The results of the Interpreters’ satisfaction survey 2024

NPS: 68
Participants: 294
Satisfaction with the app and customer service: 91%

Background
In July and August 2024, we conducted the annual interpreters’ satisfaction survey. The goal of the survey was to measure the satisfaction level of our interpreters, update ourselves with their wishes and expectations and contribute to the relationship between interpreters and our clients.

In total, 294 interpreters participated in the survey. The survey was anonymous and among those who shared their email address in a separate form, three participants won GoGift -gift cards.

The questions were related to interpreters’ satisfaction with our services, Youpret application, customer service, Net Promoter Score (NPS) ¹, and so on. To get the most out of the responses, we used a diversified range of questions including, multiple choice, checkbox, dropdown, short answer and long answer.

Big thanks to the participants of the survey!
We thank all the interpreters who dedicated their time to participate in the survey! Like always, interpreters' opinions give us a more comprehensive picture of their mentality and help us in setting future goals.

We know there are many things that we can improve and that is why we are open to hear your concerns and wishes. We are happy to share that there was a high level of participation and satisfaction among participants. Compared to the 2023 survey, we had a 37% increase in the number of participants. We are constantly working to improve our services for interpreters as they are our most valuable partners! Below, you will find more details about the results of this year’s survey.

Interpreters would recommend Youpret
Among the total number of respondents, 220 of them would recommend Youpret to other interpreters. This means that 75% of the participants are promoters ² and would recommend Youpret to their colleagues. The core of the question specifies the NPS which can vary from -100 to 100. The survey reveals that this years’ NPS is 68 which falls to the “great” range. Since this is great news for us, we aim to keep the satisfaction level high for the coming years.

The reasons behind interpreters’ satisfaction
Through the survey results, we can witness the most important reasons why interpreters show a high level of satisfaction with our services. The main reasons illustrate Youpret’s strengths as a successful service provider in the interpreting field.

      1. Youpret application
Youpret mobile application is one of the most important causes of interpreters’ satisfaction. Through the application, interpreters can accept job offers, check their calendars, and manage their working life efficiently. Most importantly it enables them to work remotely and from any place they are located at.
They can see the subject and source of the interpretation orders, and the paid fee by the client. They can also give feedback through the app after each interpretation. In this survey, 91% of the respondents were satisfied with Youpret application’s functionality and features and 90% were satisfied with the application's user-friendliness. The quotes below are from the current survey:

“Everything goes conveniently through the app.”

“I am really satisfied with Youpret. Our cooperation works well, and using the application is clear and easy.”

      2. Youpret’s customer service
At Youpret we value the interpreters’ and clients’ experience. As a result, from the beginning we have put efforts into organizing an in-house high quality customer service team. The customer service helps interpreters in situations where there are technical difficulties or cancellations. Responsible and caring attitude towards our interpreters is one of the values of the customer service team. Therefore, we always make sure that they are also heard, for example in reclamation situations. Moreover, as we have a strong customer service team operating in-house, rather than outsourcing to a separate call center, we can assist customers very effectively with our services.

In the survey, 91% of the respondents were satisfied with customer service accessibility and availability and 83% were satisfied with the customer service help in problem solving, changes and cancellations.

Here you can read some of the quotes from the respondents:

      3. Youpret’s treatment towards interpreters
Among the respondents' comments and answers, many highlighted the good behavior and treatment of the Youpret team with interpreters. As a rule, we have always committed to treating our interpreters well and considering their concerns. The fact that 80% of the respondents feel that their skills and expertise are utilized and valued at Youpret, originates from this commitment.

This is not confined to job satisfaction but it also goes beyond, as 74% of the respondents feel like a valued member of Finnish society due to working at Youpret. To reach this level, Youpret team has put many things in order to act responsibly and sustainably in this industry. As an example, we can refer to our efforts in transparency in fees, sending monthly summary feedback to each interpreter, empathetically hearing interpreters’ challenges or difficult feelings after interpretations, holding mental health and stress management training in Helsinki, and providing free Youpret Academy courses.

The other aspect of valuing and good treatment of interpreters is our approach to behave fairly and equally with interpreters. On average, 92% of the respondents feel satisfied that at Youpret, they are treated well regardless of their gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, skin color and ethnic origin, age, citizenship, religion and beliefs, and social and economic status.

