The Customer Value Chain - Preschool Edition 🎒

What's a Customer Value Chain? ⛓ 

It is a framework of all the steps or activities a customer undertakes to avail a service or particular product. It essentially maps the journey from a customer's perspective.

Once mapped, the customer value chain helps to identify areas which need improvement or optimising, or can be decoupled from exiting steps and disrupted altogether with innovation.

Here's an example on how parents search for preschools for their children.

Step 1️⃣ - Explore preschools in their vicinity - most likely a google search.

Step 2️⃣ - From all available, filter based on their school fees, curriculum, reviews online, seat availability, subsidies they can avail, and few other things.

Step 3️⃣ - From the filtered list, they then make a in-person visit, often with their child for a centre tour.

Step 4️⃣ - Make a choice and fill out the admission forms for atleast one kindergarten, or maybe two-three if waitlist exists.

Step 5️⃣ - Based on availability, hopefully atleast one of the waitlist will convert into an actual admission.

UNLOCKING OPTIMISATION OPPORTUNITIES ✨ 

Now there are various areas to optimise here. Imagine a website which gives you a ready comparison of preschools in a particular vicinity with custom filters parents can apply. This basically reduces Step 1 & 2 into a single step.

Remember, this is all from a parent perspective. And the customer value chain helped to unlock this optimisation.

DECOUPLE STEPS & DISRUPT 💡 

In the preschool space, a good example would be from Singapore.

Here the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has chosen to remove the hassle of parents filling multiple admission application forms at each preschool of their choice.

In essence Step 1 & 2 will happen on the LifeSG app (which is becoming a super app in many ways), AND even the Step 4 & 5 becomes a highly optimised one since a single submission will have all the necessary details, and allotment can happen much better.

The ECDA decoupled the sequence of conventional steps, and highly optimised the customer value chain -- at the entire country level! 

Great disruption indeed.

Good for parents, yes. 

Good for preschool brands? It depends, on how good their existing marketing engines had been performing.

HOW CAN YOU USE THIS?

In your existing industry, try mapping the customer value chain -- remember, its from the customer perspective. And then look at ways these steps can be optimised or eliminated altogether.

#customerValueChain #preschool #admission #parents #childcare #Singapore