Norton Shores Open House

The decision to host an open house can be a difficult one to make. Who will attend? Why would they want to come? Do we offer more than just tours? Will the planning and time spent planning be worth it? Just like other businesses and organizations, the Nichols team had to decide who should we invite, what the day would look like and what our end goal was. After months of planning, the Nichols team hosted its first Open House at our Norton Shores location on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. View photos of the event.

“When we started planning the Norton Shores Open House, our goal was for the event to be an opportunity for a one-stop-shop for our suppliers, customers and sales team,” said Jessica Montano, Marketing Coordinator. “We hoped customers would bring their questions and needs directly to the suppliers and learn firsthand solutions to their problems.”

Throughout the day we hosted more than 200 customers, 38 suppliers and 89 supplier representatives. There were full facility tours, plus guests could see product and equipment demonstrations directly from the suppliers, participate in training seminars and network with their sales team.

Facility Tours

The Norton Shores location is the headquarters for Nichols, hosts our administrative team and a 300,000 sq. ft. warehouse. With the theme “Through the Years of Nichols” all attendees had the opportunity to tour the entire facility and see the growth in our company through the years: old photographs, news articles and personal stories of the team.

Product and Equipment Demonstrations

Most attendees already use Nichols products and solutions in their facilities, but are all of their needs being met? This open house was the perfect opportunity to see firsthand demonstrations of new product, equipment, packaging solutions and other supplier capabilities.

Networking

In addition to meeting with the suppliers face-to-face, the Nichols Open House was a great opportunity to network with our sales team, customer service team, vendors and other attendees. The Nichols sales team enjoyed hearing and seeing the questions their customers had for suppliers. At Nichols, we truly believe in our tagline “You First!”

Training and Seminars

  • ISSA CMI Restroom Cleaning Certification Training: Attendees learned highly effective cleaning techniques and step-by-step best practices to clean restrooms. They also had opportunity to take an exam to earn CMI certification.
  • Clean for Health & Sustainability Buildings Seminar: Renae Hesselink, Vice President of Sustainability presented on the three dimensions of sustainability to remember when purchasing cleaning products and equipment for your business: economic impact, environmental impact and social impact.
  • Packaging Trends Seminar: The Nichols Packaging Sales Team spoke to several individuals about different packaging solutions from new products, procedures and capabilities available.
  • Technology in Facility Management IoT & aPRO360 Seminar: Attendees learned from Tina Saunders, Director of Marketing and Innovation how to increase productivity, reduce labor costs and increase customer satisfaction with next generation products like the Tork EasyCube Smart Restroom System and Taski’s Intellibot.

We want to thank everyone who joined us last week. The Nichols Team is thankful for the 82 years that we’ve been a part of our West Michigan Community, and we look forward to many more events and opportunities to serve you for many years to come.