On Sunday 16^th July, four of our team boarded the Queen Victoria in Southampton for a two-night cruise with Cunard to Hamburg.

Since we began our relationship with P&O Cruises and Cunard in February this year, the team have immersed themselves with their new clients – spending weekly time at their offices in Southampton to steep themselves in all areas of the business.

But what better way to understand the customer experience and to get to know our clients than to spend time with them and their guests, in a real situation, on one of their ships.

Steve (Client Services Director), Becky (Senior Account Manager), Nicholas (Head of Data and Digital Operations) and Catrina (Planner) joined our clients at Cunard for the voyage to Germany’s second largest city. They line-danced, listened to talks from the Insight programme, had alternative dining experiences, sampled the spa, had a shore excursion and took in the many sights and sounds of the ship.

Now back on dry land, the team are still shaking off their sea legs but happily recounting and documenting everything they’ve experienced. Thinking about the guests’ pre-communication journey and how best to guide future guests preparing for their trip takes on a new life now. In fact, everything we do in terms of planning content now has a fresher, sharper level of understanding.

There’s a lot to be said for spending 15 hours a day with clients: we get to know them as people; what they enjoy; their challenges and how they like to work.

At Armadillo, we have long standing clients and we strongly believe that’s down to the relationships we’ve built with them.