Photobox collaborated with Unbabel to set up a translation process that would integrate seamlessly into its new content platform to ensure quality translations for its 30M+ users globally.
Highlights
A service as personal as printing photos and cherished memories needs carefully considered content and language to match.
As Photobox grew exponentially over the years, expanding into new markets and languages, it had to ensure its content was translated to the required standard in each of its target languages. To do this at speed and scale, Photobox required a process that could blend effortlessly with its new content platform.
Photobox’s partnership with Unbabel meant simplified budget management, reduced need for training or supporting new users when placing translation orders, and enhanced collaboration across teams. Through Unbabel’s platform, Photobox was able to cut translation risks and costs, obtained shorter deadlines, and increased efficiency through automation.
About Photobox
Founded in 2000, Photobox is a European market leader in online photo printing that offers photo products, gifts, and high-quality photo printing services. It operates in 19 countries across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
The challenge
Photobox’s main challenge was ensuring high-quality translations while building a process that could integrate into its new content platform, to provide seamless ordering for Photobox customers, in any language.
The process needed to be streamlined to allow the central content team to focus on governance and supervision, rather than on managing daily needs.
After a rigorous RFP evaluation, Photobox assigned Unbabel two key tasks: The translation of its content and the education and empowerment of its devolved brand and functional teams.
“One of the main reasons we went with Unbabel was because we felt they would be able to help with setting up the right process, involve our native language speakers and engage with our tech. And they have.”
— Rachel Holdsworth
Head of Content, Photobox
The solution
Onboarding
Through exploratory conversations, Unbabel invested time in understanding the needs of each Photobox team and how they operated, focusing on the aspects of the process they valued most.
Unbabel addressed:
- Assets: After assessing the existing style guides, translation memories, and terminologies, Unbabel helped Photobox select and optimize the most valuable assets to the translation process.
- Content workflows: Organized multiple streams of content stored in different systems, authored by different departments and with specific approval needs. By teasing out each team’s specific requirements, Unbabel could build workflows and automation processes tailored to their needs.
- Custom processing and file filtering: Working closely with Photobox’s technical team across key formats, Unbabel set up a base of translation filters, which pull out the segments from each file that need to be translated, with the option to create additional filters as needed. Now, translations can be ordered without human input required to select the areas for translation, avoiding errors and improving speed.
- Team management within the Unbabel ordering platform: Unbabel’s online ordering platform helps clients to manage their teams as needed, from sharing ordering templates to establishing the responsibilities of each new team member through simple, intuitive tools.
“Following a content migration to a new website platform came the need to have constant, quality translations. We were looking for a partner, not for a transactional relationship.
Our product managers and tech developers are all so impressed that the Unbabel team can not only talk to our copywriters about translations and to me about process, but also to our tech teams about APIs and pulling content from our website.
They’ve taken everything we’ve thrown at them, delivering it all and making my job easy.”
— Rachel Holdsworth
Head of Content, Photobox
Unbabel’s impact
100% of Photobox’s translation orders were devolved to the Unbabel ordering platform or API. This amounted to:
- Better overview: Through Unbabel’s ordering platform, Photobox received access to real-time data on projects, quotes, invoices, and costs, which simplified budget management.
- Easier governance: The intuitiveness of the platform meant new staff didn’t need extensive training or support to get started.
- Centralized assets without standardization: Filtering content types and automated workflows for new content allowed different teams to work with centralized assets while maintaining an internal approach.
- Bolstered team collaboration: Photobox teams could work on shared templates, add and review terminology, and revise quotes directly through one centralized tool — saving time and money, and improving the overall experience.
- Increased automation, faster deployment, reduced risks and costs: Thanks to its partnership with Unbabel, Photobox was able to create a more automated end-to-end process, thus reducing time to market, risks, and costs.
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