John, Aside from all the other good ideas to speed up the process you have to "TAKE CONTROL." When a client shows up with family and friends I stop the husband and wife in the driveway and tell them. " THis is your time to be with me. You are paying for me to be here now. If you want to learn about your home you can follow me and listen now. I don't follow you around and I don't go over everything twice. I recommend that the most savvy of the two, whichever, stay with me and the other go entertain the troops.
Sometimes the broker will be talking to the husband while I am trying to explain something to the wife. I nicely ask them both to leave so I can work and so the other spouse will understand whats going on. You are doing your clients a disservice by letting them control or interfere with the inspection process. If you need quiet, tell them all to be quiet.
My normal inspection of 2-3000 is 2 hours but I tell my clients on the phone prior to that I will stay at the home as long as they need me to stay in order for them to understand their new home.
The recorder is invaluable in keeping the pace going and controlling their interest. Nowadays I can go through and just take pics of everything without recording but I still use it as my 3rd backup. 1) Memory 2)Camera 3) recorder