Very few translation clients are totally price-insensitive.

Offer That Little Something Extra

What extra service can you offer your clients? Let’s assume that you regularly translate a client’s inter-office newsletter: why not contact them on a predetermined date to discuss the next issue? Perhaps you could create a secure file transfer site so that translations can be accessed by clients whenever they want? Have you considered sending your clients a short survey asking how you can better meet their needs? You’ll become an invaluable asset to your clients when you’re prepared to take that extra step. And we know that making yourself indispensable to your clients is the only real way of maintaining high-paying customers.

Re-Consider the Way You Speak to Clients

Change your negative speech to positive speech. By this we mean - if a client asks to have a translation delivered by Friday afternoon, your response should be: ‘Certainly, if you can get that to me by Wednesday morning at the latest I’ll have it back to you by Friday afternoon’, instead of saying: ‘No, I wouldn’t be able to have it back to you by Friday afternoon unless you were to get it to me by Wednesday morning’. Do you see how the first statement sounds positive, whereas the second one has a negative tone to it?

Don’t Try to Make Your Job Sound Easy

It’s very important that you don’t make the task of translating a document sound easy, because in fact it’s not! However, what you do need to do is reassure your client that you will make things as easy for them as you possibly can.

It’s All About Giving Your Customer a Great Experience

Remember that good customer service costs very little, and that great customer service is what your clients are looking for. In fact, most businesses eventually realize that good customer service is the lifeblood of their business. Yes, you can slash prices and offer promotions to bring in new customers, but if those customers don’t want to come back again and again, your business will always struggle.

Basically, the essence of good customer service is the relationship formed between the business and the customer – it must be a relationship that the customer wants to pursue. And the way to create a relationship such as this is to remember that old saying: You’ll be judged by what you do, not what you say’. Old-fashioned, yes, but it’s still what works today! It’s so easy to provide great customer service yet so many businesses fail in this regard. Creating a freelance translation business takes a lot of time, money and effort, so don’t let all your good work go to waste by not offering your customers a great experience. Customer service is the main difference between running a business, and running a highly-successful business!