Finding the best business translation service in 2024 could make the difference between your company wasting time and money on a doomed international venture and finding global success. As such, we’ve taken a look at five ways you can find the best language services company to meet your needs.
How do I choose a good translation company? Follow these five methods and you should be able to find a language services provider that will deliver accurate, timely services that are perfectly suited to your business sector, thus giving you the best possible chance of international success in 2024.
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1. Seek out a specialist translation agency
Who needs translation services? Anyone who is planning to do business in a country where they don’t speak the language fluently. However, finding the best translation service is about more than language. Yes, you need a translator who is fluent in the language pairing you need, but that’s not all. It’s also important to seek out a company that specializes in your particular business sector.
Are you a pharmaceutical company? Then find a medically focused language service provider. Is local marketing your priority? Then track down a company that specializes in marketing, including localization and transcreation. By matching the agency to your specific needs in this way, you can ensure that you have specialist skills on hand that dovetail perfectly with your business’s terminology.
2. Undertake due diligence on potential translation services
Personal recommendations are always a good starting point when it comes to finding the best language agency, so reach out to those you work with and to your wider LinkedIn network and ask for suggestions.
Make sure you also check potential contenders out thoroughly online as well. Read recent reviews, check their ratings with the Better Business Bureau, and use their own websites to assess their knowledge and expertise (such as through their case studies and blog posts).
The level of due diligence that you undertake is key to tracking down the perfect company to meet your needs, so don’t be tempted to rush or cut corners!
It’s worth noting here that finding the best language service isn’t just about sourcing the right company, although that’s a key part of it, and you can check this out for more on finding the best translation service for 2024. It’s also about knowing how to work with that company in order to ensure you get the highest possible quality translations.
3. Look out for localization and interpretation services
Language service providers (LSPs) come in all shapes and sizes. As such, when you’re looking for the best service for 2024, look beyond language. Seek out an LSP that also provides localization and interpretation services, so that you can have everything you potentially need in one convenient company. From multilingual content writing to the provision of customer services the more your LSP offers, the more likely it is to meet all of your future needs, no matter how your marketing strategy unfolds.
Doing so enables you to be flexible and responsive in terms of your service provision. Do you need to suddenly branch out into a new market or pivot your services in a new direction? Having a comprehensive language agency on hand that is already familiar with your business can save both time and energy when it matters. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly highlighted how important it is to be able to move fast in the business world, so make sure you have the best, most comprehensive agency on board in order that you can do so.
4. Opt for an established translation company
What is the best online translation service? It’s one that has been at the forefront of its field for years. By opting for a long-established agency, you’re buying a service that has been trusted for years by clients around the world to successfully meet their language-based needs. Otherwise, the company would be unlikely to have lasted so long!
Of course, using an established company doesn’t cut out the need to do thorough due diligence when you’re looking at different options, but it is a good indication that the agency in question is worth following up with.
5. Look beyond the translation service
Our final way to find the best service in 2024 is to look beyond just the linguistic element of the business. Seek out companies that make customer service a priority, as well as the quality of the language services that they provide. The best agency will provide detailed, timely responses to your emails, follow up immediately on any issues and ensure that at every stage of the transaction you know what the work entails, what the latest progress is, and what it is costing.
Only by having all of these factors firmly in place can you relax enough about your language-related tasks to focus on your core business. If you’re having to chase up emails that haven’t been responded to or deal with a vague translation quote, you will inevitably be distracted from other tasks that you could be completing. And that’s not the way to run an efficient enterprise!
So, there you have five ways to ensure that your linguistic needs are met by the best possible language service in 2024. We’ll also leave you with one final tip for free – avoid machine translation (MT)!
The MT industry is huge. Grand View Research projects that the global market size will reach US$983.3 million by 2024, with a 14.6% CAGR during the forecast period. However, professional human translators still have the edge over machines when it comes to providing professional translation services.
MT might be tempting due to its cost (or lack thereof) and the near-instant results that you can achieve, but that is usually at the expense of quality. If your budget dictates that you need to give it a try, why not at least opt for a blended model, where you use MT initially and then use a translation company to correct the resulting document? You can still save time and money, but without forfeiting the accuracy of your documents in the process.
