Going away? You may want to check your flights…
I recently read a story about a couples despair when their dream holiday to Las Vegas was ruined by a booking error. Richella Heekin and Ben Marlow’s holiday was somewhat spoilt when they turned up at Birmingham Airport, West Midlands to check in for their flight to Dallas only to discover Ms Heekin had booked to fly from Birmingham, Alabama.
Although a professional translation company wouldn’t have saved Ms Heekin’s blushes or prevented her from losing the £1,200 she saved over two years, it does highlight some of the challenges we experience at One Global on an almost daily basis. Getting the finer details right is vital in delivering the best possible language services to our clients. Do they need European Spanish or Latin American Spanish? Simplified or Traditional Chinese? Bi-weekly (every other) or bi-weekly (twice)? Tyre or tire? These examples are pretty basic and just a few of the thousands of localisation questions we constantly ask our clients to ensure they are targeting the right markets in the correct way. But that’s not all we do, we’re more than a translation agency. We consult, advise and build partnerships with our clients by understanding their business, their strategy and their goals and align our services accordingly.
Unfortunately One Global can’t help Ms Heekin enjoy the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip (not strip!) but we hope she and her partner enjoyed Amsterdam none the less. Maybe lastminute.com should consider some kind of alert system (do you mean Birmingham, West Midlands or Birmingham, Alabama?) based on the booking location of their customers?
