Client Communication is Key to Successful Translation Projects
Proper project planning, scheduling, executing, and delivering are all essential steps for translation projects. However, maintaining effective client communication and collaboration is what will ensure the success of a translation project.
Below are some ways client communication can help language partners produce accurate and effective multilingual content.
Benefits of Client Communication
Clear Scope and Instructions
Provide clear and detailed instructions and scopes for your language partners when you assign a translation task. This will allow your language partner to complete your translation goals according to your expectations.
These scopes and instructions should include, but are not limited to, the channel or platform where the content will be published, tone of voice, style, reference materials, character limits, and the specific locale/region of your audience. By sharing this information in advance, it helps the translation teams create the multilingual content in an accurate and effective way.
Q&A with Language Teams
Answering queries from the language teams allows everyone to get on the same page regarding expectations and requirements. We encourage clients to be available to the language teams for questions and clarifications of certain terms or content to achieve the perfect translation.
Meet with the Reviewer
If the client has a reviewer for a particular language that they request, we always recommend scheduling a call with the reviewer and the translation teams to discuss and finalize on linguistic related topics such as style, tone of voice, guidelines, etc. This will help to ensure everyone is on the same page with the final output of the translation.
Provide Detailed Feedback
Provide detailed examples and comments. When you are sending the translations to your reviewers, it is important to have them provide as much detail in their comments as possible. For example, if they feel that the translation is too literal, or some translations are wrong, it would be important for the reviewer to provide examples of the mistakes and errors and suggested fixes. This way, the team can analyze and implement accordingly and avoid making the same mistakes again for future projects.
Project Status Updates
Apart from the above, the project managers will also be responsible for keeping the client informed of the project status, any changes or challenges in the project scope, agreed deliverables, and delivery dates so the client can be prepared for any necessary actions.
Summary
In summary, keeping the client communication channels open is not only a requirement for the project manager, but is also a recommended step on the client’s end to help achieve mutual benefits and deliver the translation project successfully and effectively.
