- We respect our team’s work (meaning staff, freelancers and partners). Both translation and interpretation are intellectual types of activity involving several people (translator, proofreader, manager…) which definitely can’t be cheap. Sure, there are interesting events and projects we’re participating in at lower rates or even for free. But working for peanuts is not for us :)
- We guarantee the high quality of our services. We collaborate with professionals only checked by us through time and special procedures. In case of negative feedback we always run a detailed analysis and solve the issue to make all parties of cooperation satisfied. We don’t abandon our clients and provide them with all required aftersales support. We’re aimed at long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation rather than careless making money out of accidental jobs. That’s why our rates are higher compared to those of freelancers (pretending to be agencies) or companies dumping in order to survive or win a market share. How to get the idea who is on the other side? Always do research about a company’s history, look through examples of completed projects and customer reviews.
- We value our reputation, that’s why we don’t take on projects with extremely low budgets. We do honestly tell it to our customers. Or suggest alternatives while sharing possible risks with the client (e. g. by highlighting the point that translation accomplished by a non-native speaker can lack stylistic smoothness).
A recent story. At the beginning of the year, one of our customers (a big plant based in Tomsk) asked us to analyze and evaluate the translation of a product catalogue from Russian into English. We offered our best rates, but the client preferred another contractor “at half price”. A few weeks ago the customer came back to us with the same catalogue.
“Oh? Hasn’t it been translated yet?”
“Well yes, but even non-natives told us it was a total crap. The catalogue has to be translated once again.”
Good to hear that, we thought. The customer is finally ready, we’ll work together now! So we offered our rates again. After some time we decided to check the status.
“Ah, the translation! Yes, sure. We’ve had it done already. The service offered by you was too expensive, we paid half the price for translation again”.
“So, is it OK now?”
“No idea. DTP is now in progress, the catalogue will be printed after that. Once the job is done, we will present it to our chief. It’s up to him to decide whether the translation is good or not.”
Game over. Does a cheapskate pay thrice? :)
