Alconost.com

Planning Our Alconost Review

After receiving an increasing number of requests to evaluate Alconost, we finally decided to conduct our Alconost review and give you the answers you’ve been seeking. As always, our preparation stage involved thorough research into the company, its background, services it provides, prices it asks for them, as well as quality it delivers. We determined the latter by placing an order and waiting for results.

We started with reading available Alconost reviews. Many people indicated their satisfaction with its services, but longer reviews focused on negative experiences. From what we established, company has been functioning for 16 years, but despite such a solid background, it’s not particularly active. Over these years, it worked only on 1500 localization projects and produced around 1000 videos. The prominent clients it acquired comprise 2000 companies, most of which contacted it for small or one-time orders. In general, Alconost provides various translation services, specializing in IT and security software application sectors. It also focuses on video content and covers marketing initiatives — but let’s find out more details together.

Services Offered

Apart from online advertising, PPC services, SEO translation services, and localization, Alconost.com also creates video content for its clients, develops trailers, engages in editing, and ensures script production. There are more than 70 languages covered here, although most language combinations involve English, you can translate English to Karenni here. We were relatively impressed because while company’s scale of operations isn’t as vast as we expected, its focus is very specialized. Few translation companies make such an emphasis on IT or marketing. In fact, we were so curious that we endeavored to learn even more.

Numerous people require quality game localization services, and Alconost has this option. It entails adding voice-overs to enhance game’s audiovisuals, continuous localization, which may require adjustment of designs for specific audiences, and assistance with developing alternative game scenarios. In addition, there is localization of mobile applications provided. It includes localization itself and adoption of extra scenarios. Mobile application developers can upload their application files into website’s cloud and have their files translated by Alconost experts.

Further, this agency offers online advertising consulting services. They comprise branding and rebranding, marketing analysis, client’s website audit, and competitor assessment. An online advertising audit presupposes keyword analysis, landing page analysis, and development of recommendations for ad campaigns as well as optimization options. Alconost could also create turnkey pay-per-click advertising for you. It heavily relies on other advantages it has accumulated, some of which come from its partnership with Google and its ability to provide its clients with detailed and effective PPC campaigns. So, Alconost is extremely useful for businessmen and companies. The only question is, are all these services effective, or do they have enough flaws to chase clients away after their first order?

Prices Set by Alconost

Payment for translation services provided by this agency is organized through Public Offer Agreements, and generally, currency is the US dollar. We had to try hard to locate specifics of these prices: the firm has them listed, but it seems reluctant to display them openly. Costs are determined based on number of characters in your text. For example, to translate something from Chinese into English, you’ll be charged with $159.1 for a thousand characters with spaces. The numbers differ depending on the difficulty of the material to be translated and languages selected. The price we had to pay was higher than average, so we mostly consider it a drawback of Alcon company. From the add-ons, you can ask for a faster delivery, which will cost you 30% of the order price.

Quality of Services

We asked for a translation of 5 pages of IT-based documents from Chinese to Russian. Our deadline was 2 weeks, which is more than enough even for a busy translator. To our surprise, the order didn’t arrive when it should have. It damaged our impression a lot because it’s a vivid demonstration of unprofessionalism. The operators working for Alconost.com apologized and promised to resolve the situation as soon as possible. True to their word, our order was submitted within the next thirty minutes, and we immediately sent it to our Russian expert for testing.

Expert’s opinion was mixed. On the one hand, all points have been conveyed accurately, but on the other one, there were some serious fluency issues. Company promised us impeccable editing and proofreading. This process involves multiple experts working on the same material to ensure its accuracy, but contrary to all promises, our document was flawed. We asked for a revision, and after some struggle, it was granted to us. Revised file looked much better, but our overall impression remained uncertain.

Pros and Cons

As with every other agency, this one has its strong and weak sides. Here’s what they include.

Pros

• Translation services by Alcon Company are carried out by translators in their native language. It helps ensure quality along with accuracy.
• The website offers multiple professional services that are essential for every business, especially ones that are planning on going international.
• Translation services have a heavy focus on the IT field, meaning that the firm hires the majority of specialists in this area.
• Translations are accurate and revision options are available in case of any difficulties.

Cons

• Localization services offered for Android and IOS applications are limited to just five languages.
• Most of translation options provided by Alconost are specialized in English. For example, if you are seeking Russian to English translation services, you’ll find them, but if you need Russian to French assistance, agency might be unable to help you.
• Late delivery. Obviously, our example cannot be seen as universal, but you should keep in mind that 100% timeliness is not guaranteed here.
• Lack of proofreading and editing. Unless you pay for them separately, you might receive a document full of errors, which was the case with us.

Summary of Alcon Company’s Performance

As you see, Alconost provides a wide range of services. It employs professional translators, but not all of them can do their job well, which is why we hesitate about including this firm into our best translation sites list. There is no certainty that your project will be translated accurately and fluently. Late deadlines are also an issue: we saw complaints about it online and we experienced the same problem during our evaluation. Sure, the delay wasn’t disastrous, but we gave the team more than enough time to get the job done. If the agency accepts the order and receives payment for it, it’s obligated to honor requirements of the client. Late orders aren’t acceptable.

So, if you think about using Alconost, it’s not a bad idea, but better place an order well in advance before your real deadline. You must allow time for a possible delay and/or revision. Make sure that your particular language pair is covered and check how much it’s going to cost. The prices the website charges are a little higher as compared to other agencies, but overall, they are acceptable. You will be charged according to the complexity of your project, languages selected, and availability of translators for this particular pair.