| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Can't give prompt replies to clients due to local time difference. How to solve this? Thread poster: Zolboo Batbold
|
|---|
Zolboo Batbold 
Italy
Local time: 03:46
Member (2021)
English to Mongolian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Hi everyone. Sometimes I recieve emails with interesting job offers, asking my availability. My time zone is GMT+1, and some of these emails are from US-based agencies. I check my email in the morning at about 8 a.m, and I notice they've sent the email at like 1-2 a.m. And by the time I give my availability, the job is assigned to someone else.
How do you solve the issue of not replying to emails quickly? Is there any solution that I'm unaware of?
It sucks to lose good job opportun... See more Hi everyone. Sometimes I recieve emails with interesting job offers, asking my availability. My time zone is GMT+1, and some of these emails are from US-based agencies. I check my email in the morning at about 8 a.m, and I notice they've sent the email at like 1-2 a.m. And by the time I give my availability, the job is assigned to someone else.
How do you solve the issue of not replying to emails quickly? Is there any solution that I'm unaware of?
It sucks to lose good job opportunities because of local time difference. Any suggestion will be appreciated. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:46
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Do it late at night | Sep 16, 2021 |
Zolboo Batbold wrote:
Hi everyone. Sometimes I recieve emails with interesting job offers, asking my availability. My time zone is GMT+1, and some of these emails are from US-based agencies. I check my email in the morning at about 8 a.m, and I notice they've sent the email at like 1-2 a.m. And by the time I give my availability, the job is assigned to someone else.
How do you solve the issue of not replying to emails quickly? Is there any solution that I'm unaware of?
It sucks to lose good job opportunities because of local time difference. Any suggestion will be appreciated.
Check your email late at night. Or move to America!
| | | | | My favourite kinda question! | Sep 16, 2021 |
Hi Zolboo!
I love this kinda question... it lets me reveal one of the 'secrets to success' that I've had to rely on being based in GMT+10 or GMT+7 time zones.
Work generally comes around 3am for my locale. If I were to check emails at 8am I'd have no work!
How much do you want to succeed as a freelance translator?
My strategy was to adjust my time schedule/body clock to suit the reality of needing to answer emails on time! What did that mean? W... See more Hi Zolboo!
I love this kinda question... it lets me reveal one of the 'secrets to success' that I've had to rely on being based in GMT+10 or GMT+7 time zones.
Work generally comes around 3am for my locale. If I were to check emails at 8am I'd have no work!
How much do you want to succeed as a freelance translator?
My strategy was to adjust my time schedule/body clock to suit the reality of needing to answer emails on time! What did that mean? Well, based in Australia or Thailand, I have to wake around 3:30am to get jobs.
Eventually you get used to it, and you really appreciate that time of the morning especially when you have kids. I like the early hours because there's no distractions!
By 5:30am I can go for a bike ride, be back before 8 to see the kids off to school!
Back in bed by 8:30-9pm!
What's the answer? Adjust your life to suit the work peaks and troughs.
Happy fishing!
DJH ▲ Collapse
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 04:46
English to Russian
If you mean a tender-like system that offers a job to anyone who responds first, it may happen so that you can't catch a job even when you respond the same second you receive an offer. It is not about hours, even a second time difference matters.
[Edited at 2021-09-16 08:23 GMT]
| | |
|
|
|
Zolboo Batbold
Italy
Local time: 03:46
Member (2021)
English to Mongolian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | I guess you're right | Sep 16, 2021 |
Dylan Jan Hartmann wrote:
Hi Zolboo!
I love this kinda question... it lets me reveal one of the 'secrets to success' that I've had to rely on being based in GMT+10 or GMT+7 time zones.
Work generally comes around 3am for my locale. If I were to check emails at 8am I'd have no work!
How much do you want to succeed as a freelance translator?
My strategy was to adjust my time schedule/body clock to suit the reality of needing to answer emails on time! What did that mean? Well, based in Australia or Thailand, I have to wake around 3:30am to get jobs.
Eventually you get used to it, and you really appreciate that time of the morning especially when you have kids. I like the early hours because there's no distractions!
By 5:30am I can go for a bike ride, be back before 8 to see the kids off to school!
Back in bed by 8:30-9pm!
What's the answer? Adjust your life to suit the work peaks and troughs.
Happy fishing!
