Poll: Which of these would you consider the most important in a client?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Oct 1, 2019

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Which of these would you consider the most important in a client?".

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Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 22:58
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Other Oct 1, 2019

From the choices offered, I'd say "clear communication," but even more important is decent rates! For me, that's a sine qua non.

Eckhard Boehle
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Liena Vijupe
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Elaine Ruby
neilmac
Philippe Etienne
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 05:58
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Other Oct 1, 2019

What I consider important in a client (in no particular order):

1. Fair rates
2. Interesting subjects
3. Personal connection
4. Clear communication
5. Quality of the source material
6. Regular work
7. Prompt payment
8. Reasonable deadlines
9. Clients who willingly recommend my services to others
10. Mutual trust

Dream on…


Josephine Cassar
Linda Miranda
Angus Stewart
Anna Herbst
Elaine Ruby
DZiW (X)
Kevin Fulton
 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 06:58
French to English
. Oct 1, 2019

Ditto Muriel. If they state the deadline clearly, you can say yes or no. If the rates are bad, you can decline. If the file's a mess and needs clean-up work that's best billed by the hour, you can negotiate that.
If it's not clear what you have to do, you can't be confident about getting it done properly.

[Edited at 2019-10-01 08:56 GMT]


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Muriel Vasconcellos
 
Marjolein Snippe
Marjolein Snippe  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 06:58
Member (2012)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Clear communication Oct 1, 2019

Clear communication, with good project management/people skills a close second.
When these two are missing, the project becomes unnecessarily complicated, client returns several times asking for changes or clarifications, and I end up not accepting more work from that particular client.

Some of my favourite clients only have (very) infrequent work for me and that is fine.
Likewise, I don't mind tight deadlines, provided this is indicated in advance so I can shuffle jobs
... See more
Clear communication, with good project management/people skills a close second.
When these two are missing, the project becomes unnecessarily complicated, client returns several times asking for changes or clarifications, and I end up not accepting more work from that particular client.

Some of my favourite clients only have (very) infrequent work for me and that is fine.
Likewise, I don't mind tight deadlines, provided this is indicated in advance so I can shuffle jobs around or reject the job if the deadline is really too tight.
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DZiW (X)
Tina Vonhof (X)
Mariana Borio
Muriel Vasconcellos
 
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:58
Member (2004)
English to Italian
all of them... Oct 1, 2019

really...

 
DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
Real clients = real communication + real biz + real terms Oct 1, 2019

As far as the real (end/ultimate) client just wants the job done (1) properly, (2) timely, and (3) as agreed, I--thanks gods--neither work with/for agencies (middlemen/spongers), nor consider them as my clients.

Shortly, only the real [direct] client is qualified to be my client, let alone important one.


Besides believing in no specialization, no biz awareness, no due diligence, no fuss easy money, translation only, and other silly hypes
... See more
As far as the real (end/ultimate) client just wants the job done (1) properly, (2) timely, and (3) as agreed, I--thanks gods--neither work with/for agencies (middlemen/spongers), nor consider them as my clients.

Shortly, only the real [direct] client is qualified to be my client, let alone important one.


Besides believing in no specialization, no biz awareness, no due diligence, no fuss easy money, translation only, and other silly hypes, the big problem with "pure" translators is they still terrified cannot realize the fact most real clients require (1) specialists in a field (2) with decent foreign language skills (3) who know how to run the biz (including on-site).
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Maxi Schwarz
Maxi Schwarz  Identity Verified
Local time: 00:58
German to English
+ ...
none of these because / instead Oct 2, 2019

For the points in the survey: When a client contacts me, the professional, then the person who needs to have the management skills is the professional being contacted, not the customer. "Guidelines" might be necessary if I'm an employee, but the question involved clients. Deadlines are a matter of what is needed by the client, and what is feasible - the translator will know by when something can be finished. This is not determined unilaterally.

If we're talking about agencies a
... See more
For the points in the survey: When a client contacts me, the professional, then the person who needs to have the management skills is the professional being contacted, not the customer. "Guidelines" might be necessary if I'm an employee, but the question involved clients. Deadlines are a matter of what is needed by the client, and what is feasible - the translator will know by when something can be finished. This is not determined unilaterally.

If we're talking about agencies as clients, it is good if they are well organized and understand enough about translation that arranging a project, passing on questions to the end client and similar, goes smoothly. Of course you want to be paid on time, for the client to be available in the course of a project if questions come up, and similar.
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Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:58
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Frequency, of course Oct 2, 2019

There are other important factors, already mentioned by colleagues below, but they are not amont the choices.
Although all factors may be important, they are all useless if the client only sends you a single job and disappears. So frequency of work is number one here.


[Edited at 2019-10-02 04:54 GMT]


Gitte Hovedskov (X)
 


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Poll: Which of these would you consider the most important in a client?






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