Redbox has it right...

A couple of weeks ago, we decided that we wanted to rent The Descendants for Saturday night. It was a Monday or Tuesday so we went to our Netflix account to see about bumping it up so the disc would be delivered in time. Unfortunately, The Descendants was not yet available on Netflix. We had seen the Redbox kiosks for some time but had never needed a movie that we didn't have access to until then. I went to Redbox.com and they had it. Even simpler, with a minor step to create an account, I could reserve the movie at the box of my choice. I did so, entering my credit card for a $1.30. I immediately got an email confirming the location, charge and title of my rental. I proceeded to pick it up later that day and got an email on my phone while I was still walking back to the car thanking me for picking up the movie, reminding me to return it before 9:00 PM the next day to avoid additional charges and offering me a free rental if made at the kiosk rather than online. We watched the movie and dropped it off the next day and again I got direct and immediate communication offering me additional value/engagement and providing me with confirmation that the movie had been returned - all before I got back into my car. The emails were appropriately designed to be easily read on my droid and were timely, appropriate, informative and useful. This experience led me to question our management of contacts through giving and events and I find we are, as a profession, way behind the curve. If someone attends your event can they check in on social media at each one? When they register do they get an immediate acknowledgement of that payment and a discount or suggestion for other opportunities to be involved in that communication? When they get to the event and check in are you thanking them right then for doing so? When they make a gift are your providing an immediate thank you including a summary of their giving and how much they need to give to reach the next gift level or offering them a benefits or other clear reasons for why their gift matters to you and them? Consider in small steps how you can make and use the social media, mobile communications and post engagement interactions to increase the chances of the next interaction happening right away.