Ask for feedback on every translation you complete.
Save Your Clients’ Preferences
Many direct clients don’t have style guides, and sometimes they’ve never even thought about style. So why not do your clients a big favor and track their preferences: do this by creating a style preference file for each client. If your client sends you a note saying: ‘Even if dates are in English we still prefer to use the European format’ or ‘We don’t refer to our Chief Executive Officer as CEO’, keep an up-to-date record of all this information in your client’s style file.
Be Confident of Your Translation Abilities
One of the main attractions of working with direct clients is the higher charge-out rate, and it’s very important that you don’t undersell yourself to direct clients. In general, direct clients are very low maintenance and the majority of them are a pleasure to work with. When sending a translation quotation to a direct client, keep in mind that if this client is a perfect fit for you, you’re offering them more consistency than they’ve ever received from an agency, more personal service, and just one point of contact instead of dealing with agency staff and a translator (assuming of course that the client is allowed to communicate directly with the translator). For all this excellent customer service it’s important that you charge your client real money. If you don’t, you’ll appear unprofessional.
Don’t Be Shy about Asking for Feedback
Ask for feedback on every translation you complete. You might ask: Please advise if you have any comments or would like to ask any specific questions regarding your translation. If there’s anything I can do better to meet your needs, please let me know’. Another idea is to create a simple online survey that you ask your clients to complete anonymously. We also suggest that you ask every satisfied translation customer if they have any objections to you using their name in your marketing materials and whether they might be willing to provide a testimonial about your translation services.
