When running a manufacturing or distribution plant, your main goal is to get the job done as effectively as possible while keeping everyone safe. However, there are times where you’ll need to step out and provide additional services, including to outsiders who might be visiting the plant. If you’re in upper management, you might wonder why becoming a plant tour guide is necessary, as you’d probably rather focus your time on staying on top of production. However, plant tours are important and can prove especially effective. So, whether you’re new to the world of plant tours or you’re looking for ways to improve, here is what you need to know about the importance and effectiveness of a plant tour guide.
Importance and Effectiveness of a Plant Tour
Showing Off The Facility To Executives
If you are a smaller facility, the owner of the company might be there at all times. However, as the business grows, new plants might pop up, which takes the owner and executives away from the plant. While they are not there regularly, they will want to take the occasional plant tour. Management will need to know how to highlight what is going on and the upgrades made since the last tour, but they need to be able to answer questions and talk to employees while on the production floor. You can go over as much information as you want in conference calls and through emails. Still, an in-person plant tour is the best option for showing off the facility and the inner workings of the business to executives.
Impress Investors
Executives will already have a basic understanding of what goes on within the plant. So while you’ll be providing executives and upper management with tours, this is mostly to ensure everything is running smoothly and safely. With investors, the purpose of the plant tour is to impress investors and to showcase how you make a product, not to mention how new updates or an influx of cash from the investors could boost productivity.
Providing investor plant tours is critical, especially as a privately owned business. There may also be times where a merger is being considered. Before the other investors or owners sign off on the merger, they will want to know what goes on within the plant, that there are no open liability issues, and that everything is done safely. All of this can be showcased during a plant tour.
Keeping You On Your Toes
When you were a kid, if you knew your parents weren’t going to be home for an extended period, you probably didn’t clean your room. You let it slide, maybe you didn’t eat as healthy, and your overall hygiene might have suffered. This is natural when you don’t have any kind of supervision stopping by. In a production facility, if there is never the chance for any sort of inspection or tour, some employees might stop cleaning up after themselves, or you might grow a little lax with specific safety measures. Checks and balances are vital, even in the world of business. Because you will be giving out plant tours, it forces you to remain on your toes and keep everything running as safely and cleanly and securely as possible. It might seem like an inconvenience, but it absolutely helps with improving the facility.
Improve Exposure and Customer Relations
Most large plants and production facilities offer some kind of plant tour with a skilled plant tour guide offering insights and assistance. Amazon will provide tours of its distribution facilities, and the Coca Cola factory tour is one of the most widely experienced plant tours anywhere in the world. The purpose of plant tours is to educate those who are interested in a product and to help boost customer relations. You can do exactly that with your plant tour. There is a reason why shows like “How Things Are Made” are popular. Humans are naturally curious, and they want to learn.
Once someone takes your factory tour, they may be more likely to purchase additional products from you. Following the tour, they might feel they have a stronger, more intimate connection with your business because they have been on the inside of the building, walked through the different stations, and can tell friends and family how certain items have been made. All of this will help boost sales numbers with these customers, and it will help spread the word of your business to others. Provide a plant tour, and it will prove to be valuable and overall important to your customer outreach.
Helps You Walk Through Your Plant
You should always perform the occasional walkthrough to get a better idea of your business and how it is working. While you won’t be focusing on specific concerns when working as a plant tour guide, it will help you with looking over your employees and making sure everything is as it should be.
Keep Everyone In The Loop With Plant-Tours
Plants are often loud. Even if your facility isn’t noisy, the large halls and tall ceiling can make it difficult for your guests to hear everything you’re trying to say. To help ensure the tour is not given in vain, you’ll want to invest in quality tour audio equipment. Here at Plant-Tours, we offer several devices that should make a life for you and your guests easier. From microphone systems to headphones built specifically for hard hat wear, you’ll find everything you need at Plant-Tours. So check out the variety of goods on the website and feel free to send us an email or give us a call with any questions and concerns you might have regarding the equipment. Upgrading your plant tours is right around the corner.