It is a great value for us that we have a diverse group of interpreters coming from different backgrounds. According to the survey results, the respondents belong to 47 different nationalities. 66% of them are women and their age varies from below 30 years old to above 60. Below you can read some of the quotes from the survey:

Youpret services in progress of improvement

The survey also provided us with the most important concerns and wishes of our interpreters. In general we can divide these concerns into two categories below: the amount of job offers in spring 2024 and the amount of interpreting fees.

      1. The amount of job offers
In this survey, some interpreters for specific languages mentioned that they experienced quieter work periods over the recent months, even as the number of interpreted minutes and customer orders steadily kept rising. While tight schedules can put a lot of mental strain on interpreters and potentially affect the quality of their work, having occasional quieter periods can actually be a good thing. This temporary lull is mainly because we’ve recently added new interpreters to our network and have been preparing to bid for major client contracts, which helps balance the workload among our team.

In line with our efforts and predictions, in September 2024, we were selected as the primary provider of remote interpreting services for Kela throughout Finland. As a result of this new contract, Youpret would offer more interpreting jobs to its interpreters. You can read more about this new deal here.

Additionally, in the survey, some of the respondents announced their willingness to do more on-site interpreting which is great news as our new contract with Kela includes on-site interpreting services as well, and we already have enthusiastic interpreters who would like to do on-site interpreting!

      2. The amount of interpreting fees
The second concern that some of the interpreters mentioned in the survey is related to the interpreting fees. We understand and hear the concerns of some of the interpreters who referred to the low interpreting fees.

As you might have noticed, the interpreting fees are not decided by Youpret but its clients. Our biggest clients, who provide the most job offers for our interpreters, are public tenders. Public tenders usually hold a bidding competition to choose their favorable interpreting service providers. Besides the quality of interpretation services, affordability of interpreting services is an important criteria for their decision. Interpreting companies, while trying to keep high quality services and availability of interpreters, must reach a compromise for the interpreting fee rate to win those competitions. It is important for us that our valuable interpreters know that we are on their side and do our best to negotiate the fees with clients and higher the interpreting fee.

Conclusion
The overview of the result of the survey picture positive and critical feedback. In general, the respondents have a positive experience by working at Youpret. The positive feedback especially comes from the efforts made by the Youpret team. This satisfaction is due to the user-friendly app, supportive customer service team, and respecting and hearing interpreters.

The critical feedback was with regards to a temporary decrease in the job offers in the spring 2024. We hope that the new contract with Kela would compensate for this decrease and satisfy the interpreters. The second critique which was about the interpretation fees are highly affected by clients’ demands in competitions and hardly decided by Youpret alone. Although we understand this concern and do our best to improve it.

As a conclusion, the interpreters’ satisfaction survey this year had a positive result and opened our eyes to the wishes and concerns that were not communicated in other ways to the Youpret team. We are happy for our interpreters’ contribution and valuable insight. We have prepared and planned the following things to improve interpreters experience with us!

Youpret's development priorities for the coming year

1. Holding a new on-site training in Helsinki about interpreting in 2020s
2. Publishing our first sustainability report
3. Launching new courses in Youpret Academy about topics related to “school system” and “law” interpretations , and “the concept of sustainability”, and updating the existing courses
4. Launching the Youpret app in German and Russian in addition to Finnish, Swedish, English, and Icelandic
5. Providing more job offers through our new contracts, such as Kela
6. Extending our customer service team members.

Author

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Sustainability Coordinator Aida has a master's degree in Environmental Policy and Law from the University of Eastern Finland and her first master's degree is in human rights law. At Youpret, she has focused on topics related to sustainability and sustainability reporting as well as interpreters and customer satisfaction surveys. In her free time, Aida likes to dance and play badminton.

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<sup>1 NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. Simplified, the term answers the question: How likely would you recommend the company's service or products? The NPS result is measured from a minimum value of -100 to a maximum value of +100. A score from -100 to 0 “needs more improvement”, between 0 to 30 is in the “good” range, from 30 to 70 is “great” and above 70 is “excellent”.

2 Promoter is one of the group categories (other categories are passives and detractors) in evaluating the NPS. Promoters are those respondents who, from 0 to 10, would recommend the company with the likelihood of 9 and 10.</sup>

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