Here are some pointers which will help you filter through the companies down to a select few before you enquire for quotations.

Examine the Types of Clients

When you engage a translation company, you are not only engaging their translators, you are also tapping on the company’s ability and expertise in a certain subject matter.

You will want to ensure that the translation company uses their marketing translation experts to inject life and hype into the marketing nuances and essence of your marketing brochure, and not a financial translator who uses a columnist tonality.

One of way is to ask the respective company to show you their clientele list and past translation work done for the respective clients.

Understands your Requirements

Most companies are very focused in getting every client that looked them up without fully understanding the job requirements and its purpose.

A company that is patient and engaging will likely also be responsive and efficient throughout the whole process.

They usually have a standard set of questions that helps them understand your needs.

Some common questions include:

• “Which country/market will the translated documents be used in? (Eg. Housewives in Hong Kong; The Taiwan travel industry)”;
• “The type of medium/media in which you will be presenting the translated contents” (Eg. Newspapers, radio advertisement, magazine, or social media such as Instagram and Facebook);
• Any reference documents/materials or glossary? (Eg. Providing the translation company with a copy of your ad, or brochure or a glossary allows the translator to have an idea of how they can/should translate your contents.)
• When do you need the completed documents?

Generally, the translation company will advise you on the number of days it requires to translate your document.

If you have a specific deadline to adhere, do let them know in advance so they can make the best arrangement for you.

Generally, a reputable translation company will provide a vast and common languages translation such as Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Malay, Tamil, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, French, German, Portuguese etc.

Dedicated and Proficient Teams

Having common knowledge is insufficient.

The translation company should also be well in touch with the latest trends in industries and technologies.

Also, there are so many ways to translate a document.

A responsible translation company should be able to advise whether a standard translation service would suffice or a transcreation service (smoother sentences that sounds natural in context and not so literal) is needed.

Ensure the Translation Company can also do Localization

Different countries interpret the same content differently even if they speak and read the same language.

This is why at times localisation service may be needed.

One excellent example is the Chinese language. The Chinese word for “Blog” can be translated as 博客 (bó kè in China), 部落格（bù luò gé）in Taiwan, 网志 （wǎng zhì）in Hong Kong while Singapore and Malaysia use both 部落格（bù luò gé）and 网志 （wǎng zhì）.

Entitled to Free Edits

Ideally, the first translation draft should be as accurate as possible.

Nevertheless, there are some contents that fall short of the client’s expectation and require a bit of tweaking.

Very often, these are due to industry lingos, clients have their own preferred terms or words that happened to sound literal when translated.

Translation is an art that can be very subjective.

Hence, it is the industry norm to provide clients with 1 – 2 rounds of free edits.

Reasonable and Transparent Rates

You very likely have a fixed budget.

Hence, additional charges or bill shocks are not desired.

The translation company should provide reasonable and clear rates and charges with no fine prints.

Translation services are usually charged by the number of words, by pages or by individual job quotations.

Do some math to determine whether charging by word count or by pages is more cost effective for you.

Reliability and Responsiveness

Search and go through reviews on the translation services company and look for red flags.

Regardless they are compliments or complaints, they reflect the reliability and responsibility of the agency.

You will definitely need both pre- and post-sales support.

You will also appreciate a responsive company that doesn’t take an entire day for a reply.

A long-term relationship goes a long way.

Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure Agreement

It is an industry norm for translation agencies to protect their client’s data.

However, it is best to read through the company policies to ensure they have a clause which keeps your documents confidential.