What are the best Translation Management Systems in localization when it comes to customer support? In this video, you’ll see my comprehensive test of the 14 most popular TMS platforms.
A translation management system is the heart of any successful localization program, enabling seamless and efficient translation workflows. But what if it breaks down? Hi, I’m Andrej and in this video I’ll show you how I tested the customer support of the 14 most popular TMS platforms. I focused on three main criteria.
The response time, the quality of the support, and the overall user experience of submitting a query. No team got the maximum score, but two were pretty darn close. Stay until the end to find out who has the best support team.
First, a quick rundown of our testing process. We sent two inquiries to each TMS. One from Jeff Thomason, the CEO of a fake company Alien Suite.
Jeff will serve as our potential client on the buyer side, looking for a technology solution to localize their WordPress website into 10 languages. The other inquiry was from a freelancer who goes by the name of Lucy McLane. And Lucy signed up to each platform, but needed help with the editor.
I tried to contact each TMS around the same time. Jeff sent all his questions on Tuesday afternoon Pacific time, while Lucy needed help on Wednesday around 6am Pacific. Once I sent everything out and started getting responses back, it was time to organize all the data and start the rating.
I couldn’t come up with anything better, so I decided to do what every manager would do, create a spreadsheet. Starting with the response times for both the client and freelancer inquiries, I logged the times in hours and created a color scale. The 99 hours mark you see here means we never got a reply.
According to Lingohub CEO, the email from Jeff ended up in their spam folder. But for Transifex and XTM, we used the contact forms on their website so the messages had to end up somewhere in their system. On the freelancer side, things got a little bit complicated.
Localizejs and Smartling didn’t even allow me to create a freelancer account for Lucy, so I didn’t send any inquiries. This of course puts them at a disadvantage, but more on that later. There is however no excuse for MemoQ and Wordbee, they just didn’t get back to Lucy.
With the time data in place, it was time to rate each TMS. I decided to max this category at 3 stars because to me, quality of the reply matters more. Replies under 24 hours got 3 stars.
Only Smartcat took a bit more than a day, so they got 2 stars. Lingohub, Transifex and XTM got 0 as they never replied to Jeff. Our freelancer Lucy saw a lot chat widgets in the UI with many platforms replying within minutes, so everything under 1 hour earned them 3 stars.
Smartcat and Trados took almost a day and therefore received 2 hours. MemoQ and Wordbee ended up with 0 stars for no reply. Next up, the quality of replies.
Our COO Jeff asked 3 questions about WordPress support, API limitations and pricing. Direct answers to all questions with no bushy sales got 5 stars. Crowdin, Lokalise, Localazy, POEditor and Trados nailed it with maximum stars.
Wordbee and Phrase lost a star for not addressing the API question. Phrase also sounded like I had already committed to something which I didn’t like, so I took another star down. MemoQ got 3 stars even though they didn’t answer any of my questions.
The person asked about my location and maybe they waited for my reply before answering everything. We’ll never know. Smartcat got 2 stars for only linking the pricing page and instead of answering the other questions, they were pushing me to book a demo.
Localizejs said they’re here to answer any questions, but answered 0 of my questions. Smartling also didn’t provide any help answering the email and just wanted to get me on a call. So, that’s 1 star each.
No answers, just spammy follow-ups. What about Lucy the Freelancer? Full score for Lingohub, Localazy, Phrase, POEditor, Transifex and Trados all gave helpful guidance. Crowdin and Lokalise linked documentation but didn’t address JSON files directly, so 4 stars.
Smartcat and XTM scored just 1 star because all they did was send me a copypasta. I really hate when people reply with their templates and don’t provide any direct answers to questions you ask. Scoring user experience was about how easy it was to submit inquiries.
Lokalise, Phrase, Smartcat, Smartling, Transifex and Wordbee got 5 stars. Crowdin and Lingohub lost a star because though I was signed in as Lucy, I still had to re-enter my email in the help widget. POEditor’s widget also cost them 1 star because it felt a bit too plain compared to the others, making me unsure when and if ever I’d get a reply.
Localizejs scored 3 stars only for the client side as they don’t have any general contact form. If you want to get in touch, your only way to do it is through a book demo form. Localazy also lost 2 points because their intercom widget didn’t work in Chrome while it worked completely fine for other platforms.
MemoQ and Trados are both desktop apps where I couldn’t find any way to contact their support. Fortunately, I found it in their emails when signing up. XTM got only 1 star and it’s a good example of how to make your users feel frustrated.
As a freelancer signed into their system, when I wanted to ask for help, they redirected me to a Jira Service Desk portal where I had to sign up again just to submit a ticket. Ridiculous. Everyone started with 5 stars in the spam category just so that I could remove some stars.
Phrase lost won for a random SlaterCon invite, but otherwise it didn’t spam me. Trados and XTM sent several emails despite me never signing up to anything, minus stars for both. It’s funny that XTM never replied to Jeff’s email but kept sending spam.
So what’s the conclusion? I mentioned XTM a few times and I hope you agree with me that this is not the way to help your customers. Localizejs and Smartling could have reached for more stars, but these platforms don’t offer anything to freelancers. But their replies to Jeff suggest we didn’t miss much.
The top spots go to Lokalise and POEditor, scoring the most 25 stars. Quick and complete replies without spamming. Close behind are Crowdin, Localazy and Phrase.
Minor issues but overall great support. I hope you found this video useful. Thanks for watching and big shout out to all the customer support people who did really well in this test.
