CASE STUDY: A Linguistic Challenge in Life Science Clinics

Oct 29, 2020

The significant task ahead.

The brief is from a language agency with a Life Sciences client, based in 7 different countries around the world, to deliver telephone interpreting services to their local clinics and patients in neighbouring countries. Firstly, they require a telephone interpreting service with online booking facility and 24/7 emergency line coverage. Secondly, the service needs to be completely accessible for everyone, including people who haven’t used an interpreting service before. Thirdly, none of the language pairs contain English. And, finally, the service needs to run for 6 months with full service monitoring and tracking in place.

Never ones to turn down a challenge, we set to work…

A bespoke and user friendly answer.

Our flexible telephone interpreting system, that we have tweaked and improved over the years, already covers many of the seemingly more difficult technical aspects. Online bookings, service tracking, and reporting are standard features on many of our services. We regularly provide telephone interpreting without the need for language codes or pin numbers. Frankly, in 2020, using pin numbers and language codes is a bit archaic and difficult for the uninitiated to use. All of our services are built from the user perspective upwards. This one is no exception. Literally anyone should be able to call into an interpreting service, and get the help they need.

Our platform enables us to easily tailor the IVR (that’s the machine messaging instructions you hear on the phone) for any client’s service. We have created all the messages in the necessary local languages with the help of professional linguists. This ensures that anyone calling into the service can understand what’s being said before they are even connected to an interpreter.

The real challenge.

All the technology in the world cannot change the fact real people, real professionals, are needed to deliver the interpreting itself. In some cases, where the language combinations are rarer, there may be only a handful of professionals in the entire world with the necessary skill set.

For years our team has slowly and carefully been growing an interpreter database that we can draw on whenever needed. We’re immensely proud to work with some of the best interpreting talent in the industry and, in situations like this, we are working incredibly closely with a handful of interpreters. These interpreters are absolutely essential to our services. As such it’s really important to us that we’re in regular contact collating feedback and providing quick, effective support. A relationship of mutual respect and trust is essential.

Our philosophy is to help language agencies deliver the services their clients actually need, in any industry or sector. We work incredibly closely with every client to ensure that we’re able to create a bespoke technical solution to any problem. Our technology is backed by our experienced team and supported by highly professional interpreters.

Challenge us with your next project