Child care professionals of the Kortrijk region start profiling their existing customers. They also detect need and unserved customers in their area. In a course on profiling and marketing given by Leiedal, they learned techniques and methods to update and optimise their communication channels.

This is based on the customer profiling methodology developed by Norfolk County Council for the Smart Cities project.

In a half day course the child care officers, coming from 5 municipalities in the Kortrijk region, learned how to make use of surveys, statistics, transaction data, demographic and GIS data to know their existing and potential customers, and to estimate future use of child care services.

Difficult to reach groups are single parents, lower educated people and newly arrived citizens. For these groups other strategies and channels are needed. The officers learned how to develop a local network to reach these groups, and how to communicate with intermediairies.

A multichannel communication strategy aimed to people between 25 and 35 in the municipality has been discussed, looking for the pros and contras of the possible channels to reach the existing and potential customers.

Finally the child care officers learned to collect data on a constant basis, so the results of their actions can be measured.

More information (Dutch):

• http://www.slideshare.net/leiedal/workshop-kinderopvang-en-communicatie-...
• http://www.leiedal.be/e-government/innovatie/kinderopvang