My grandfather used to have a little notebook. Maybe it was black, I didn’t ask.
In it, he used to keep notes. Notes of the people he met, how he knew them, their interests, sports, politics, hobbies, how many kids they had, wife’s names, kid’s names, where he had met them. As he met them and talked to them, he would then spend time cultivating his notes afterwards. I can only imagine the interesting stuff that notebook contained.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Ruadhan Barry, senior product manager at Boxever.
He met a lot of people in his line of work as an architect and attended regular events. Before a meeting or event, he would find out who was likely to be there, and re-read his notes.
He wanted to have meaningful conversations with them, conversations that were built on previous ones. He wanted to put them at ease, make them feel important, listened to and valued.
Two years ago, my grandfather was at a party. He was talking to someone he had met two or three times before. My grandfather knew he had a wife, he had just had a baby when they met last, was an architect and, that he was into his cycling. Let’s call him Bob. Bob had a habit of not remembering that he had met my grandfather before:
G: Hi, Bob - how’s fatherhood? Are you still getting time to cycle?
B: Hi….*squints & thinks*
G: …John...
B: Yeah - right…John! Sorry. How are you?
#awkward
Although arguably, my grandfather’s notebook was a little creepy, the way it made people feel wasn’t. People never needed to know how he remembered so much. I’m sure many thought he had a great memory. Did it really matter how he remembered?
Conversely, conversations with Bob were frustrating, not new, and didn’t do anything to deepen the friendship.
In the travel industry, there are many touchpoints with the traveller – thus many opportunities – to leverage the “little black book” concept to deliver a more personalised experience. Some of these are quite simple yet provide that “you know me!” experience for the traveller.
For example:
- Saving search history on your website and presenting it back to visitors so they can continue planning their trip from where they left off
- Recognising in real-time that a website visitor is looking to book for a family and filtering options, offers, and even content and images to reflect that context
- Sending a personalised email to the traveller on their birthday
Getting more sophisticated, there’s an opportunity for service agents – at the airport or hotel check-in desk – or in-flight staff to use the same tactics to delight travellers with a deep understanding of their profile and engage authentically.
A flight attendant, armed with a tablet and access to the flight manifest and 360-degree customer profile, can quickly understand that the passenger in 14B travels monthly from Boston to Baltimore, and on the last trip, his bag was lost. She can acknowledge with that customer the repeat flight and even provide a complimentary upgrade or service item to remedy the last experience.
My grandfather used to say that he had received more business because of that black book than any other method he had tried. People remembered that he had remembered them. He had risen in their estimations because he had shown a real interest in them.
When they thought about the architects they knew, his name would instantly pop into their heads. All it took was a little time to jot down a few key details and use them in the next interaction.
Applied to travel experiences, airlines, OTAs, and hotels, can expect great loyalty and more repeat business by capturing and using what they know about a traveller to enrich his or her experience. In a digital world, cloud-based servers gathering big data take the place of black books, but the concept is the same.
Demonstrate that you listened, remembered the interactions you had and use that as context for the next conversation. A little effort goes a long way.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Ruadhan Barry, senior product manager at Boxever.
NB2: Contact book image via Shutterstock.