How to Switch Translation Companies: A Buyer’s Guide to Getting Onboarding Right

Companies tend to wait too long before switching translation partners, even when they aren’t happy with their current provider. Sure, there might be plenty of little headaches: delays that impact production schedules, terminology errors that keep coming back, communication gaps that leave your team chasing status updates. But the thought of switching (the potential “hassle”) can make companies delay taking action. Teams continue working with a less-than-ideal relationship or process. 

Part of what holds companies back is the worry that switching could make things worse before they get better. That’s reasonable, but in the meantime, the cost of staying with the wrong partner keeps growing, one error or logistical problem at a time.

This guide walks through the concerns we hear most often, how we handle the transition at The Translation Team, and simple steps you can take that make switching easier. 

Common Concerns We Hear About Switching

Most companies that are struggling with their current provider but haven’t switched yet have a few specific worries about the transition. Here are the ones that come up most often.

Quality Could Dip During the Transition

The new linguists don’t know your terminology. So what if the first translations come back with the same kinds of issues you spent years correcting with your previous partner, and your reviewers spend the first month rewriting instead of approving? 

Your Translation Memory and Glossary Could Be Lost in the Move

Your previous partner has been building these on your account for years, and you are afraid they won’t share the linguistic assets with you (although here at TTT we believe the linguistic assets we build belong to you). The terms, the phrasings your reviewers approved, the conventions in your documents are an asset, and if the new partner can’t pick up where the last one left off, you’re starting from scratch. 

Your Internal Team Could End Up Spending Too Much Time Managing the New Relationship

Onboarding a new partner is its own project: discovery calls, kickoff meetings, terminology reviews, and glossary approvals. The risk is that the new partner skips most of it and jumps straight into processing files. Your team ends up filling in the gaps later, explaining context and walking new linguists through your processes weeks into the relationship.  

Problems Could Surprise You Later

Without check-ins and evaluations, little problems can grow into bigger problems. If the new partner doesn’t set expectations or ask about pain points upfront, issues that come up in the first weeks may not get named. By the time someone says, “This isn’t working,” it’s been months of low-grade friction your team has been absorbing. 

What to Do Before You Give Notice 

A switch is a two-sided process. Before you give notice to your current partner, here are a few practical steps to make the transition easier on both sides: 

• Request your translation memory, glossaries, style guides, and any documented quality policies or per-language style specifications. These assets were built on your account and belong to you, but the longer you wait to ask, the harder they can be to recover. 

• Make a list of the content tools where translation was integrated (Canva, Figma, Braze, Contentful, Adobe). The new partner will need to replicate those connections. 

• Cancel any standing subscription packages with your previous partner, so they don’t keep billing after you’ve moved. 

• Identify the people on your team who’ll be the day-to-day point of contact during onboarding. The new partner will want them in the kickoff to establish a direct channel of communication and alignment from the get-go. 
  
  

A good partner will help you work through all of this. The more you have ready before you switch, the faster the new partnership gets to a working rhythm.

How We Handle Onboarding at The Translation Team

Every account gets a customized onboarding plan built on the same proven process. Here’s what to expect after you sign. 

Discovery Before Any Project Starts

Before any project starts, we meet with all stakeholders, including the people on your team who’ll be working with us day to day.  

We ask about your translation strategy and the reasoning behind it: your priorities, your audiences, the markets you’re trying to reach, and any relevant cultural context. We walk through where your current process is falling short and what your ideal partnership would look like, whether that’s reliability, faster turnaround, higher volume, technology and integration, or a single point of contact. And we identify the people on your team who’ll have final say on linguistic decisions. 

Setting Up Your Account

Using the information gathered in discovery, we start by assembling a team with a designated language lead who has experience in your industry. You’ll also be assigned a dedicated project manager, plus an assistant manager as a backup. This is the person you’ll work with once your first project starts, and the backup means you’re never stuck if your PM is out. A consistent point of contact is one of the things that differentiates us. 

From there, we build the reference materials your team will work from.  If you have existing glossaries and translation memory, we refine them with you. If not, we draft a baseline from your past content and write a style guide for your account.  

We also set you up in our system so you can submit content using whichever method works best for your team: a portal, a dedicated email list (one address that routes straight to your project managers), or an integration with the content tools you already use, like Canva, Figma, Braze, Contentful, or Adobe. 

How We Handle Your First Translation Requests

Every piece of content that comes in goes through the same process. Our QA manager reviews the content type and sets up guidelines for process, team, and linguistic priorities. As we encounter new terminology, we collect it and pass it back to you for approval. If anything’s ambiguous, we ask you before delivering, then update the guidelines based on what you tell us. Every output is checked against the standards we built during discovery and project kick-off. 

After the first round of translated content , we ask you for feedback and record it carefully, so it can guide both the linguists on your account and any AI-assisted parts of the workflow. 

30 Days In

Around 30 days in, we schedule a meeting to look at what worked, where to make adjustments, and what’s coming up that needs more planning. We also walk you through any process changes we’ve put in place specifically for your account: automation, integrations, and terminology updates based on what we’ve learned in the first weeks. We then set up recurrent touch points, to make sure we continue  to keep a pulse on your account and your multilingual strategy. 

Our goal is to build a relationship that deepens with every project, so the team handling your content gets to know your priorities, your audiences, and the details that make your organization unique.  

The Long-Term Payoff

Once you switch to a translation partner that’s a good fit for your organization, the returns just keep coming: 

• Your reviewers spend less time rewriting translations. 

• Fewer back-and-forths to clarify terminology. 

• A translation partner that starts building knowledge of your content from day one and gets more useful to you as time goes on.  

• The hours your team used to spend fixing translations become hours they spend on other work.
  
  

The switch usually starts with one person on the team who has a different reference point: someone who worked with a better partner before, a leader focused on getting more out of vendor partnerships, or someone with a linguistic background who sees issues others miss.  

If you’re considering a switch, let’s talk. We’ll walk you through what onboarding with The Translation Team would look like for your operation and what to expect across the first three months.