A Translator’s Customer Loyalty Part II

In this second part of two articles of “A Translator’s Customer Loyalty” (the first part can be found here), we will explore some of the reasons behind a client not staying loyal to a translator. These reasons that are explained here are drawn from my experience in the past seven years.

In-house translator

About a year ago, my best client ever, decided to employ an in-house translator. Their business was booming and out-sourcing the Greek projects was becoming significant costly for them. They, too, want to make as much profit as possible, we should not forget that even though it is not to our advantage. This of course had a great impact on my workload and income. They still send me some projects, smaller ones, that probably their in-house translator cannot fit in his/her schedule.

New translators entering the market

During these seven years I have been working as a freelance translator, new translators have graduated from universities and enter the market. One could argue that a new professional could not possible gain a part of the market of another professional, however, we all took a little bite from the pie when we first started to work in this industry. Apart from the newbies, there is still the competition of other professionals with experience and they too try to find new clients, make a living and stay afloat.

Financial situation

In an era when prices for services are pushed to their limit, clients tend to choose a translator based on the charge per word. Some of them, wearing the mask of the financial crisis and hiding behind it, they choose those translators that are willing to work for half the price of the charge, as long as they still have some money coming in. Recently on Facebook, I saw an advertisement of an agency offering website translation and giving a discount on translations produced in a second, third and forth language. The latter is very tempting for those clients that wish to have their texts translated in the best price offered. If this is seen from a translator’s point of view, this discount is surely drawn from their profit and not the agency’s. In the case that a translator does not agree to offer this discount to the agency, the agency will move to another translator.

What other reasons can you think that could lead to a client moving on to a different translator? Please, do share your thoughts on the subject!