When seeking to employ a reliable multimedia localization service provider, several factors must be taken into consideration before signing the dotted line for hire.
Finding a reliable service provider that can not only be afforded within your budget but also provides the necessary services required for your project can be difficult. As such, it will help to have an understanding of what to search for to ensure a reliable and suitable fit.
Below are the top tips for finding a reliable and suitable multimedia localization service provider for you!
Ensure That They Localize, Not Just Translate
Before hiring a multimedia localization service provider, it’s important to do your due diligence as a paying client to ensure reliability and quality on behalf of the service provider.
While there are certainly reliable service providers out there, some may only provide translation without localization. If you fail to pay attention to the fine print of the company’s service offerings, you may end up hiring the wrong company for the job.
In order for localized translation to be successful, the agency providing its services needs to have a keen understanding of your target audience and demographic. A top-tier service provider employs translators from local regions so that you can receive the most accurate, culturally acceptable, and appropriate translation possible.
What Services Do You Need vs. What Services Do They Offer?
While there are several top-tier multimedia localization service providers out there, some offer more than others, while some opt to focus on one or two specific sets of skills.
Depending on the needs of your business will largely determine what service provider is the most reliable choice for you.
As you may already be intimately familiar with, a multimedia localization process can encompass several tedious steps before finalizing the finished product. If the project you’re looking to complete requires all or most of these tedious steps, it’s imperative that you ensure that the service provider you’re dealing with can provide you with all that is required of the project.
The last thing you want is to be dealing with several service providers at once. Instead, to avoid the headache and minimize the chaos amidst the localization process, consider hiring a company that is a full-service, comprehensive provider.
Meet the Team
Working with a reliable multimedia localization service provider should be an intimate process, for they will be the voice behind your message, ensuring proper translation, localization, and avoiding misappropriation of a given culture, for example.
As such, it’s imperative to meet those who you’ll be working with not only to ensure that it’s the right fit for you but to have the opportunity to ask the necessary questions for vetting purposes.
What qualifications do they boast? Are they reliable communicators? Do they have translators in regions that I require? What’s their average turnaround time on a given project? What is their assurance, review, and editing process like? Do they even have one?
All of these questions and more are questions that you should be asking prior to signing the dotted line.
Vet for Quality, Not Price
While some service providers offer great services at a discounted rate in comparison to other service providers, it’s not the best strategy to simply opt for the cheaper service provider.
As you can imagine, not all company’s are created equal, nor are their payments structures or service offerings. As such, it’s important to vet for quality, not price alone. It may, in fact, be less costly in the long run to pay a premium in the beginning.
Why? Because it may reduce the risk of multiple revisions, for example. As the saying goes, time is money.
Stay Away from Freelance Providers
As a preface, this isn’t a knock on freelancer providers. In fact, freelance providers can oftentimes be the most reliable, top-quality providers available. With that said, it also happens to be a more saturated market than the agency market. This, for obvious reasons, results in a tedious, more time-consuming vetting process.
Moreover, the freelance market tends to be inherently more unreliable due to the range of talent being so extreme.
For the sake of quality assurance, time, and ease-of-decision, when looking for a reliable multimedia localization service provider, it’s simply easier to opt for a full-service agency.
In Summary
Hiring a reliable multimedia localization service provider can be a difficult and tedious task. Nevertheless, it’s imperative to take the time to vet for the right fit, as it will pay dividends in the long run.
Localization is an incredibly effective way to reach your foreign audience without the concern of misrepresenting messages and such.
Hopefully, the tips above will help you find a reliable and suitable multimedia localization service provider that will meet your needs and take your business to new heights!
