Choosing a translation agency can be tricky, particularly if you’re not multilingual yourself. How can you be sure you’re entrusting your content with the right people? In this brief blogpost, our project manager Laura Germaney outlines her top three ‘green flags’:
1. You can put a face to a name
It’s great when you know exactly who you’re talking to and can have an open, personal discussion about your requirements. At First Edition Translations, you can, for example, explore our team page and discover each of our staff members’ profiles.
Smaller companies offer that personal touch that you’re unlikely to find from huge corporations, where you may be passed from one department to another. What’s more, global players often need to work to a uniform approach. SMEs, in contrast, are flexible to adapt to your own preferences and processes. They also have shorter chains of command, often making it quicker to kick-start an effective collaboration.
At First Edition, for example, we as project managers each deal with specific customers in certain industries, acting as their dedicated points of contact for all things translation. This enables us to gain an in-depth insight into your own workflows and learn to speak your industry jargon. In such ways, SMEs offer greater customer centricity.
So when a pharmaceutical manufacturer tells us: “Please translate this SPC into CY and consult the LoOI.”
I know straight off the bat that we should translate a Summary of Product Characteristics into Cypriot Greek and refer to an official document called a list of outstanding issues. No need for any back-and-forth: We can set straight to work.
In short, bigger is not necessarily better.
2. Industry standards and corporate memberships
In the translation industry, there are a number of standards that testify a language service provider (LSP) takes it work seriously.
First Edition is certified to the following industry codes:
- ISO 17100:2015 for translation services
- ISO 9001 for quality management
- ISO 14001 for environmental management
Compliance with such codes is particularly useful if your own company needs to respect ISO standards throughout your supply chain.
Moving on to corporate memberships, it’s always a good sign if your translation provider adheres to industry organisations. Two key bodies in the UK are the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) and the Association of Translation Companies (ATC). Through our affiliation with these organisations, we keep our finger on the pulse, learn ways to optimise our service provision, and build bridges with outstanding translators
You can also look to see – e.g. on their company website or on LinkedIn – if the translation provider attends industry events. Over recent years, our team members have attended:
- ITI conference in Edinburgh
- The international publishing trade fair Frankfurter Buchmesse, where we exhibited for the first time in 2024
- SlatorCon conference on localisation technology and trends in Zurich
- Numerous Meet Central gatherings for language industry stakeholders
- Events hosted by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and the ATC in London
- Various European Language Industry Association (ELIA) conferences, including in Barcelona, Prague, Malta, Bucharest, Rome, Riga and Berlin.
RAPS Euro Convergence
When a company invests in their team’s skillset like this, it shows their dedication to quality.
3. Choose a Translation Agency with a long-standing reputation
Let’s say you work for a publishing house. It’s safe to say you wouldn’t let the summer intern have the final sign-off on a novel. The stakes are too high, the intern too inexperienced.
Trusting someone with your content for translation shouldn’t be any different. It’s best to check if the translation agency brings some experience to the table. This is particularly relevant if your text concerns specialist subject matter – like essays on the Chinese art of war (a real use case of ours!).
First Edition Translations has been going since 1981, with some of our clients having worked with us for decades. Such a wealth of experience is testament to high quality standards and is of undisputable advantage to customers old and new.
Here, too, a visit to the agency’s website offers valuable insight. For confidentiality reasons, you likely won’t see an exhaustive list of customers, but there may well be some testimonials or case studies to explore. An established translation firm with a happy client base should certainly have something to shout about.
It can be challenging to know which language service provider is the right one for you, but the above-outlined aspects should help you separate the wheat from the chaff. If you’d like a no-obligation quote from First Edition Translations, we’re more than happy to discuss your requirements.