Buyer Series Finale - Who Does Jill Select?

Welcome to the final installment of the Buyer Series. I wrote this series for anyone who is new to localization. The featured buyer's use case in the Series is simple: find an LSP to localize a Wordpress site.

Purpose

When it comes to localization services, the market is filled with many loud options. The emergence of neural machine translation and generative AI have made it difficult to know what service to choose. In short: selecting which language service provider (LSP) to choose can be overwhelming, even for veterans of the industry. In this series, we followed Jill's journey as she evaluates three of them.

I wrote about topics that are fundamental to localization: word counts, translation memory, style guides, glossaries, workflows, quality assurance and the like. No matter how complex your localization needs may be, the elements that are introduced in this Series will apply at some level.

These topics are revealed through the eyes of Jill, a diligent, unassuming, and fictitious content manager who was appointed localization manager despite having no experience.

Recap

Jill is an employee of Company X and reports to Diane, the VP of Content Strategy. The Company X management team decided to localize their flagship product, Oh Yeah, and their Wordpress site to boost sales and traffic in key overseas markets.

As mentioned above, Jill has no experience with localization. Diane entrusted her with the task because she trusts Jill and knows that she's capable of navigating and overcoming obstacles, if any, to get the job done.

Preview Articles in the Series

If you found this article first, you may want to go to the beginning and read the articles in order. Each article is about a seven-minute read.

• Intro: A Series for Localization Buyers
• The Word Count
• Workflow
• Pricing
• Language Assets
• Linguistic Quality Assurance

Evaluation Process

Jill evaluated the three LSPs on pricing, process, and trustworthiness.

As she dove into the pricing discovery phase, her initial task was to procure a quote for translating Oh Yeah and the Wordpress site. She soon discovered that LSPs charge by the word. Jill turned to one of her developers for help to generate a word count.

She found out the following:

• Wordpress: 30,856 words
• Oh Yeah: 17,888 words
• Total: 48,744 words

The number was high. Diane and Jill were prompted to reevaluate. To fit the budget, should they translate both, but only into Spanish (US) for now? Or translate just one or the other into all three target languages (German, Korean and Spanish (US)).

They decided that the website was the priority. It is the most prominent and public-facing asset for driving interest in their company's product offerings.

Jill removed Oh Yeah from scope and proceeded with the task of finding an LSP to translate 30,856 words of Wordpress web pages.

Below are the per-word prices presented by each LSP, both in terms of the total cost to translate the Wordpress site into the three target languages of Korean, German, and Spanish (US), as well as the per-word price for each respective language.

1. LSP #1: $8,311.80 (<- Mid-Range)
2. LSP #2: $10,005.66
3. LSP #3: $6,705.44

Jill began by evaluating LSP#1, which had pricing in the middle range. She appreciated how honest and transparent the provider was during the evaluation process. Not only did they provide her with a cost estimate that was easy to read and understand, but they also taught her a lot about the localization process.

That was the key. The sales rep at LSP#1 picked up on the fact that Jill was new to localization and not asking the right questions. He knew that what she was missing could materially impact translation costs, turnaround time and results.

By taking the time to educate her, LSP#1 built trust with Jill and showed that they were invested in helping her succeed.

Jill was initially intrigued by the higher-priced option presented by LSP#2 since it fit within Diane's budget. However, despite LSP#2's efforts to convince her that their higher prices reflected better value, Jill found no points of differentiation that justified the elevated cost.

In fact, the pushy and somewhat aggressive manner in which LSP#2 tried to persuade her made her feel like they were trying to take advantage of her. Instead of feeling confident in their services, Jill felt like LSP#2 was hoping she wouldn't shop around for services elsewhere.

Ultimately, without a strong sense of trust in LSP#2's abilities and integrity, Jill couldn't justify the high cost and moved on. She knew that selecting the right LSP was crucial to the success of the project, and she wasn't willing to compromise on quality or transparency in exchange for a higher price tag.

LSP#3 was compelling because it was affordable.

However, Jill worried that the lower price point—33% lower than the quote provided by LSP#2—meant low rates for the translators as well. This project would rely on human translators. Jill is a strong advocate for fair pay and wants motivated and engaged linguists working on her content. The prospect of compromising that would risk the success of the project.

She generally holds the belief that the least expensive option is often too good to be true and may require the provider to take shortcuts or skimp on quality to keep costs low. She moved on.

Other reasons for her decision included the fact that LSP#1 encouraged her to draw up a flow chart (covered in the Workflow article), helped her understand the importance of LQA. They were heads and shoulders better than the competition in terms of clear and effective communication.

Jill felt like she was in good hands with LSP #1. They were attentive to her questions and pro-active in volunteering information that Jill hadn't thought to ask about.

Conclusion

Choosing an LSP for a project of any size can be a drawn-out process.

Jill's experience highlights the importance of trust. While pricing and process are important factors to consider, they don't necessarily translate into success without a strong relationship of truest.  

Take the time to evaluate all the points rasied over the course of this Buyer Series. An LSP that takes the time to educate you, is transparent about costs, has modern processes, and values building a relationship shows that they care deeply about your success.