When our clients ask us about the pros and cons of signing up to our telephone interpreting service, we are always honest as the choice between telephone interpreting and face-to-face interpreting isn’t always obvious.
Whether you opt to communicate via a telephone interpreter or arrange for an interpreter to attend on-site will obviously depend on the situation. While a telephone interpreting service is perfect for 2 or 3 participants, anymore people and the communication can be more difficult not only for the client, but for the telephone interpreter too.
Because of the nature of telephone interpreting, a client can’t necessarily rely on the same telephone interpreter being available each time the service is accessed. This can obviously sometimes result in the sense of a lack of continuity as the telephone interpreter would have no background knowledge or context regarding a particular case.
Finally, using a telephone interpreting service over a face-to-face interpreter does mean that the interpreter does not have access to body language or facial expressions. It is for this reason that some of our clients prefer not to use our telephone interpreting service for sensitive situations or in a medical setting.
It remains to be said however that the vast majority of our clients who decide to sign up for our telephone interpreting service use the service again and again. They have access to interpreters in over 150 languages 24/7 regardless of the time zone they live in. They find the relatively low cost of the service attractive as they only pay for the number of minutes they use, and they definitely appreciate the fact that the service is available at more-or-less no notice. You can sign up to our telephone interpreting service and have access to the linguists in as little as 10 minutes.
Further information
You can read more about our telephone interpreting service here.
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