Read how we helped a kindergarten to reposition itself in order to attract more parents and children.
The business
- An integrative day care center for children with and without physical and mental disabilities
- Long-term experience in the care for disabled children
- Specially trained teachers
- The only kindergarten with such a profile in the region
The problem
- For many years, it was easy to fill all their childcare places (five places for disabled children and fifteen places for non-disabled children per group)
- Following the growing public inclusion efforts, other non-specialized day care centers started to accept disabled children tool. Since these facilities lacked the experience to deal with severely handicapped children, they started to “cherry-pick” children with minor disabilities.
- This left only the severe cases for our client, who also depended on a mix of minor and severe disabilities in every group. It became more difficult to fill the places for disabled children.
- Simultaneously, public efforts to increase day care options offered parents a broader range of day care places for their kids. For many parents, a specialized integrative kindergarten does not seem very attractive for their healthy children. Hence, demand for the places for non-disabled children declined too.
Our approach
We conducted a brainstorming with selected team members of the kindergarten. During this session, we formulated answers to the following questions:
- How do we describe a service from the customer’s perspective?
- Who are our customers?
- What wishes, preferences and expectations do they have?
- What are our strengths? Which features set our day care apart from competitors?
- Which of our strengths match our customer’s expectations?
- Which features of our care service do we have to highlight in all our communication activities?
The solution
The team realized that they had to reposition themselves in both, their external communication and their internal self-perception:
Old self-conception: A specialized day care center for disabled children which also accepts non-disabled children as part of their integrative approach
New self-conception: A regular day care center that has a special experience profile in the care for disabled children
They decided that they would highlight the following elements in their external communication:
- Pedagogical focus on diversity, tolerance and social competence of the kids
- Accepting every child as it is – Every child has here the possibility to participate and develop in its own pace
- Experienced teachers who support all parents in helping their kids grow
- Many outdoor activities experiences of nature due to the location on the edge of the nearby forest
With our help, the kindergarten learned how to describe all the positive features they already have in a way that is appealing to many parents of both, disabled and non-disabled children.
Note that this was a slightly larger project than our 2-hour-braninstorming service. It also included the development of a new content strategy for their website.
Would you like to learn what we can do for your business?
Juast have a look at our 2-hour-brainstorming service or simply contact us: