In this case study: Translation Assist was using manual workflows that didn’t scale as their business grew. Switching to Smartcat helped increase their productivity by up to 60% thanks to the platform’s robustness, transparency, and integrated marketplace. Read on to learn more.
Translation Assist is a translation agency that offers a full range of translation services, including translation, localization, editing, and proofreading. Their client base includes start-ups, SMEs and global industry leaders.
The Challenge
Running manual processes made it difficult to scale and provide quality service.
Gary Serebro, co-founder of Translation Assist, was looking for a way to improve efficiency. Before he started using Smartcat, he and his team were still bogged down in tedious tasks. Tracking progress across multiple spreadsheets and email inboxes wasn’t working, because:
Project updates were getting lost in the shuffle, causing due dates to slip past
Finding important emails and messages was difficult
Data entry took up too much time
As their business grew, they needed a way to scale their operations without sacrificing the quality that they have historically focused on. Gary realized that automation and finding quality suppliers quickly was the way to gain a competitive advantage.
"We needed to invest in a solid platform for our translation business which was mainly running manually,” says Gary. “We wanted to automate things in order to give us added efficiency with which we could then upscale our business, with the assurance that we would ultimately be offering our clients a better service and overall product.”
We wanted to automate things in order to give us added efficiency with which we could then upscale our business.”
The Solution
Automation and a network of trusted advisors.
Before deciding on Smartcat, Translation Assist did their research. They evaluated platforms based on how easy it would be for their team to start using them, but also needed resources to grow their business. Moving from manual processes to software has a learning curve, so Gary was determined to find something they could all get onboard with, fast, to enhance this growth.
“The platform is user friendly, effective and provides a transparent and robust working environment and platform, which increases our efficiency and provides solid back-end support that enables us to provide better quality to our clients in the end.”
Smartcat enables us to provide better quality to our clients.”
Gary also added Smartcat Marketplace, a freelancer marketplace with 350,000+ people with skills to support the entire translation workflow, to their supplier base. He and his team appreciated the value of streamlining the translation workflow from start to finish.
“We looked at other platforms, and Smartcat seemed simple and easy to use. What we liked about Smartcat as well was the marketplace to find other quality translators that have clearly performed well on other projects and have good ratings and industry specific experience.”
What made the company really confident in their decision, though, was not Smartcat’s technology but their commitment to growing Gary’s business along with him. He wasn’t left to figure it out on his own. Jean-Luc Saillard, Smartcat’s director of customer success, was there as a trusted advisor every step of the way.
“We had a powerhouse of a customer service consultant in Jean-Luc Saillard,” says Gary. “We were blown away by his experience and guidance throughout our integration with the platform. The man’s one of a kind!”
The Results
More business and time savings.
In their first five months with Smartcat, Translation Assist translated 500,000+words on the platform. They have seen their productivity increase by up to 60% and their confidence in the company’s growth increase even further.
“Overall, we’re thrilled with the product and the level of service. We now have a platform that allows us to grow both our translation business as well as our localization service line more confidently. This has given us the opportunity not only to service new clients but also be more efficient and responsive to our existing clients.”
We now have a platform that allows us to grow both our translation business as well as our localization service line more confidently.”
Want to have your productivity increased by up to 60%+ too? Take a look at What Smartcat has to offer.
Want to share your own Smartcat story? Get in touch with marketing@smartcat.ai and we’ll be in touch with you!
Vova Zakharov
Smartcat’s former editor-in-chief, Vova loves g̶l̶o̶b̶e̶t̶r̶o̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ staying at home with his family, playing some good old metalcore, and talking to self-aware robots.