When you get one of those "Gengo new preferred translator" e-mails it's always a good thing. A great thing!
The e-mails look like this:
Congratulations! Customer #XXXXX has selected you as a Preferred translator. This means you now have priority access to their collections.
So you think: "that's nice of Customer #XXXXX. I wonder what job I did that they liked so much!". However, as you try to find out who this customer is, you realize that it's almost next to impossible to track them down from the ID number on the e-mail. Unless, of course, you're willing to go through every single job you've done and hope it's among the first few ones.
Is there a better way to check who is our "preferred translator" customer? I once enquired about one by sending a ticket to support and they told me who it was, but I don't think it's very productive (for us and for Support) to be doing this every time (not that I get "preferred translator" notices that often. I wish!).
I'd like to suggest to Gengo that they include some more information in these e-mails, such as a sample job that the translator has done before for this customer.
19 comments
Megan: Thank you for your reply. It is mostly curiosity. It's also helpful to know what jobs you might have done that triggered the PM option in the customer, even if it's the Gengo Projects team. Also, it's a bit like getting a note from a secret admirer... wouldn't you like to know who it is?? But as has been mentioned above this does not usually mean you will be getting lots of jobs from now on. Unfortunately :)
If I may, a search feature like the one mentioned in the threads I linked above would be useful for several reasons. As for the customer ID specifically, knowing it you would be able to realize for instance if you have been selected based on a work you did (and therefore know the customer liked your work) or because the projects team just added you to a customer's list, even if you never worked for that customer before. Also, being able to link a customer ID to a specific job you would also be able to know what tier that customer usually chooses for their projects and what type of content they deal with, or if that customer tends to be "problematic" (e.g. revisions requests, lots of requests/instructions, no context at all, no reply to questions, etc.), and things like that.
I imagine info like that would be quite useful, especially in busy pairs. Since when we see a PT job the message we're shown says "As a courtesy, if you are unable to work on it, please leave a comment to let them know", such info could also be useful in deciding whether you're interested in being in that PT list to begin with... (you could implement an "opt-out feature", for instance, which would also seem more efficient and practical than leaving a comment saying "I'm not available", also seeing how some customers don't seem to read comments at all). Like, if I'm (randomly) added to the PT list of a customer who always orders standard jobs, posts technical copy and/or is "difficult" to deal with, I would probably prefer not to be on that list at all...
Also, judging by the number of "likes" this (and the linked feature requests) received, it seems several translators would like to see a similar feature.
IMHO, this "preferred translator" is just gesture of a good will, nothing more, someone just pushed a button and disappeared forever. So don't bother looking for this mysterious customer)
Hi Alicia,
As far as I know, no, there's no way to do that. A couple feature requests were posted about this, one more than 3 years ago, but nothing so far... ( https://support.gengo.com/entries/21495931-Option-to-search-through-jobs and https://support.gengo.com/entries/64092860-Search-reviewable-and-completed-jobs-by-various-parameters ).
At any rate, I can tell you one thing: since I keep some sort of "register" about those customer IDs (ID, type of content, etc.), I noticed that often those "new preferred translator" messages referred to customers I had never worked for before... Maybe Megan can confirm or deny this, but I believe that often it's the projects team that selects a bunch of "preferred translators" (not just a couple) on behalf of a customer (otherwise I don't see how or why a customer I never worked for would select me as PT). What's more, the first few times I was selected, I thought "cool, now I'm going to get regular work from this customer", but that never happened. I never got regular (or frequent) work from the customers who selected me as their PT, so that's basically pointless. I guess this may be different if you get selected by "big" customers ([customer names have been edited out for privacy reasons], etc.) in very active pairs, otherwise, even as a PT you'll probably still be looking at an empty field with tumbleweeds rolling by.
Thank you both for the comments. Yes, the one time I asked support about the mystery customer it was a pre-selection from the Gengo Projects team. I only found being a PT really made a difference when I was selected for a big customer who later switched to Latin American Spanish. So yes, this has been my experience so far. Still, it would be nice to know.
Thank you both for the comments. Yes, the one time I asked support about the mystery customer it was a pre-selection from the Gengo Projects team. I only found being a PT really made a difference when I was selected for a big customer. It was great for a while, but then they switched to Latin American Spanish and I was out.
So yes, this has been my experience so far. Still, it would be nice to know.
@mirko: Yes, the Projects Team often do add a big list of translators as a preferred translator for certain big customers. And as a company, we would also love to see more regular work from our customers ;)
@Alicia: There is no other way to see who the customer is other than scrolling through your completed jobs. If you can't find a job you did for them before, it's very likely that it is the projects team who have added you. May I ask why it is important for you to know this information other than it just being a "nice to know"?
Well, Mirko, that about sums it all. I was thinking of how to put that, precisely. Thank you!!!!
You're most welcome Alicia ;-)
Basically, almost all of what mirko said is what I am always thinking about. And I also believe the "opt-out feature" would be very practical for many translators and customers.
@ Mirko - I want to thank you for all the time you put into your posts. You always have such good suggestions and comments and word them so well. You're such a valuable member of our community. I've though it for a long time and finally decided it was high time I said it. So thanks!
And I agree with your suggestions (once again).
And I agree with everything LBTranslations just said :-)
I also agree with LBTranslations, although belated, I want to say thank you to mirko!
Thank you for the kind words, LB, cm and ikoeriha. Much appreciated :)
@Alicia: Thanks for clarifying.
@Mirko: Thanks for your explanation. I can see how this would help translators and why you feel it's necessary. I will discuss with my team and see if what you suggest is possible or what they can do. I'll keep you posted.
Hi everyone,
I don't think I read the following reason for the ability to (easily) find the jobs we did for a particular customer :
The ability to know the time(s) at which he/she usually adds the job to gengo's database.
Sometimes you may find that the client is based somewhere on the other side of the earth, and usually posts jobs while you are asleep.
agree with all above.
i was curious about this as well - i was on hiatus from gengo for almost 6 months due to busy summer season other job - and yet received about 15 selections as preferred translator during that time, obviously having been selected by a projects team. i have no idea how many preferred jobs came up for me and slipped right on by since i did not check gengo board for weeks.
i was never informed that i should let the client know if i am unable to work on their job. i heard somewhere that a client can only pick 2 preferred translators? i would imagine/hope that project teams are selecting more than 2 for the bigger clients (eg japan news).
i think it is the opacity of this process that makes people/me feel a little uneasy. i think we have the right to know who chose us and why? it would also be nice to have an explanation of any expected protocol for a preferred job. ie if we can't do it are we supposed to contact the client? if we let preferred jobs from a particular client slip by multiple times are they going to "unprefer" us? lol.
Recently I have seen PT jobs ordered by customers who I have not received "Gengo new preferred translator" e-mails, at least two customers. So, I guess Gengo may have stopped sending the notification partly or wholly.
Hey all, I found this discussion is really helpful and I agreed with most of suggestion @Mirko has made.
For a related topic, I found I even couldn't know the client ID in file job page recently.
I have wrote a separated post in: https://support.gengo.com/entries/98550988-Gengo-stopped-showing-customer-ID-for-file-job-
Would be happy to know how do all of you think.