Procurement teams often end up judging translation vendors on price and the impression left by a presentation, because translation quality itself feels impossible to assess. The criteria below move the assessment onto things that can be verified objectively.
Credentials and capacity
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Evidence of sworn translator certification
Ask for a copy of the appointment decree with its number, not just a claim on a website. That number must be verifiable.
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Corporate legal standing
Deed of establishment, business licence and tax registration, for vendor registration and for invoicing to a corporate entity.
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Languages genuinely covered in-house
Distinguish languages they handle themselves from languages they subcontract. Both are legitimate, but it affects quality control and confidentiality.
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Measurable capacity
Ask how many pages per day they can handle on your language pair without compromising the checking stage. "Any volume" is a bad answer.
Process
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A quality process they can describe
Ask them to walk through who does what, from file receipt to stamping. A vendor who cannot describe it probably does not have one.
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How volume is counted
Is the page count sent before work begins? This is the most practical discriminator between reliable vendors and unreliable ones.
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Terminology management
Do they maintain a client-specific glossary, and how is it carried into later projects?
Risk
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Confidentiality and data retention terms
Will they sign your NDA? How long are working files kept, and is written confirmation of destruction available?
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Liability and remedy
What happens if an authority rejects a document because of a translation error? This must be in writing, not left to good faith.
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Continuity of service
If the lead translator becomes unavailable mid-project, what is the fallback? For annual contracts this question matters.
How to test before deciding
A small paid trial is far more informative than a presentation. Send one difficult representative document — not the easiest one — to two or three candidates with the same deadline. What you are assessing is not only the final output:
- How quickly did they respond, and did they ask questions before starting?
- Was a page count sent first for approval?
- Were uncertain terms flagged with a translator's note, or silently guessed?
- Was the source document's format and layout preserved?
- Was delivery on time, and if late, were you warned in advance?
Ask for the vendor registration pack up front
Vendors used to serving corporations normally keep a single pack containing corporate legality documents, translator certificates, a sample NDA and a description of their document handling process. If it has to be assembled piece by piece, that itself tells you something about their readiness.
Request our vendor registration pack