In the translation industry, it sometimes seems like translators are involved in an ongoing race to the bottom. Unlike accountants, lawyers and other professionals providing a valuable service, translators are often asked to quote lower and lower rates. They do so in an effort to secure as much business as possible with the hope that they will eventually, somehow, be able to make a living off the low, low prices they are forced to charge.
This downward spiral means that translators are less and less likely to earn what they’re worth because the average price that translation clients are willing to pay for translations continues to decrease, affecting every single person in the chain: translation firms that hire both in-house staff and freelance translators, translation agencies who outsource most of their work, the translators themselves, along with the many other businesses that work with and depend on these services.
Even though there are many translators—and I’m inclined to believe that they aren’t true “professionals”—who advertise rates that would barely cover the average translator’s housing budget in North America, these aren’t the translators you want to work with. They may provide less-than-stellar service, “forget” deadlines or not deliver the work at all, maybe even deliver a translation whose quality wouldn’t pass muster with most clients, whether or not you can read the target language.
At Plush Text Communications, not only is it very important that we focus on giving our customers excellent value, but it is also important that we treat the translators we work with with respect and appreciation. In this vein, we rarely (if ever!) hire translators who charge $0.05 per word or less because the quality of the translation will often be poor or sub-standard. It will require significant revisions, if not a total re-translation, so it’s just not worth the waste of time and money. We don’t haggle over prices. Instead, we do our best to assign work based on the quality of the translator’s skills, the overall value they provide to us and to the end client, as well as any added value they may provide, such as extra research, answering questions about specific terminology choices, or assembling glossaries or terminology lists.
Although we may not offer the rock-bottom (and often unsustainable) prices of some translation companies, we do consistently offer TREMENDOUS value, a long-term partnership, and lots of extra goodies that only our current customers know about! So what are you waiting for? Ask us for your translation quote and become a new customer today!
I am glad that at last a translation company explains outloud why decent rates are important and behaves ethically with its translators. Thank you
PS: I really like your website; clear, neat, sleek.
Thank you! That’s we way we like to operate. Too many multinational agencies too often take advantage of translators willing to work for less and less and begin delivering an inferior product. We want to ensure our translators enjoy working with us, are paid what they’re worth, and will hopefully engage in a long-term collaborative partnership with us. Thanks for reading Emmanuelle!