| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Do you ask your clients to confirm that they have received translations you send them? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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After I finishing the job, I ask my client; through email, to confirm whether he/she has received the files as requested. I keep sending the prompt until I receive the confirmation email.
| | | | Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Local time: 19:54
Member (2010)
French to English
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| always, from now on | Jan 21, 2014 |
Most of my clients always confirm but some do so sporadically (seems to depend how busy they are) and I recently had the experience of sending back a file where only two words of the original file had been changed by the client and the question to me was whether the translation needed changing as well. So, I looked, changed one word and returned file within 10 mins and then heard nothing.
TWO DAYS later I got a Daemon Mailer failure message so I got in touch twice with client to che... See more Most of my clients always confirm but some do so sporadically (seems to depend how busy they are) and I recently had the experience of sending back a file where only two words of the original file had been changed by the client and the question to me was whether the translation needed changing as well. So, I looked, changed one word and returned file within 10 mins and then heard nothing.
TWO DAYS later I got a Daemon Mailer failure message so I got in touch twice with client to check if he'd received file and No, he hadn't. He also didn't get my first message to him about it immediately because my messages were going into his Spam! So, by this time it was almost 3 days later...Not nice. I wasn't planning to charge him for a couple of mins work in this case but it could have been a full translation...
And yes, this is with Yahoo! (Thanks José for highlighting all the things that can go wrong)
After this experience, I am now adding a line when sending files to please confirm receipt. ▲ Collapse
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Gallagy wrote:
Thanks José for highlighting all the things that can go wrong
These are not ALL the things that can go wrong, just a few cases I recall immediately.
Here in Sao Paulo, in view of the horrible traffic caused by a combination of Machiavellian, greedy (fines!), and technically incompetent authorities, the fast way to get disks/hard copy jobs delivered is by using a swarm of motorcycle messengers cutting through.
In the building where I lived before, one of my neighbors was a rather famous drummer. Don't worry, as he had small children, he never rehearsed at home.
One day both of us left disks at the building reception for pickup. He left an audio CD - as I learned later - for his ensemble to rehearse somewhere in the South area of town, as he wouldn't be able to attend. I left a subtitled DVD for a client located in the Northeast zone of town.
(Names here have been changed here.)
Let's say that the drummer's was Ivan, which happened to be the same name as my client's motorcycle messenger. Both messengers had received instructions in advance on where to take their disks.
My client's (hurried, as usual) messenger arrived first. He didn't know what to pick up. Upon being asked by the janitor which of the envelopes, he merely glanced them, saw his name (actually "From: Ivan | To: Carlos), grabbed it, and vanished.
When my client's (hurried, as usual) messenger arrived, there was only one envelope left for pick up, so he didn't even look at it, and rushed away.
If you watched the video (link above), you'll have understood why neither messenger took the time to read the envelopes.
Later in the afternoon I got a phone call from my client, saying that instead of the subtitled DVD, she had received an audio CD with drum solos, quite good, but not exactly what she needed. Some detective work, mostly questioning the janitor, led me to understand what had happened.
I put Ivan and my client in direct contact, so they could instruct their respective messengers to fix that mess.
According to the local rescue authorities, two of these motorcycle messengers reportedly die every single day, more of them die unreportedly.
That's why I offer my clients sending any hardcopy/disk job via express mail (there is a post office a block from here), but I'll never hire a messenger on my own. If they want to use theirs, be my guest. I explain that if it happens, I won't have time to go to the morgue to pick up their translation, and all of them understand the situation.
| | | | Al Zaid
United States
English to Spanish
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The rationale behind that is very simple: Apart from being interested about the client getting a timely delivery and what not, I'm mainly interested in what comes after: "OK, pal, you've just been served. Ball's in your court. Now I'm just expecting to get paid".
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vixen 
Greece
Local time: 21:54
English to Dutch
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Most of my translations are uploaded through the workflow system of the client, so that I know instantly that my file has been uploaded. My other clients always acknowledge receipt of my delivery without me having to ask.
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