DJH
Is that how successful freelancers do? I wish there was like a method that analyzes the content of the email, and replies accordingly.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 04:46
Member
English to Turkish
| Those emails | Sep 16, 2021 |
Are you certain they're all coming from the US agencies? I seem to get job notifications from European and UK translation agencies, seemingly without any affiliates in the US, at ungodly hours (usually on a first-come-first-served basis), and the jobs are already taken by the time I've seen them. And sometimes a job is taken by another mere seconds after I've heard the email notification sound and clicked on the accept button. At first I put this down to some sort of system glitch (an unaccounta... See more Are you certain they're all coming from the US agencies? I seem to get job notifications from European and UK translation agencies, seemingly without any affiliates in the US, at ungodly hours (usually on a first-come-first-served basis), and the jobs are already taken by the time I've seen them. And sometimes a job is taken by another mere seconds after I've heard the email notification sound and clicked on the accept button. At first I put this down to some sort of system glitch (an unaccountable delay between sending of the job notification and my receipt of it), and asked the PMs about this, but couldn't get any satisfactory answers.
I've often wondered about the issue of time difference myself. I even got into a nasty argument with a veteran forum member when I voiced my opinion on the subject and challenged their view "time difference is a strength".
Of course, time difference is a 'strength' if you're working with 'boutique translation agencies' that patiently wait for you to rise from your bed and reply to your emails. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 04:46
English to Russian
Baran Keki wrote:
At first I put this down to some sort of system glitch (an unaccountable delay between sending of the job notification and my receipt of it), and asked the PMs about this, but couldn't get any satisfactory answers. I think this is because they actually assign jobs to contractors of their choice before they throw the bone. The other my guess (much less probable) is that successful contractors use some scripts or coded algorithms to pickup a job before you even receive a notification. I can't explain it other than that.
[Edited at 2021-09-16 08:42 GMT]
| | | | Zolboo Batbold
Italy
Local time: 03:46
Member (2021)
English to Mongolian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER
Baran Keki wrote:
Are you certain they're all coming from the US agencies? I seem to get job notifications from European and UK translation agencies, seemingly without any affiliates in the US, at ungodly hours (usually on a first-come-first-served basis), and the jobs are already taken by the time I've seen them. And sometimes a job is taken by another mere seconds after I've heard the email notification sound and clicked on the accept button. At first I put this down to some sort of system glitch (an unaccountable delay between sending of the job notification and my receipt of it), and asked the PMs about this, but couldn't get any satisfactory answers.
I've often wondered about the issue of time difference myself. I even got into a nasty argument with a veteran forum member when I voiced my opinion on the subject and challenged their view "time difference is a strength".
Of course, time difference is a 'strength' if you're working with 'boutique translation agencies' that patiently wait for you to rise from your bed and reply to your emails.
Yeah like this one today, it was from the US. I agree with the mere seconds thing. But of course if you're highly experienced translator with a good reputation, a late reply is perfrecly acceptable, I guess.
| | |
|
|
|
Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 04:46
English to Russian
Zolboo Batbold wrote:
But of course if you're highly experienced translator with a good reputation, a late reply is perfectly acceptable, I guess. I am 20 years in translations. I have translated dozens of thousands words with 99 to 100% correctness of translation (according to their own Linguistic Quality Inspection estimation system) for a company that later introduced their tender-like system. Since they introduced it, I only managed to get a single job (over several years) late at night.
| | | | | You can't have it all | Sep 16, 2021 |
Certainly, you miss out on some jobs while sleeping. If you stay awake at night to respond to job notification, you will miss some daytime opportunities, because you need to sleep for 6-8 hours each day to avoid any problem due to sleep deprivation.
On the other hand, a client in New York can send me a document at 15:00 their time (or 21:00 my time, GMT+2) and get the translation first thing in the morning (15:00 my time).
Alternatively, work for boutique translation ag... See more Certainly, you miss out on some jobs while sleeping. If you stay awake at night to respond to job notification, you will miss some daytime opportunities, because you need to sleep for 6-8 hours each day to avoid any problem due to sleep deprivation.
On the other hand, a client in New York can send me a document at 15:00 their time (or 21:00 my time, GMT+2) and get the translation first thing in the morning (15:00 my time).
Alternatively, work for boutique translation agencies. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I work in all time zones | Sep 16, 2021 |
I work for agencies in Asian, European, and American time zones. I'm available for email communication 12 hours a day (between 10am and 10pm my time, give or take) and that has always been sufficient. It is physically impossible for a freelancer to be reachable 24/7, and every professional PM knows that and can deal with it. There is enough demand in my language pair and fields so that I can afford to miss projects when they need to be addressed in my sleeping hours. On the other hand, most Germ... See more I work for agencies in Asian, European, and American time zones. I'm available for email communication 12 hours a day (between 10am and 10pm my time, give or take) and that has always been sufficient. It is physically impossible for a freelancer to be reachable 24/7, and every professional PM knows that and can deal with it. There is enough demand in my language pair and fields so that I can afford to miss projects when they need to be addressed in my sleeping hours. On the other hand, most German translators have similar waking hours to me, so the playing field is rather level.
