of material to be translated, the intended purpose, and visibility – sales professionals present a commercial proposal diligently prepared to meet your needs.

If the proposal is approved, other professionals that are part of the document translation company come into play. It is the case, for example, of the Project Manager, who plans and prepares the instructions for the contracted service, supported by management tools that allow for tracking and overseeing each stage of the work, up to its delivery.

As you can see, the process entails a great deal of preparation before beginning the translation itself.  After all, professional translation companies understand that delivering quality content is far from being a simple and isolated activity.

But there are also other essential areas within professional translation companies we haven’t mentioned yet: Design & IT (D&IT) and Quality Assurance (QA).

The D&IT department is formed by experts in translation and DTP tools. They are responsible, for example, for running the word count on files when preparing the quote for the client. Additionally, no matter which file format is sent for translation, the Design & IT team returns the material 100% translated and properly formatted, if you opt for this convenience. In other words, the translated project can be delivered with layout faithful to the original file, ready for publication or graphic design.

Quality Assurance professionals in turn are responsible for ensuring a high standard of quality in the final delivery of the projects. To do so, in case the client chooses to hire the review service, after the translation is made by a native linguist, this team will check whether the translated text contains spelling or grammar errors, if area’s specific terminology was properly used, and if all instructions and possible reference materials sent by you were followed.

Together, these teams will be able to offer a Premium translation, with the highest quality level, able to break language and cultural barriers and leverage your business anywhere in the world.

Don’t let a bad choice get in the way of your work and of your company’s businesses! To learn even more about the subject, we recommend the article The main benefits of hiring translation agencies. And, if you have a translation project, talk to an expert on the subject:

About Netwire

Founded in 2000, Netwire is a multilingual solution enterprise that provides translation and localization into any language in the world. Headquartered in Brazil, the company has an office in Argentina and a presence in North America and Europe. With robust infrastructure involving state-of-the-art technologies and the best professionals in the field, Netwire ensures high volume processing at high quality standards with quick turnover, precise control and project management, rigorous selection of native translators in every corner of the world, rapid learning of client preferences, secure and real-time data storage, information traceability and on-time delivery of the final material.

This solid foundation underlying Netwire’s services ensures a superior level of quality over other translation agencies on the market. In the past five years alone, the company processed over 110 million words, delivering an average of 400 projects per month. This experience has increasingly sparked the interest of global brands that make up its client portfolio, positioning Netwire as the right company to handle any translation demand.Request an estimate via website or by telephone and guarantee the best solution for your business!