TERMINOLOGY MANAGEMENT… NOW WHAT?

TERMINOLOGY MANAGEMENT… NOW WHAT?

Today’s market is looking for fast, easy solutions with a high degree of accuracy.

Customers are increasingly more demanding, and must be given ever more attention. They must be able to instantly pinpoint how a brand will be useful in their lives. What is the best way for a brand to meet its customers’ needs? The company’s very personality proves that it is not only through actions – but also through words and how they are said – that the customer is reached.

This is why it is frustrating when we take hours to create immaculate content, carefully choosing the wording, voice and tone of the message we want to convey, without ultimately achieving our desired effect. Something has gone wrong when a message reaches its audience and… there seems to be some sort of barrier, especially in international markets.

A brand must always speak with a single voice in every channel, and in every situation, with all of its target audiences in all languages. This voice is the verbal identity of the brand which reveals its personality and conveys its values. It is through written and spoken language that customers can understand the personality of your brand and identify with it. Language can open the door to new opportunities.

How can you speak to the entire world in just one voice?

Terminology management is the best way to ensure that the brand always says the same thing, regardless of channel or language. A consistent brand voice creates confidence and clarity among readers.

Take the following outstanding example: Continental defined four strategic corporate values aimed at unifying its company culture regardless of the region: Trust, Passion To Win, Freedom To Act and For One Another. Its Portuguese employees understand, feel and live these values, thanks to consistent communication – which gives strength to the brand’s identity.

To ensure that these values are conveyed consistently in every part of the world, there are guidelines on how values should be communicated in each language:

In this way, the brand determines how it wants to communicate, according to the reality of each audience, but always with a single voice.

If this management did not exist, Continental’s culture would not be so clear and consistent in the different markets where it does business, i.e. the use of different words or expressions for the same concept would result in confusion and a negative impact.

In this way, professional translators, responsible for conveying the message, can ensure – thanks to the use of glossaries – that these concepts will always be carried over in the desired manner, consistently and coherently. In the end, the Continental brand earns trust and credibility with its audience.

Furthermore, by properly defining terms in various languages, terminology management ensures the success of search engine optimization (SEO). Using the right words in each language for online content will allow your website to be found in each market.

Finally, good terminology management will save hours correcting diverse documents in different languages, because the same concept has been translated in a different way.

Take the example of the bilingual glossary of Banco de Portugal, where the translation of the term “administração fiscal” is “tax authorities”. If the glossary did not specify Banco de Portugal’s correct/preferred expression, the translation might be “tax administration” or “fiscal authority” instead. This tool thus allows a term to be translated in a consistent manner, whether in Portuguese or in English.

Take some time to analyse this issue with your multilingual translation partner to ensure that your brand speaks in only one voice to every part of the world.