Behind the digital counter of Cultuurloket
Cultuurloket, the service platform for entrepreneurs and people working in the cultural sector, asked us to optimize their website. They wanted to seamlessly guide visitors to the right information and allow them to easily reach out for tailor-made advice. No sooner said than done: we worked our Drupal magic and delivered a highly customized, user-centric website. And, thanks to the integration with Cultuurloket’s CRM tool Salesforce, we ensured a more efficient follow-up of client requests. Let's visit 'the digital counter', shall we?
Reinventing the traditional counter
The main idea of a good old physical counter (or 'loket' in Dutch) is to create an exchange platform between a customer and a service provider, a place where useful information and tailor-made advice are centralized. From a customer’s perspective, we wanted to suggest that there is always a helping hand and a sympathetic ear behind Cultuurloket’s counter. So, quite naturally, we started to build a digital counter with this insight in mind.
As the go-to place for all things related to the cultural sector in the Flemish community, Cultuurloket needed to provide information in a simple and intuitive way. That's why they categorized all content into various relevant themes, where informational and inspirational news is organized by topic. In that way, they could position themselves as the exclusive provider of insightful information about the cultural sector.
The choice for Drupal 8
As a public body, Cultuurloket had no choice but to choose Drupal as their content management system. A solid choice in their case: one of Cultuurloket's biggest needs is to manage a lot of content - something Drupal excels at. However, they bumped against the limits of Drupal 7, where their website was previously running on, as they could no longer support their brand-new service: providing information in a smooth way to a heterogeneous group of visitors, all with different needs. That's why we installed Drupal 8.
As Cultuurloket also offers paid training to cultural entrepreneurs, they were in need of a webshop. Enter Drupal Commerce, an open-source e-commerce framework that turns your website into a flexible webshop.
That's how we delivered a completely custom-built website for Cultuurloket.
Fostering knowledge sharing
Next to that, we worked on an important part of Cultuurloket's service: training. Cultural workers and entrepreneurs can participate in various sessions during which they gain additional knowledge and experience in their field. That’s why we decided to integrate an overview of the training sessions on the website, by topic and by city. What's more? The visitor can now easily register for a chosen session.
And if the answer you’re looking for is nowhere to be found on the platform, we created an accessible way to get in touch with the organization: people can ask questions online, schedule a phone call with an expert or make an appointment at a location of their choice.
“We really appreciated the fact that Duke & Grace constantly worked with a problem-solving mindset, while meeting the organization’s standards and budget. They weren't afraid to challenge our questions and to offer alternatives, always putting the end user at the center of the process.”
Karel-Jan Meert
Communication & Marketing Manager at Cultuurloket
Automating the CRM flow
We automated several things that previously had to be done manually:
- When visitors create an online account, they are now automatically added to the CRM tool (Salesforce).
- Previously, new courses had to be manually added to their CRM tool, just as the subscribers to those courses. Together with the client, we were able to automate this whole process.
- In terms of efficiency, the flow of the contact form could use some automation too. Now, the visitor can indicate the type of question and attach the necessary documents, which are then automatically sent to both the relevant consultant and Salesforce.
- And last but not least, we integrated the payment service provider Mollie for the automated handling of payments.
In short: the Cultuurloket team can now focus on the things that really matter and the chance of making mistakes has become considerably smaller.
Creating a personalized experience for each and every user
Users can log in on the website and see what courses they are taking on their personal profile page. There, they can also download course material and revisit questions they've asked Cultuurloket’s experts and the answers they provided.
“The project keeps on evolving, as we're using insights from the field to continuously optimize the platform while keeping the user front and center in our approach.”
Martijn Brackman
UX Architect at Duke & Grace
Want to give your website a new look too? Reach out and discover how we would improve your user experience!