Dialog One

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the principal of a Pre-K through fifth-grade elementary school.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dialog One?

Many of our families at our school speak different languages. This can be a barrier especially when you’re trying to communicate information about the students. We needed a service that would be able to support our translation and interpretation needs. This is especially important in a virtual environment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Normally we would have interpreters on site, but since the pandemic, we adjusted to having video interpreters. Dialog One was able to provide us with that service.

We have an open account with them and are able to use this on-demand service for any type of situation which has just been incredible. Whenever we encounter a need immediately, we can easily get in contact with them and there’ll be someone to provide the interpretation. From our experience, it only took around 30 seconds to a minute for someone to answer.

What is the team composition?

I’m working directly with Roberto (Founder & CEO).

How did you come to work with Dialog One?

Our school has worked with them for in-person interpretation in the past, and we’ve always had a good relationship with them. When we needed to expand to this current situation, I connected with Roberto and he explained to me how their plan would be beneficial for us. We spent a couple of months exploring and testing and in the end, it worked out super smooth.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $5,000–$10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Dialog One in October 2018 and the relationship has been ongoing since then.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

With the pandemic happening this year, we had to adapt to a virtual environment. So far, we’ve had such a positive relationship with Roberto and Dialog One. I asked for feedback from my staff, and there was not a single person who had an issue working with them.

The experience has just been great. The interpreters would always show up on time, come in, and work with the families. They have been fantastic. This type of service is still brand new so we’re still figuring out the nuances.

How did Dialog One perform from a project management standpoint?

From a communication standpoint, Roberto and I would always get in touch and talk about how to further improve the service for us. What is the future? How can we expand and make it even better? These are just some of the things we think about. 

For the service they provide, we use Google Hangout and they also have a Zoom option. Their onboarding is very easy and simple as all I have to do is call through Google Meet and then we’ll have access to around 190+ languages. Keep in mind that there are about 25% of the languages we need to pre-schedule but some of those languages are kind of obscure and they’re not really represented in our school.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Working with Roberto has probably been the most impressive thing about working with Dialog One. I really appreciate that he stands behind his product and stakes his reputation on it. He’s just really impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything that necessarily needs improvement from my lens. I’m very satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My recommendation is to just do it and trust the success they’ll bring.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the English learner program administrator at a school district with 1200 English learners in our system. We also have many recently arrived refugees, so our top languages are Spanish, Hmong, Karen, Somali, and Nepali.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dialog One?

We needed help with interpretation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We do a lot more interpretation with Dialog One tools that are youth-oriented. They’re almost like a FaceTime App. They’ve been really instrumental in assisting us with home visits and easily connecting with families so busy teachers can just click buttons and be able to get an interpreter. They do word for word translations and cultural nuances, too.

What is the team composition?

We have eleven cultural liaisons and at least one representative for each of our top languages.

How did you come to work with Dialog One?

I’ve known Roberto (Founder & CEO), and he’s a great human being. He also has a real mission and cares deeply about the quality of the interpretation services that are provided. He truly sees it as an important connector for humanity.

He’s a very impressive person, and I worked with him in a previous school district. When I came here, I was in a position to take more responsibility for interpretation translation and I knew I could trust his quality and responsiveness.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend at least $100,000 per year at least.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2016, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’ve done some surveys about their work and the results have been very positive. In education, there’s very little patience; if it doesn’t work, you’re going to hear about it. The fact that I only ever hear minor things that can easily be fixed is awesome. Their quality of interpretation is great. The company is responsive whenever we need something.

People have been really happy with their service and it’s a huge weight off of my shoulders. They don’t always think to contact families in their native language in in education, which leaves them behind. Having a clunky interpretation service can add to that strain. For me, it’s very exciting to see how much our usage has grown because it’s so easy for teachers. It’s made a huge difference in our connections with our families.

How did Dialog One perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very open and I tend to be last minute and messy. I’ve found the Dialog One staff to be very responsive. Whether it’s text, or email, or a phone call we get connected. I appreciate having that maneuverability in our communication to handle things. They also have an excellent customer support number that teachers use all the time. They have a flexible responsive style. We have new teachers starting every year, so we were able to give them a list of new staff members, and they uploaded it so they could all get started with accounts right away.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t know if people who are monolingual and haven’t worked a lot with interpreters truly understand the benefit of a very well trained and qualified interpreter. It’s clear they invest in their interpreters and give them quality training.

If there are ever any concerns, they always follow up. They’re just as affordable as other interpreters that we’ve hired and their quality is much better. Sometimes only people who’ve worked in the interpretation business can understand the nuances that. They’ve been able to find us a wide range of interpreters for even low incidence languages.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re continually being innovative. They’ve just rolled out a guide on how to have an interpreter join a Zoom call. Maybe they could improve on the communication of their pricing structures. I like that it’s negotiable pricing, but it’s not always as clear as I want it to be.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to talk to Roberto and give them a chance. They’ll prove themselves and make it happen.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director at ACDA of Minnesota. We’re an educational nonprofit professional music organization that services about 750 choir directors in Minnesota. Our purpose is to provide professional development opportunities throughout the year, and we sponsor major performing events.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dialog One?

In order to have as much impact on our diverse communities, we wanted to attract students and families to be interested in our honor choir program. 

We reached out to Dialog One to translate our scholarship application forms into Spanish, Somali, and Hmong. This would allow us to be able to reach out more effectively to families and offer scholarship support for their students to participate in statewide events.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dialog One translated a single-page application form of about 300–400 words. It contained personal profile information, such as the student’s name and age, as well as family profile information.

What is the team composition?

Frank (Business Development Manager) and Roberto (Founder & CEO) were the leaders, and they brought in three translators from their staff. 

How did you come to work with Dialog One?

We’d been tossing the idea around for a number of years but we didn’t know where to find a partner. We talked about it at a committee meeting, and one of the members gave us information about Dialog One. I contacted them and realized that they were exactly what we needed.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $540. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We made our initial inquiry in mid-July and had a conversation with Dialog One. They started the project in the first part of August and they gave us the copy in mid-August.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Any time you collaborate with the unknown, you expect that there may be some glitches along the way because your partner may not know what you’re looking for. That hasn’t been the case with Dialog One.

It feels like we’ve been working together for 10 years. They picked up on exactly what we were interested in doing. We provided a copy of what they needed to do, and we were in consultation with Frank and Roberto about what we needed, and they completely understood our needs. 

On top of that, as a bonus, they were just the nicest people to work with. They had an enormous sense of integrity in what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it for us.

How did Dialog One perform from a project management standpoint?

Dialog One asked all the right questions to get the project launched. They took that feedback and then honed the production experience at their level, bringing in their translators and making sure that the project was up to specification. 

Before we parted ways, they sent me copies because they wanted me to make sure that it looked at all right and that all of the information was what was accurate. I was able to look at the form, and the spacing, font, bullet points, and highlights were all identical to the English version. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The enormous integrity that Frank and Roberto have for their company and for assisting folks like us in trying to market our programs to a more diverse community was impressive. In the event that we have a future need, I won't hesitate at all to go back to Dialog One and support their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no suggestions. I wish I’d known about them years ago.