Our quality approach, prices and our turnaround times

Translators who are selected and evaluated for each project

As a translation service provider, our aim is to be able to meet all of our customers’ needs, regardless of the area of expertise and language combinations involved. In order to ensure this versatility, we rely on a network of more than 1000 translators who only translate into their native language and who are internally assessed for each language and area of expertise. This rigorous approach has earned us ISO 9001 quality certification since 2006 for our translation agency in Lyon.

A well-established process

As part of our quality approach, our project process includes the following steps:

1. The customer sends a request using the quote request form or by email, attaching the documents for translation. For significant volumes, we create a customer account on our FTP server to receive the files.
2. A sales representative or project manager confirms receipt of the request. The documents are analysed in order to determine the number of words to translate and any desktop publishing requirements.
3. On the basis of this analysis, the sales representative or project manager sends a quote showing the cost of the service and turnaround time required.
4. The customer approves the quote by email and the sales representative or project manager confirms receipt and acceptance of the project.
5. The translation is carried out by a translator who is a native speaker of the target language and who specialises in the area of expertise in question. The translation is then proofread to ensure its quality and then undergoes a final quality control including verification of the formatting.
6. The translation is delivered and archived on our server for 5 years, unless our client requests otherwise.

Our translation turnaround times

Our turnaround times are defined according to a number of factors:

• availability of translators for the required language combination and field;
• the time required to prepare the documents (for example if PDF files have to be converted into editable documents for translation)
• the time required for translation.
• the time required for proofreading.
• the time required for final formatting

For significant volumes, and to reduce turnaround times; we can have several translators work on the translation at the same time. We can also offer rapid translations if, for example, the customer requires the meaning of a foreign-language document, which is not intended for publication or sharing.

Our pricing

Our translation pricing system is based on the number of words contained in the documents to be translated (source documents). However, so that our customers do not pay the full rate for sections that are repeated within documents to be translated, we use specialised translation software (CAT) to detect repetitions in files. This enables us to reduce the cost of translations, offer swifter turnaround times and ensure translation consistency, by reusing the same words or sentence fragments throughout the translation. So that our regular customers enjoy even greater benefits, we can also create translation memories which are used as a reference for each new order.

The vast majority of our translations are invoiced per source word, i.e. the number of words in the files or documents to be translated. The rate per source word depends on the language combination and field involved. It can vary from €0.10 to €0.25 per word depending on the language combination, the specialist translation field and the level of language required. The overall cost of a translation will vary according to a number of other factors, including:

• the time required to prepare the files and documents before and after translation, if necessary;
• the number of repetitions within the document;
• the existence of a translation memory for the customer in the relevant languages.

urgent requests may incur additional costs.