You’ve prepared your international company visit for weeks. You’ve created an interactive PowerPoint presentation about your site and even asked the help of other colleagues to share their experiences.
When the day arrives, your guests enter the building. This is your time to showcase what your site is all about and what makes you stand out from the crowd. But then you start talking and … no one understands what you’re saying. Sounds familiar?
A similar thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago while working on behalf of another interpreting agency, with one big difference. The company did hire professional conference interpreters, but not the necessary equipment to offer a quality service. Fair to say the visit didn’t go as planned.
Right before starting the plant tour, one of the company managers gave a presentation about the site the guests were about to visit. No less than 6 languages were represented during that presentation, thus 5 different interpreters. However, since the client didn’t rent the necessary equipment, the interpreters were required to do whispered interpreting (sitting next to the guests and whispering the translation to them). That’s problematic for different reasons:
➀ In a room with over 30 people and 5 interpreters whispering, sound quality is just not good enough to hear and interpret from
➁ When someone asked a question in a different language (not English), that question had to be interpreted consecutively by one of the interpreters into English and then interpreted again into the different other languages
➂ There were moments where consecutive interpreting was impossible, and information got lost
➃ What was originally a 20-minute presentation, turned into a 40-min session.
Let’s face it: this is not a one-off problem. Most international visits don’t fall apart because the catering is off or the schedule runs late. They fail because the communication gets stuck. And it happens a lot, believe me.
When communication becomes a guessing game, you’re not just losing time - you’re losing meaning, nuance, and trust. That’s why investing in professional interpreters (not someone who ‘speaks a bit of language X’) and proper interpreting equipment is one of the smartest things you can do to make your company visit land the way you intended.
The first thing you would need to do to make your plant tour or company visit a success is to hire professional interpreters. Interpreting is not just about speaking two languages. A trained interpreter is a real communication specialist. They capture the tone, intent, and cultural subtleties behind your message and deliver it with the clarity and respect it deserves.
Yet, even the best interpreter can’t shine without the right tools. And here’s where many companies stumble: they hire the interpreters, but forget the gear. At Studio SpeakEasy, we analyse the needs of every client and every event, but there are a couple of general guidelines for company visits.
➀ If there is a big presentation in a separate room, with a diverse audience and different languages, the best option is to install an interpreting booth (or booths if there are multiple languages). Every participant will get a headset to listen to the simultaneous interpreting and the speaker uses a microphone. This allows interpretation to happen in real time, without interrupting the speaker.
➁ For plant tours, especially in noisy plants, a wireless tour guide system is the way to go. They ensure that interpreters can hear the speaker clearly and that participants can listen to the interpretation in real time, while doing the tour.
➂ In those instances where there are only two languages being spoken, consecutive interpreting might be a solution. You won’t need any equipment, but it takes much longer to get a message across and it’s not recommended for plant tours.
If you want to make a real impact, you should consider simultaneous interpreting with the right interpreting equipment (be it an interpreting booth or a tour guide system).
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Your international guests are paying attention to every little detail, from the way they’re welcomed, the respect that is shown to their language and culture, to how smooth the visit feels overall. When you work with professional interpreters, you show that you value their presence, that you’re serious about building a relationship, and that you care enough to get everything right.
So bottom line, professional interpreters + the right equipment = a great company visit. If you're planning a visit or tour with international guests, your priority should be a smooth communication. Trust me: when your message truly lands, the results speak for themselves.
