Lessons the mouse might want to pay attention to...

I spent the last week in Florida visiting my inlaws who retired down there in June of last year. As the parent of 3 small children, I was informed it was required that I visit the Magic Kingdom while I was in the general vicinity. So off to Disney we went.

Getting an audience with the mouse is not cheap - my inlaws live an hour away in the Villages (if you are nearing retirement age, I strongly suggest you check that out - like a cross between the big easy and the first week in college but with golf included) so we planned out the trip, used our Disney Rewards dollars to buy $362 worth of tickets, paid the $14 to park and got in line to ride the tram and then the monorail into the Kingdom. We realized it would be crowded, it was the day after President's Day so at least anyone in NY was off school and we all know how much new yorkers love the mouse (at least the folks we know do!)

We walked into the park at 9:00 when it opened and had a good 90 minutes before it got crowded. The mouse makes it easy to spend money - every vendor in the park will take anything from plastic to cash to your next born, ok just kidding about that I think....

Everything was smooth until lunch when the wheels came off - and yes this is where this post gets relevant - we were having a great time despite the crowds sore feet and waiting in line (fast pass is a great idea but what's with the 1 at a time limit?) when we sat down to eat. In short it took 20 minutes for us to be seated for a 1:05 reservation, then another hour for them to make 4 sandwiches, and they got my order wrong, then proceed to "suggest" a tip by including it on the $70 bill (keep in mind that 2 of the 4 are kids meals.)

Very simply, my attitude went from this is great, to what the hell. They would have been better served to tell me to get a hot dog on the corner, at least then my expectations would have been met. My relevance here is the following - do your constituents feel good all the way through their interactions with you? Are you doing everything you can to make your donors feel special only to let them down at the ticket window or at the registrars office? Take a look at the organizational points of contact and identify where your week links are - what can you do to address them? You don't know now who might be a million dollar donor to your next campaign or one in 40 years, don't lose the gift today by not treating them well. The mouse needs to fix this part of his house or the almost $400 in tickets will be spent elsewhere next time, don't provide your donors with the excuse to support someone else.