Conference Tips: 7 Steps to a Great Deal See also: Choosing the right simultaneous interpretation partner While it's important to comparison shop and look for reasonable prices, be sure to look for value. The best value will ultimately be found in 4 places: the vendor's professionalism, the customer service quality, the interpreters' and technicians' experience-level, and the interpretation equipment's quality. Here's the inside scoop on getting the best value in interpretation services : Only rent receivers for those who need them. Choose your languages carefully. Plan clever schedules. Don't use bilingual people. Use one interpretation vendor at a time. Pick a vendor with on-site technicians. Choose the vendor with best services, not the lowest price. 1. Only rent receivers for those who need them. Ordering the wrong number of receivers can cause two problems for your meeting: 1) not enough receivers for everyone who needs them, or 2) too many unused receivers which have unnecessarily driven up your costs. No company wants its attendees to miss valuable presentations due to a shortage of receivers. Because many of your attendees may be bilingual or multilingual, however—and therefore may not need receivers at all—it is uneconomical to order one receiver for each attendee. BEST: Know your audience well and determine beforehand how many attendees are multilingual and which languages they comfortably understand. If possible, before hiring interpretation services, survey your attendees' language preferences to get a more specific number of receivers required. Then order 5-10% more receivers than you think you'll need. 2. Choose the number and type of interpreted languages carefully. While it would be nice for you to accommodate all your guests' languages, it's not always financially possible. If only one person out of 125 attendees needs a particular language interpreted, consider carefully if the importance of that attendee warrants the cost of interpretation--especially if that person requires a more expensive language to interpret, such as Finnish. The cost of interpreting particular languages will also differ depending on the location of your event. For example, in Miami with its close proximity to Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, it is far less expensive to hire Spanish and Portuguese interpreters than other languages. Likewise, in upstate New York near the French Canadian border, it is less expensive to hire French interpreters than Spanish interpreters. BEST: Since interpreters' fees comprise a substantial portion of the total cost of simultaneous interpretation, be prudent in determining how many languages you'll need interpreted as well as which languages. 3. Plan clever schedules. The structure of your conference will play a big role in the total cost of services. Since interpreters always work in pairs and get paid on a full or half-day basis, your costs can rise considerably if you require interpreters for several days. It's much less expensive to hire a single pair of interpreters to work a 9 am meeting and a 11 am meeting than it is to hire two pairs of interpreters to work two concurrent 9 am meetings (in both cases, you'll have to pay a half-day's worth of wages per interpreter.) BEST: If possible, schedule all meetings requiring interpretation to fall on the same day. Even better, try to have those meetings follow each other instead of running simultaneously. If you know your attendees well, consider which break-out rooms would benefit most from each interpreted language. Example: If you wanted two languages interpreted for four simultaneous breakout sessions, it would require sixteen interpreters (remember, each language requires a pair of interpreters in the room). 4. Don't use bilingual people. Skimping on interpreters' quality is one of the WORST places to cut costs. You and your attendees are spending valuable time and money for your conference. Be sure your message is conveyed accurately and concisely by using certified simultaneous interpreters. Using bilingual people, rather than certified interpreters, runs the risk of alienating or offending your guests. Not only are untrained bilingual people usually much slower than certified simultaneous interpreters, their interpretations can be muddled, confusing, and may even unwittingly offend your guests by improperly translating your speaker's message. REMEMBER: Since your interpreters are conveying your message on your behalf, if your interpreters offend your guests, YOU offend your guests. By contrast, certified trained simultaneous interpreters are skilled in communicating your message accurately, with minimal time delay. Experienced simultaneous interpreters are also trained to understand the perceived meanings of words from different lingual regions (for example, some subtle but very important differences between Cuban and Iberian Spanish vocabulary). BEST: Use only simultaneous interpreters with at least two recent consecutive years of "booth" experience. 5. Use one interpretation vendor at a time. Avoid the temptation to mix equipment and services from different vendors since they might not be compatible with each other. To help you better understand your costs, your interpretation services vendor should be able to give you a price breakdown of its proposal. Remember, however, that while it may be tempting to select the least expensive components from each vendor to create your own "package," the vendor has spent considerable time testing all the equipment to be sure it works properly. Mixing equipment from different vendors may cause incompatibility problems. In addition, you'll still need to hire an experienced technician. A technician from one vendor may not be familiar with equipment you obtained from a different vendor. It's best to stick with one interpretation services vendor for the event to avoid any technical problems and delay. 6. Pick a vendor with on-site technicians. On-site technicians offer you tremendous flexibility and peace of mind. They can respond to your most critical needs at a moment's notice. On-site technicians can also reconfigure the room arrangement or set up an impromptu press meeting. Even if you don't have emergency last-minute changes in your meeting plans, having on-site technicians to handle even the smallest technical issue will give you the assurance and peace of mind you need to run your meetings smoothly. 7. Choose the vendor with best services, not the lowest price More than any other conference vendor, your interpretation services vendor must communicate your message, corporate image, and corporate culture accurately. Because the interpretation company is speaking to your attendees on your behalf, choosing your interpretation services vendor is one of the most critical decisions you'll make for your conference. BEST: Be sure that your interpretation services vendor is the right fit for your company. For more information on how to choose a vendor, see How to Choose an Interpretation Partner. REMEMBER: Lowest price doesn't always mean the best deal. For more Information Clear Signals Consulting will be happy to answer any questions you may have about these issues. We wish you the best on your search and that all your conferences and meetings will be a clear success. Please call us at 305-274-1185 or email us if you'd like more information on how we can provide superior interpretation services for your next event.

© Copyright 2004 Clear Signals Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved. Phone: 305-274-1185 Site designed and hosted by Blue Reef Internet Services. Questions or comments about this website? Write the webmaster.