There might be a time when you contact a translation company and they say their translators are busy and cannot start your job right away. Even if they refuse you, you should appreciate their integrity and frankness. We recommend you contact them again when you have a job to do next time. However, never beg them to help you by inserting your job into the queue - that would break their process and overload the translators, either of which would result in a very poor translation.

Some bad translation companies might accept your order even if they know the deadline you set is not realistic. When the deadline is approaching or has passed, they may beg you to extend it. You have to extend it because you have made the payment or not much time is left. To prevent this, you can ask if they offer a money back guarantee for timely delivery. Some translation companies do offer a 100% money back guarantee.

Yes, there are same day translation, overnight translation, or even one hour translation services. However, most will charge you a rush fee. Also keep in mind there is always a trade-off between quality and time. If you do want a quick translation, choose from those online translation service providers who can respond quicker than the traditional translation companies.

Very tight schedules make your translation project risky. You are more likely to underestimate the time needed for translation. Keep in mind translation is time consuming and we have no way to shorten the turnaround time further where the labor limits are reached. If you are not sure how much time to reserve for your projects, you can use our instant quote feature (registration required) or consult us. Both are free with no obligation.

You cannot start translation before your source texts are frozen. At the same time you must get the translation ready before your products or websites are released. The interval between the two points is the "translation window". To get the translation window under your control, you need to participate in scheduling and tracking both content authoring and content release. You will find the source texts are always being updated but the time-to-market cannot be postponed. If you take action to prevent delay of freezing the source, the translation time can be guaranteed and the quality will be assured.

Most translation companies apply a minimum charge. When the job size is small, they might give you a higher rate per word or simply charge you a flat minimum fee, say EGP50. So, be sure to ask what their minimum charge is if you want to get a small job done. The good news is there are some translation companies, again mainly online service providers, that don't charge minimum fees. You can even get a single word or sentence translated at a reasonable rate!

However be aware not all translation companies possessing a website are online translation service providers. Most of them just use the website to generate leads, which means expecting you to call or email them for the service. Even those who have an online price table would not be an online service if they cannot process orders and deliver translations online. In fact, only a small number of translation companies offer online translation services in the real sense of that expression.

If you need to update your source text regularly, ask if the translation companies can use a translation memory tool to work on your job and include the TM as a deliverable. Here TM means translation memories instead of trade mark. Your contents may include repeating sentences. With translation memory tools, translators can translate such sentences once and reuse the translation. That brings improved productivity and thus reduced cost. You may ask for a discount for reused translation

...unless you need to do complex content management tasks. Also a few but not many online translation service providers have integrated TM tools into their service portal. Some even allow their clients to use the TM tools for free! So, just ask if they offer TM services.