I still remember fighting with my brother in the back of our dad's car as we thumbed through the oversized AA maps on our road trips. We would mark up the pages and the grid references the night before and make sure the map was packed along with small round tins of hard candy and plenty of books (no iPads with 4G). Dad would pre-select a good playlist set up for the cassette player - soon we were on our way playing word games with license plates, and eye-spy while almost immediately demanding to go to the restroom. Quite incredible how times have changed as we sink into our car seats, pull on our individual headphones and punch in the co-ordinates into the GPS (or Global Positioning System). Today we live in an age where we can navigate simply or command fleets of UBER city drivers from a mobile app - It's all so much easier..
Born in London, I moved to Manhattan in 2004, pulled across by a startup that monitored non-compliant emails between bankers in the age of Elliott Spitzer - New York's exuberant Attorney General. What I quickly realized was Manhattan is small, really small. In real terms about 8.5miles long by just under 3 miles wide and it's on a romanesque grid system. For the most part a simply numbered system with a couple of larger Avenues like Lexington, Park and Madison called out - that is until you get into the weeds in the lower, and older part of this old British Island. The Taxi medallions branded onto the yellow Ford Lincoln hulls of the ubiquitous New York cabs that scurry around the streets of manhattan run at $1m. These cabs are rarely driver owned and rarely off the road as inexperienced drivers operate in shifts to maximize the yield. It's been an experience for me as I have leapt into a yellow cab asking for a simple cross street only to be asked - "how do I get there?" Of course cabs too are increasingly turning to the handy GPS devices bolted onto dashboard everywhere.
By comparison, the London licensed taxi (known as The Hackney Carriage) began life in the 1600s powered of course by horse. Probably the best-known fact about London's taxi drivers is how well-educated drivers are about London streets - Unsurprisingly, that knowledge does not come easily. Ever see someone on a scooter with a clip board strapped to the front? That's likely a would-be 'cabbie' preparing to become a licensed taxi driver. To do so he or she must pass the infamous “Knowledge Test”. This is no easy feat! Average time to study and pass is 2-4 years. According to the Transport for London (TfL) website:
"All-London drivers – also known as Green Badge drivers – need a detailed knowledge of London within a six mile radius of Charing Cross. All-London drivers’ Knowledge is based on learning 320 routes (or runs). This will help them learn the 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks and places of interest in the six mile radius of Charing Cross."
Certainly there's tension here as some are calling for the obsolete Knowledge Test to be scrapped and replaced with GPS. The new versus the traditional. The technical versus the emotional - familiar battlegrounds in our society.
But here's the thing, when I'm coming out of Heathrow, jet-lagged and craving a curry, I move steadfastly, and with British dignity into the taxi queue (yes we have our own word for 'line'). I am greeted by a chirpy driver who immediately starts a conversation. I get the latest unfiltered news and a run down on the state of the union - political unrest, football scores, stories about thier relatives who live in NY or Florida and a rundown of what's hot. You see The Knowledge IS hard, It's a major commitment and a significant investment in time and energy. But consider this, that driver has developed real expertise, learning about the city through choked exhaust fumes, deafening sirens and swarms of pedestrians. He has become bonded to the city both technically AND emotionally. What's more, as a passenger I know that. I understand and appreciate that commitment. There's instant trust. It's an honor code really - hard earned. And so leaning in the back, staring into the bustling streets, I know I am being taken to my destination by a driver who really understands this city. You can't learn that through GPS - sure you can punch in a start and an end but the journey has no heart - and for me, and many others that means something. As such the London cabbie and the built-for-purpose Coventry conveyor (The Black Cab) with it's tight turning circle are very much a part of the brand of London.
So consider this, as you face off with your customers through your own new technologies, your automated voice response systems, self learning, adaptive chat-bots and mechanized banks of distant agents, who are perhaps unfamiliar with the 'smells' of the city, you are all at once proficient and removed. You have successfully introduced a technical interface while loosing emotional contact with your customers. What really makes the black cab so special is that driver in a carriage built purposefully for the streets of London. At the wheel, a driver that 'gets' the town, gets the people and loves what he does. Engaging and human - driving yes, but much more than that - building a relationship for the duration of that unique journey. An expert who is there to help you to your destination with a healthy dose of sociability.
Companies need to explore this concept and think hard on this point of sociability. They need to consider the journey they are on with their own customers and ask "how sociable is that journey"? Yes of course for a quick mass-transit shuffling from point A-to-B you simply want to on-board and off-load but there are special journeys we all take every day and we want to be in it with someone who really 'get's it'. It's an expert connection and one that happens thousands of times a day in London though a small glass window.
So a question. Where are the emotional, expert connections you have with your customers? How are they made? Are you effectively engaging your own brand advocates on social channels for example, connecting them to new potential buyers - in effect connecting your passengers and drivers?
Are you building trust with them through social media? Because if all they see is a wall of cold technology and transactional capabilities, that's all they'll ever know about your brand. Loyalty is not built this way and relationships are not forged in a cold furnace. Perhaps it's time you think about a more emotional journey guided by sociable experts.
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