For almost five years now, Teneo Linguistics Company (TLC) has been using Plunet BusinessManager and is constantly impressed by the wide variety of features in the business and translation management solution.
We talked to CEO Hana Laurenzo about their decision for Plunet, their favorite features, and the goals they are aiming for with Plunet’s support in the future.
How did you handle your translation and business management processes before Plunet?
We used a different Translation Management System, similar to Plunet. It was sufficient for our needs when we first started using it, but was much more cumbersome than Plunet and did not have as much functionality. Plus, their customer support was lacking. The product was developed by a young company that could not handle fast growth and, as a result, their customer support fell by the wayside.
Switching to Plunet helped shine a light on many opportunities for efficiency improvement including extended functionality, ease of use, detailed training, and incredible customer support.
What was the turning point when you decided that you need another TMS solution for your challenges?
First, with our previous technical provider, we were experiencing long-lasting outages where neither we nor our vendors or clients could use the system. Coupled with their lack of customer support and “office hours” on European Standard Time only, this was a troublesome scenario, to say the least.
Then, the makers of the system advertised an integration with QuickBooks and sold it as a “ready-to-go” solution. After using it for a while, we discovered it was categorizing our QuickBooks transactions incorrectly and erratically. Unraveling the accounting mismatches took almost three months and a lot of money paid to accountants and CPAs. After complaining to the maker of the TMS, we discovered that the integration was, in fact, in beta mode only. At that point we were ready for a different solution.
Why did you choose Plunet BusinessManager in the end?
After researching three other management solutions, we chose Plunet because it offered a variety of features, an excellent onboarding experience, helpful support materials, and incredible technical support. There was also an overall ease of use to Plunet’s platform compared to the other options.
Which features do you like best in Plunet according to your specific purposes?
Some of our favorite features include:
- Workflow view and the ease of building workflows and customer-specific templates.
- Automatic vendor invoicing.
- Ability for customers to request new projects through Plunet’s secure portal. Our customers also enjoy that the portal is easy to use.
- Plunet’s integration that allows new linguists to access Plunet via our website, which submits their information directly into our database so we can evaluate their application.
Plunet has so many features that even after a few years of using it, we are still learning about new ones. In fact, we recently had a session with our Plunet contact here in the US to find out which new features are available.
Which goals do you want to achieve with Plunet?
- We definitely want increased automation and workflow efficiency, to allow our Project Managers to spend more time tailoring workflows to customer needs, and less time manually executing processes.
- TLC holds two ISO certifications (9001 and 17100) and we use Plunet’s additional module QualityManager to generate documentation in support of our ISO certification goals. In this way, Plunet is helping us with our continuous quality improvement goals.
- We continually work on better templates for our automated correspondence with customers and resources, which leads to improved communication overall.
- Another goal we want to achieve is better tracking of quote rejections, and the reasons for them. This data helps improve our marketing and selling strategies.
We think Plunet is doing a fantastic job continually developing their product and adapting it to the needs of the market and its customers. There are consistently new Plunet features to discover that allow us to grow and improve!
Are you planning on acquiring any more Plunet modules or integrations in the future?
Yes. One integration that we have not used yet, is a CAT tool integration. It is most likely the next Plunet feature we will incorporate into our processes. We are currently preparing for the integration, in order to achieve a smooth and efficient transition.
Thank you for talking to us.
About Teneo Linguistics Company
Teneo Linguistics Company (TLC) is a technology-driven company that offers a full suite of language services for international corporations. With a combination of technology, services, and proven translation expertise, TLC empowers our clients to simplify translation processes, reduce turnaround times, and make improvements that drive directly to the bottom-line.
