Hawthorn and Disney are two brands rarely, if ever used in the same sentence.

One is an elite sporting organisation and the other, a worldwide entertainment company.

But, as Hawthorn Football Club coaches and staff learned on Tuesday, the two aren’t too dissimilar.

Entertainment comes in many forms and Hawthorn and Disney, though in different realms are in the business of entertaining with the aim too of delivering the best possible service to fans.

In order to continue to stay at the forefront of fan development and interaction, Club CEO Stuart Fox enlisted Disney Institute to conduct a development seminar focusing on the philosophies that allow Disney to remain the leader in customer service and staff development.

Disney Institute is the training and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, which prides itself on five key areas of focus – leadership, culture, customer experience, brand loyalty and creativity and innovation.

The seminar was delivered by Bruce Kimbrell, a 33 year Disney veteran who has enjoyed a long career in a number of different areas including marketing and Disneyland Resorts.

“In as much as we are different, we all have multiple similarities and a lot of those were brought forward by the Club today,” Disney Institute representative Kimbrell said of Hawthorn and Disney.

“We share people as a common factor, we share entertainment, we share quality, the overall experience of our guests and the value for investment.

“We talked about four things that are at the top of the Disney Institute and things we know people come to Disney to learn about and we believe we are very good at.

“We’re not asking participants to become Disney, but what we’re saying is we can take these concepts and ideas and adapt them and think about how they can make them work in their world.

“I wanted them to understand why we do it the way we do it and get them to think about why they do it the way they do it. Is it good or does it need change?”

Fox and the Club’s senior management team were introduced to Disney Institute at an AFL conference in 2011 and viewed its approach and values as particularly significant when applied to AFL football.

“The purpose was to benchmark against some of the Disney philosophies and having staff think about how they interact with our customers, particularly our members and supporters but also other stakeholders,” Fox said.

“What I found was that our staff could learn so much more about customer service levels, models and strategies that could be adopted into our workplace.

“It’s about exceeding customer expectations rather than just meeting them and continuous improvement for our club and trying to find new ways to innovate.

Fox was particularly impressed with their approach to over manage certain aspects of their operations that most other businesses would normally ignore, which is what differentiated the Disney Institute from other companies.

“Their eye for detail was inspiring,” he said.

“This training initiative has given us a lift internally to think about the way each of us interacts with the customer.”

Membership and Fan Development Manager, Jeremy Millard found the seminar of great value given his role is to ensure the Club has a growing relationship with its members and supporters.  

He said the Club will continue to invest in its interaction with members and supporters and philosophies learnt on Tuesday play a role in that goal.

“Our membership base has rapidly expanded over the past five years, and the Club has invested heavily in customer service during this time to ensure a high-level of service is maintained,” he said.

“The Disney Institute are world-leaders in customer service and this recent investment by Hawthorn has exposed our staff to a new level of service. As a result, when members make contact with our staff in any environment, they can always expect to receive the very best in service.”

Assistant Coach Brett Ratten found the day extremely beneficial not only from a football perspective but also from a Club-wide view.

“Their attention to detail is one of their biggest strengths,” he said. “Having been to Disneyland myself recently with my kids – I could see a lot of that in my experience there.

“That’s really important for us in the football side of our business as well as our members and what we can do as a club to give back some extra things and really support our members who actually support us to allow us to do what we want to do.”

All staff, including the football department were in attendance.