CyraCom Answers the Call for More Differentiation in Telephone Interpreting

Only four days after T&I Business observed the need for greater differentiation in phone interpreting, CyraCom sent out a press release announcing that it would release proprietary training materials to advance national healthcare interpreter certification efforts. This is a nice announcement to promote CyraCom training and quality, but not the main point of differentiation I'm referring to. Hidden at the bottom of that press release, in the company description, was a short mention that "CyraCom recently completed an extensive audit of its management system and processes, and has been awarded ISO 9001:2008 certification - the first over-the-phone interpretation company in the US to achieve this distinction." Yesterday, CyraCom finally made the ISO certification announcement official by blasting the internet with press releases.

Though clearly not so common in phone interpretation, ISO certification has become very common in the translation industry. So some non-US translations companies that happen to also provide a little phone interpretation have been ISO certified for some time. Before CyraCom's announcement, Sweden-based Semantix, the world's 6th largest OPI firm, appears to have been the largest OPI firm to have achieved ISO certification based on the older ISO 9001:2000 standard.

CyraCom is the first in the US, but not the only US OPI firm now with ISO certification. A quick Google search for "telephone interpreting iso certification" reveals that another company by the name of Voiance, which shares the same executives and same Tucson street address as CyraCom, sent out a press release at the same time announcing it was "one of the first over-the-phone interpretation companies in the US to achieve this distinction." So the CyraCom group not only has a company that is differentiated for quality with a healthcare focus, but also a "sister company" that can possibly differentiate itself for quality in general phone interpreting that includes financial, government, insurance, and other industries. (Voiance describes CyraCom as both a "parent" and a "sister" - what a strange family tree!)

Other OPI companies are likely to soon copy CyraCom and Voiance by achieving ISO certification, just as they are also likely to learn from CyraCom's now open-sourced assessment and training materials. This could be difficult to maintain, but at least for now CyraCom has a good start in staying ahead of the curve.

In any case, ISO certification alone is not enough to ensure quality in the language industry, and the highest quality comes from adopting a combination of quality assurance procedures and metrics, as Elanex does for written translation. CyraCom is proving its quality to potential customers not only by being the first to obatin the latest ISO certification, but also by receiving the exclusive endorsement of the American Hospital Association, and also by leading the charge for good national medical interpreter certification. Many have noted that everyone firm in the language industry claims to provide the best quality, so staying ahead of the curve in proving that to quality-conscious healthcare customers is a difficult task. It is not one thing, but this consistent and concerted effort that will create differentiation in an otherwise seemingly commoditized industry.

Final point: So, I didn't realize that this blog was so influential and that my call for more differentiation in the OPI industry would be answered so quickly - within 4 days! It's possible that CyraCom started the certification process a little sooner (many months sooner), but just in case I'll try to use this possible influence to my advantage. Keep an eye out for future posts about how Microsoft and Google could greatly improve their localization strategy by investing billions of dollars in a small translation business blog like T&I Business.