Translation agencies - Pt. 1
I’ll call this “Pt. 1″ since I am sure there will be more.
Every now and then, I get sales calls from translation agencies trying to sell their services. I don’t like sales people, not the people per se but in their profession. As soon as they put on their “sales hat”, they are all the same and it doesn’t matter if they sell cars, insurances, electronics or anything else on commission.
Most phone calls start with them asking me about our process, and I explain to them how we handle translation here. It must be a substantial part of sales training, to never accept “No” as an answer. They keep listing their top selling points and how it would benefit us and I keep telling them that we are doing fine with our part in-house, part freelance setup. Everything I say is met with an answer that basically tries to tell me that they can do it better. This can go on forever with the sales person “Ma’m”-ing me and me deconstructing their pro arguments because it simply does not apply to us.
I really like it when they tell me that this could save us so much money by eliminating the in-house translation department. Say what? I am the in-house translation department.
Another favorite is when they try to sell us “solutions”. This is usually some workflow management system which in all honesty sounds good, but has an exorbitant price that sometimes exceeds what we spend on translations per year in total for all languages.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, agencies mass mail several different people in-house and then I get the same sales mail 10 times because everyone forwards them to me.
At times, they were so annoying that I told them to not ever call me again. Sometimes I am trying to explain to them that they really really really are wasting their time. And if all else fails, I just let them send their expensive, fancy, glossy brochures and then I dodge their follow-up calls.
Now, right before the ATA Conference, we had another good one. Someone from an agency sent an email to my boss (who is a tech writer and not a translator), which he forwarded. The first email ended with the words:
Most of our clients are looking for ways to reduce the overall cost of translation while streamlining and improving internal processes. XXX is one of the world’s leading providers of translation and localization management solutions. I would appreciate the opportunity to talk about how we may be able to help you. I understand that you are busy, and guarantee that our discussion will not waste your time.
Wow, a guarantee to not waste our time, that sounds…still not interesting. Send a politely declining email, explaining that we have our own department and handle translations and outsourcing internally. Well, not a good enough decline, now he moves on trying to improve our workflow:
[Our solution] would be more focused around technology, rather than translation services. We partner with a number of in-house translation groups, providing technology to facilitate workflow management, translation memory management, etc.
This email we now follow up with the usual “As mentioned in the previous email, our current system meets our requirements” answer. So now he knows that we don’t need translation, and that we don’t need workflow management. Oh, this agency has more to offer, because now we are approached from a different angle:
I was thinking about our exchange and [your] technical documentation. XXX offers a software tool (plug in to MS Word), that allows our clients’ technical writers to actually reduce the amount of English content. It helps reduce content that requires translation decreasing translation costs, accelerating turn times, as well as lowering printing and shipping costs.
Our clients typically see ROI the first time that they use it.
[...] the tool is completely independent of services - concretely meaning that you can use the tool and change nothing with your current processes.
Awesome, my boss actually forwarded it to me with the words “Sounds like magic”. Not sure if there was another reply from our side, it would have been interesting to see what else this person had to offer.
A week later I am in the exhibition hall of the ATA Conference, and I actually saw a booth of this translation agency. Curious as I am, I think that this is a great moment to have a look at these highly praised management tools without giving a sales person the hope of making a sale. I walk up to the person manning the stand - and she has no idea what I am talking about. I try to explain. She looks at me and asks something like “Do you mean Catalyst?” (which they apparently just acquired). Of course I don’t, but I take it as an indicator that this isn’t going anywhere and most certainly is not leading to a demo of the management tools.
Is there a conclusion to this story? Naaa, not really. I am getting ready for the long weekend - and this is a blog, what did you expect?
comments
2 Responses to “Translation agencies - Pt. 1”
Leave a Reply
I love your style! This story is so hilarious. Now, seriously, in the translation industry there are just too many people who are c-l-u-e-l-e-s-s. And it’s no use educating them: they multiply faster.
Thanks! And yes on the clueless - I don’t think any of those people who called me were translators. They were all sales people. It would probably have been OK if they had talked to the marketing department but when I talked to them, it was just funny. One caller told me that they have a great system to reuse or update existing translations and that it will make it much cheaper, especially when I give them repeat business - yup, we also use Trados, but thanks for offering!