| Páginas no tópico: < [1 2] | Poll: If a client was dissatisfied with your work, would you still charge the price agreed in advance? Tópico cartaz: ProZ.com Staff
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| To continue my analogy | Feb 25, 2015 |
If a veterinarian treats a pet and the pet dies as a result of the treatment (which happened to me once), obviously I wasn't satisfied with his work, but he still received his fee.
Another example is the dentist. My dentist cracked a tooth when he put on a crown, which meant that the crown was worthless because the tooth had to be pulled, but he billed me for the service and I paid him.
Why should translators be different from any other professionals? What do we have t... See more If a veterinarian treats a pet and the pet dies as a result of the treatment (which happened to me once), obviously I wasn't satisfied with his work, but he still received his fee.
Another example is the dentist. My dentist cracked a tooth when he put on a crown, which meant that the crown was worthless because the tooth had to be pulled, but he billed me for the service and I paid him.
Why should translators be different from any other professionals? What do we have to apologize for?
[Edited at 2015-02-25 08:05 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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I wish to stress that we aren't a concierge industry, no matter what some colleagues seem to think.
Our job is defined by lending a skill (interpreters) or delivering a product of skilled work (translators).
It's not predicated on fulfilling a client's wishes or making a client feel satisfied.
Again, a concierge's job is predicated precisely and directly on just that. A translator's job is not. No matter what agencies may want you to think — as they need ... See more I wish to stress that we aren't a concierge industry, no matter what some colleagues seem to think.
Our job is defined by lending a skill (interpreters) or delivering a product of skilled work (translators).
It's not predicated on fulfilling a client's wishes or making a client feel satisfied.
Again, a concierge's job is predicated precisely and directly on just that. A translator's job is not. No matter what agencies may want you to think — as they need to sink to quite a couple of lows in order to compete in the red ocean that is the agency market.
Client satisfaction is relevant only where subjective satisfaction is relevant to the job — for example creative translation of some sort of PR material and, to a lesser extent, any sort of translation that's more liberal than most. But that's a matter of working with the client until he's satisfied, not discounts.
On the other hand, you could give a discount to a client who was dissatisfied with something like a long wait till you called or wrote back, or exceeding the schedule or cost estimate or actually confusing the client's instruction. Then, yes, a discount would be appropriate, and it would serve to alleviate the client's feelings of dissatisfaction, but it would be based on a failure on your part and maybe some sort of compassionate reaction to the client's injured feelings, but not satisfaction per se.
Frankly, translators need to get over client satisfaction, in the sense I described.
Also, standard prices don't justify that type of thing anyway. Only when the client-translator relationship start resembling some sort of artistic patronage and the rates are really comfortable and then some, then maybe.
[Edited at 2015-03-22 12:39 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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