The main issue here is, as always, supply and demand. If you are just one translator in a big pool of translators where everyone offers the same, agencies will assume (rightly or wrongly) that it does not matter who gets the project, so they simply give it to the first one who replies (or the one with the lowest rate, for that matter). For many generic translation projects, this might even work. But if you get into specialised areas, where it does matter which translator does the job, you cannot do that, and fortunately there are clients and PMs who are aware of this fact, and organise themselves accordingly. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
| There is no solution except reset your clock or move | Sep 16, 2021 |
If you want to do brisk business without having to do 3x more marketing than your competition, you have to make an effort to overlap at least some active hours with your target audience.
I often set alarm clocks to 4 AM by default when I'm not yet fully booked for the next day.
I actually THOUGHT it would be like 10 or 11 PM, but running an Excel spreadsheet of all offers received by day and hour showed that I was mistaken as to when the majority of them came in.
... See more If you want to do brisk business without having to do 3x more marketing than your competition, you have to make an effort to overlap at least some active hours with your target audience.
I often set alarm clocks to 4 AM by default when I'm not yet fully booked for the next day.
I actually THOUGHT it would be like 10 or 11 PM, but running an Excel spreadsheet of all offers received by day and hour showed that I was mistaken as to when the majority of them came in.
The only other alternative is maintaining a flow of offers so much more than your capability or desire to work that you can afford to miss almost all of them.
Zolboo Batbold wrote:
Hi everyone. Sometimes I recieve emails with interesting job offers, asking my availability. My time zone is GMT+1, and some of these emails are from US-based agencies. I check my email in the morning at about 8 a.m, and I notice they've sent the email at like 1-2 a.m. And by the time I give my availability, the job is assigned to someone else.
How do you solve the issue of not replying to emails quickly? Is there any solution that I'm unaware of?
It sucks to lose good job opportunities because of local time difference. Any suggestion will be appreciated. ▲ Collapse
| | |
|
|
|
Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
Acceptance is a contract. The offer may well contain details that you cannot or aren't willing to deliver on (volumes, delivery times, specialist topics, special requests like "please decode this handwritten crap", etc.).
Worse yet, if you're asleep, you can't even immediately apologize for the mistake and ask for the job to be reassigned with little damage to your reputation and no real harm done.
Zolboo Batbold wrote:
Is that how successful freelancers do? I wish there was like a method that analyzes the content of the email, and replies accordingly.
[Edited at 2021-09-16 10:37 GMT]
| | | |
The only solution I can think of is to not depend on those potential clients. My primary client base is in Europe (one or two hours ahead of me), although I also have a few clients in Asian, American and even New Zealand time zones…
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
| A lot of places outsourced PM work during COVID | Sep 16, 2021 |
Since PMs now work at home anyway, new PMs often tend to come from the Philippines or India now. Regardless of where the head office is.
Baran Keki wrote:
Are you certain they're all coming from the US agencies? I seem to get job notifications from European and UK translation agencies, seemingly without any affiliates in the US, at ungodly hours (usually on a first-come-first-served basis), and the jobs are already taken by the time I've seen them. And sometimes a job is taken by another mere seconds after I've heard the email notification sound and clicked on the accept button. At first I put this down to some sort of system glitch (an unaccountable delay between sending of the job notification and my receipt of it), and asked the PMs about this, but couldn't get any satisfactory answers.
I've often wondered about the issue of time difference myself. I even got into a nasty argument with a veteran forum member when I voiced my opinion on the subject and challenged their view "time difference is a strength".
Of course, time difference is a 'strength' if you're working with 'boutique translation agencies' that patiently wait for you to rise from your bed and reply to your emails.
| | | | | Pages in topic: [1 2] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Can't give prompt replies to clients due to local time difference. How to solve this? | Anycount & Translation Office 3000 | Translation Office 3000
Translation Office 3000 is an advanced accounting tool for freelance translators and small agencies. TO3000 easily and seamlessly integrates with the business life of professional freelance translators.
More info » |
| | Trados Studio 2022 Freelance | The leading translation software used by over 270,000 translators.
Designed with your feedback in mind, Trados Studio 2022 delivers an unrivalled, powerful desktop
and cloud solution, empowering you to work in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
