“When I’m doing the plant tour where I take the time to explain to visitors all the key improvements in all the key areas of the plant, it takes over an hour. When you’re leading a larger tour and you want people to hear you, you need to speak quite loud for an extended period of time. It gets quite tough on your throat. With this tour system, it’s much easier.”
– Ilia Chliapnikov, Director of Operational Excellence, Martinrea Ajax
Executive Overview
Martinrea International Inc. is a leader in the development and production of quality metal parts, assemblies and modules, fluid management systems, and complex aluminium products focused primarily on the automotive sector.
Martinrea International prides itself on the hard work performed on its assembly floor and the top-quality products that are produced as a result. The company’s attempts to showcase its manufacturing facilities during plant tours were being hampered by noise, impacting visitor engagement. Martinrea expanded its tour services with wireless communication technology by providing guides and groups with HearMe tour guide systems. This significantly reduced voice fatigue for guides who had been forced to speak over high noise levels to get their messages heard and increased overall customer satisfaction by tour participants.
Business Challenges
The plant, known for assembling automotive suspension modules, offers exclusive factory tours to partnering companies, clients and, in some cases, curious customers. With Martinrea Ajax, Ontario, being one of the company’s model plants, employees are passionate about showing visitors and customers the many reasons why they are among the best and most valued automotive parts suppliers in the world.
When customers visit the Martinrea plant, the company wanted to do more than just show them its high quality products. It wanted to deliver high quality plant floor tours. However, with high noise levels on the manufacturing floor, Martinrea tour guides were forced to raise their voices to be heard. This caused voice fatigue for guides while guests strained to hear them.
With Martinrea’s customer-centric company culture, the company wanted to deliver a better tour guide solution to improve the overall visitor experience while ensuring key messages were being heard. Eliminating noise removed the strain tour guides endured speaking over plant noise for an hour at a time. With the introduction of the HearMe Tour Guide System from AudioConexus, Martinrea’s guests left with a superior listening experience and higher satisfaction.
Solution
Martinrea realized it had to create better visitor experiences by reducing the impact of environmental noise from the manufacturing floor. The company wanted to find a group tour solution that was reliable, easy to use, and required little-to-no maintenance. For this, Martinrea contacted AudioConexus, known for providing tour guide solutions in the auto sector for companies such as Mercedes Benz, Toyota and General Motors.
The AudioConexus HearMe tour guide systems enabled Martinrea tour guides to speak in a comfortable, natural voice, eliminating tour-goers’ frustrations and dramatically improving their engagement. The company now offers more successful plant tours with every participant clearly hearing what is being said. By eliminating noise, Martinrea is able to communicate its messages more effectively and convey its professionalism and pride to small and large groups alike.
“Our pride is on our manufacturing floor. When customers come to our plant, we want to make our customers feel like they are a king. Visitors have recognized that we have a level of preparation and effort that goes into our tours. Everything has worked properly, but the fact that we bought the system… has resulted in a lot of compliments from our customers.”
– Ilia Chliapnikov, Director of Operational Excellence, Martinrea Ajax
Key Outcomes
The company has seen significant gains in satisfaction among tour participants, which supports the company’s brand narrative of providing world-class solutions on the manufacturing floor.
Business Results
- Increased Guest Satisfaction
- Elimination of Voice Fatigue and Noise
- Enhanced Brand Value
Only AudioConexus: HearMe Tour Guide Systems
AudioConexus customers use an auxiliary input to offer live and pre-recorded group tour commentary and music. Tour guides can adapt interpretation to include prerecorded narration, music and sound effects. HearMe tour guide systems enable companies to offer blended five-star tour entertainment, while achieving consistency and higher levels of guest satisfaction.
If you’re an ambitious tour operator who wants to attract new customers and promote your competitive advantages, learn why a HearMe tour guide system is right for you.
