Why is translation a “peculiar service”?

.
First of all, we’ll look at why translation is a “peculiar” service or activity. According to Kotler, a renowned marketing expert, a service is “any act or performance that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything.  Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product”. Translation is a “peculiar service” for two reasons.

.
1. It may have “tangible elements" such as, for example, the printed copy of a translated document.  In addition, as translation is a service provided mainly through the Internet, it has “visible” elements, such as the digital version of the translation.  These visible elements make translation service a little more tangible than most services, but on many occasions it never becomes completely tangible, given that the translated document never ends up being printed, but is published digitally instead.
.

2. The transfer of intellectual property rights is implied when translation services are rendered (except in some cases of literary translation).  Intellectual property in translations is a matter to be explored on another occasion, but I mention it here so we can understand that translation is a "peculiar service" with its own special characteristics, and that therefore, quality management of translation has its own complexities.  This doesn’t mean it's an unapproachable task, but that it is necessary to study the nature of translation services in depth before attempting to be successful in efforts to manage translation quality.

Source:

1. Kotler, Philip y Keller, Kevin Lane. Dirección de Marketing. Prentice Hall, 2006.

Are we providing a quality service?

Usually, quality improvement is referred to as an internal objective, but without specifying what one means by quality of service. The fact of speaking about improving quality without defining what it is, how it is perceived by clients and how it can be improved and increased has very limited value. Frequently, this improves the quality of services “in name only”.

Client expectations are the real reference point for evaluating quality of service. In order to satisfy and go beyond client expectations, it is useful to ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Do we make an effort to present a realistic picture of our service to clients? That is, from the client’s point of view, do we really offer what we promise?

2. Do we make it our priority to provide the service correctly from the very beginning? That is, what margin of error do we have? Do we regularly evaluate our service to identify and correct potential defects?

3. Do we communicate well with our clients? That is, do we get in touch with them regularly in order to determine and better understand their needs?

4. Do we surprise the client during the process of providing the service? That is, are we aware that the process of providing the service is our main opportunity to exceed client expectations? Do we take the measures necessary to achieve excellence?

5. Do we understand that problems in the service are opportunities for impressing our clients? That is, do we make the effort to retain our clients after a problem has occurred?

6. Do we constantly evaluate and improve our results in response to client expectations? That is, do we work with results that are more than just adequate?

Upon answering these questions, it can be observed that quality involves aspects that go beyond the linguistic quality of a translation. Linguistic quality is simply a dimension of quality, known as the technical quality of the result of the productive process of a service. That is, it is what is given to the client when the productive process and vendor-client interactions have finished.

Clients can measure this dimension of quality by using the existing quality standards in the industry as a reference. All too often, considerations regarding technical (or linguistic) quality are seen as the most important aspects of quality. However, this is true only in situations in which service vendors are capable of developing excellent technical solutions. Therefore, a strategy based on technical quality is successful only when a service vendor attains a level of technical quality not reached by the competition. Unfortunately, this is increasingly less frequent, as there are many other translators who can provide more or less the same technical quality.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t always be aware of questions related to technical or linguistic quality, or that improvements to it aren’t necessary in quality management, but we have to understand that it is only one of the dimensions of quality. The other dimension of quality is functional quality, which is the way in which vendor-client interactions and the vendor’s own actions are managed. As a result, translation service requires adopting a holistic approach to services marketing to address matters related to quality. Holistic marketing includes external marketing, internal marketing and interactive marketing.

External marketing includes preparing an offer of service, setting the price, and distribution and promotion of the service. Internal marketing refers to work done in order to continually train the service vendor in order to offer the client the highest possible satisfaction in terms of the service. And interactive marketing includes the vendor's abilities in relation to how staff treats clients.

We have to remember that clients judge quality of service not only by its technical or linguistic quality (for example, the accuracy of the translation), but also by its functional quality (for example, the vendor sends reports on the status of the project to keep the client updated).

The concepts of internal and interactive marketing applied to translation industry were presented in the 4th Proz.com Argentina Conference 2009. See http://www.proz.com/conference/115?page=speakers
.
.
Sources:

1. Parasuraman, A., Zeithmal, V.A. y Berry, L.L. A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing. 1985.
2. Grönroos, Christian. Marketing y gestión de servicios. Ediciones Diaz de Santos S.A., 1994.
3. Berry, Leonard y Parasuraman A. Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality. The Free Press, 1991.

Translation: a quality service?

How can you tell whether or not a translation service offers good quality?  These days, excellence in quality is sought after because it represents significant benefits for organizations. With this in mind, many companies, including translation services, have obtained quality standard certifications such as ISO 9001.  
Does this standard guarantee a quality translation? Certainly not.  This is the reason behind the creation of the European Quality Standard for Translation Services, EN 15038, which was specifically elaborated with translation in mind.  While this standard addresses the processes involved in providing the service - which in itself is a large step forward - it focuses on offering guidelines rather than a quality management system for translation services.


In general, it is safe to say that existing quality standards in the industry provide a reference for technical or linguistic quality, but do not guarantee that the client will receive quality service. This is because they do not include functional quality, which is fundamental for overall quality.


While there is an abundance of publications, studies and research in the area of service marketing and quality management, they do not include the unique characteristics of the translation industry.  In addition, there are currently no publications that thoroughly address the topic from the perspective of translation and localization services.  


The results of this preliminary study on the topic were presented in the V Latin American Congress of Translation and Interpreting. These results hopefully will provide a stepping stone for more in-depth research in the future.


Sources:

1. Parasuraman, A., Zeithmal, V.A. y Berry, L.L. A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing. 1985.
2. Grönroos, Christian. Marketing y gestión de servicios. Ediciones Diaz de Santos S.A., 1994.
3. Berry, Leonard y Parasuraman A. Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality. The Free Press, 1991.
3. EN-15038 European Quality Standard for Translation Service Providers, 2006.
.
.