For me it just required being "consciously conscious" (if that makes sense), motivated by the thought of the inevitable embarrassment if I didn't remember their name.

I started out by anticipating that somebody would tell me their name at some point and repeating it in my head a few times when I heard it in the conversation. It helps to round off the conversation with "thanks $NAME, pleasure meeting you." so the name is something that gets used and isn't a bit of stale trivia. After the exchange I'd consciously go through what their name was and what they said, trying to attach associations to it. You've got to give them some space in your head. It was kind of a ritual I'd do, like how before I go out I do the "wallet, keys, phone" thing. Now I just do it automatically because of all the repetition.

Honestly I think the biggest things are:

- remembering to make the effort - the anticipation of hearing it, and - using of the name