A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Walt Disney World in Florida with my wife and (then) eight-year-old daughter. If I was to describe and score the day, with 10 being highest,  it would go something like

If I asked you to guess what I rated the day, then a rational approach would to calculate the mean of all the experiences (around 6.5). Yet in my mind it was a slam-dunk 10/10 day and a memorable, happy day to me.

This is may seem counter-intuitive. Yet the evidence is clear. We’re pre-disposed to remember peaks (and troughs) and forget the rest.

Try it yourself.

Think of your favourite day. What do you remember about it? What feelings does it evoke?

The likelihood is that you will remember two or three peaks and forget a lot of the detail and minutiae.

So what does this mean for our supporter experience and journeys?

Well, often we are too focussed on the volume of communications and not the quality of them. It would be much better to send two or three 9- or 10- rated communications that show supporters  you understand and appreciate them (and ask for money in a respectful and appropriate way) than seven or eight 5- or 6- rated (which are liable to end in the trash – actual or virtual – and are instantly forgettable).

We need to systematically create peak moments for our supporters. Often the moment of giving is such a peak (with the endorphins and good feelings of donating), but this quickly ebbs away with impersonal, overly administrative and lacking-in=gratitude comms that follow.

Get this right and your retention and revenue will soar. The excellent Chip and Dan Heath book The Power of Moments quotes research from Forrester that shows elevating positive experiences produces almost nine times more revenue than eliminating the negative experiences.

If we want to keep creating peaks then we need to better understand our supporters’ reasons and motivations for giving and then use them to create moments that matter.

The Power of Moments provides a great framework for doing this. I’ve used it to run courses and workshops to help charities do just this. In fact, here is a  peak moment from a recent course in Manchester – I’ve no doubt people will have forgotten 90% of the content by now, but they won’t have forgotten the fun of drinking prosecco and eating cake at 12.30pm in a local park!

So what is the wow moment in your donor journey?

Craig