{"id":70678,"date":"2023-11-27T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T15:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/?post_type=case-study&p=70678"},"modified":"2024-06-22T03:26:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T01:26:10","slug":"what3words","status":"publish","type":"case-study","link":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/customers\/what3words\/","title":{"rendered":"When Words Matter: Phrase Helps what3words Address the World in Any Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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what3words<\/span><\/a> launched in 2013 to make it easier for people to find places and get help particularly when in an emergency. Many places in the world, such as rural areas and parks, lack a conventional street address. So what3words divided the world into 3-meter squares and assigned each square its own unique three-word identifier to help people find and share precise locations.<\/span><\/p>\n

People and businesses around the world now use what3words for deliveries and logistics, emergency services, and outdoor activities. The London-based company has scaled from four languages to 60 as it expanded quickly. what3words now operates across the globe in almost every continent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Right from the very beginning, one of the main ambitions of the company was that we wanted to become the global standard for addressing,” said Jamie Brown, Chief Languages Services Officer at what3words. “Given our product literally involves words, translations aren’t only to help people to use the product; it is literally the product itself.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The company now employs nearly 160 people, with a language team that has three full-time employees and close relationships with nearly 100 freelance translators, including roughly 15 lead linguists in key languages.<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge<\/span><\/p>\n

what3words’ journey from manual localization to seamless global expansion<\/h2>\n

When what3words launched in the UK, it operated primarily in English as it built out its product. When the company began to expand to other countries and languages, its languages team oversaw all linguistic research for product development, and its localization needs were restricted to the marketing department and outsourced to an agency.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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As the company launched additional languages and developed new technologies such as speech and optical character recognition, it needed to localize all supporting assets. This included consumer acquisition marketing assets, press releases, product user interfaces for the app, customer support FAQs, email templates, and marketing materials. The languages team took over localization and built the function from scratch.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

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It was all pretty manual for a while. And then, the bigger the volume, the more languages we got, the more time-consuming it was, from an administrative point of view, to update our app.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Jamie<\/p>\n

Jamie Brown
\nChief Languages Services Officer
\nwhat3words<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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what3words knew it wanted to move away from a translation agency model, as well as its reliance on Google Sheets and, Google Docs. It needed a solution that could efficiently support and accelerate the growing company’s localization processes as it continues expansion into new markets and languages.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Solution<\/span><\/p>\n

How Phrase became what3words’ game-changer in global localization<\/h2>\n

what3words chose Phrase Strings<\/a> as its localization management platform for its product localization. The company transitioned from using Google Sheets and Google Docs which it was using for most of its marketing needs when it was pretty low volume. \u201cAs the volume and languages increased we brought marketing content into Phrase, which is working well,\u201d Jamie said.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The what3words team uses the collaborative design tool Figma as part of its product design process. The <\/span>Figma plugin<\/span><\/a> with Phrase Strings allows translators to easily preview designs and understand the user journey, ensuring the translated content works in context for a more efficient and seamless end-to-end process.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\t\t\t

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Stats & facts<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

The measurable impact of Phrase on what3word\u2019s business<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t
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25% time saved<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
on administrative tasks<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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60+ languages<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
processed through Phrase<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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10 hours saved<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
per app<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Why Phrase?<\/span><\/h2>\n

what3words was on a mission to find the ideal platform to manage translations and localization for over 60 languages\u2014a task that, if done manually, could easily turn chaotic.<\/p>\n

“Attempting to manually handle the translation and localization of so many languages would be a recipe for disaster,” remarked Jamie. “Without Phrase, we would have found ourselves allocating a significant chunk of our budget just on administration\u2014endlessly copying and pasting. With such a vast number of languages, streamlining this administrative aspect becomes critical.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Before settling on Phrase, what3words evaluated several localization technologies to help scale its localization function.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

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We explored multiple localization solutions, but Phrase emerged as the indisputable frontrunner.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Jamie<\/p>\n

Jamie Brown
\nChief Languages Services Officer
\nwhat3words<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Jamie reflected on this, stating, \u201cPhrase was tailor-made for our specific needs, especially concerning product translation app strings, which was our primary administrative challenge.”<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn terms of launching a new language version in the app, this now takes roughly five to six weeks to complete a ‘launch pack’ with 1,000 strings for each new language\u201d stated Jamie, \u201cThe newly-onboarded translator benefits from both context screenshots and being able to view previous questions from translators\/replies from the what3words languages\/product teams on the content in each string. This really helps speed up the process and ensures it runs smoothly and efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\t\t\t

\n \"Canal<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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