Senior Service Designer

In a nutshell

The Senior Service Designer is responsible for deeply understanding user needs of the complex financial service journeys and helping map solutions.

Obsessed with customers, a Senior Service Designer ensures that the voice of the customer, their expectations, needs and preferences, evidenced by data, are at the centre of digital product design. Typically working in small multifunctional team(s) with diverse internal and external stakeholders (e.g., third party suppliers), the Senior Service Designer uses a variety of techniques (including customer research) to develop digital customer journey designs that delight our customers.

In addition, a Senior Service Designer is involved in supporting development and maintenance of the Bank’s longer term digital roadmaps, including collaboration across SB & AFS and the wide Sainsbury’s Digital community.

As Senior Service Designer you will also provide design leadership, management, and guidance to a team of digital and customer experience designers.

We are open to this role being based in any of the above locations as remote working is involved, however, when we return to our normal ways of working occasional travel to Edinburgh will be required on a monthly basis.

What you need to do

• Understand, empathise, and analyse complex journey and service problems
• Take complex problems and design possible solutions using evidence based approaches
• Design challenges could be internal within the organisation, or external to the organisation. Quite often, external problems can be solved by looking internal. You need to see the whole picture.
• Leadership of service design, founded on the needs and expectations of the customer (e.g. convenience, delight), balanced with deliverability and the needs of the Bank/Group (e.g. cost reduction, income generation and brand alignment)
• Journey mapping of our services (internal and external)
• Blueprint and service map documentation to support proposition development
• Champion the voice of the customer, organising and conducting user research and user testing to inform concepts and validate designs, finding insights through analysis of results, and bringing stakeholders on the same journey
• Lead and manage stakeholders and project/product teams through a user-centred design approach whilst balancing business challenges and strategic vision
• Driving adherence to customer experience and other related principles/standards in digital product design and delivery (e.g., accessibility, security, native design patterns, etc)
• Day-to-day design and delivery of product solutions (incl. sketches / wireframes / screenflows)
• Analysis of customer journey data to identify areas for improvement within existing customer journeys and produce recommendations / options
• Woking closely with colleagues and 3rd parties / agencies to commission and accept digital design deliverables
• Provide expert advice and guidance (based on experience and evidence) to a wide variety of stakeholders on digital experience design
• Support development and maintenance of the broader SB digital vision, solutions and roadmap
• Bringing external viewpoints and insights associated to digital product design to the bank (e.g. via research, competitor analysis, qual/quant data, consultation, participation in industry events)

What you need to know and show

• Wide range of experience as a service designer ideally for a big brand / financial services organisation
• High level of innovation, creativity and problem-solving skills
• Methods and practices of usability research and confidence in conducting research and interpreting results
• Adept at collaborating with and influencing stakeholders through a range of methods, including workshops – championing the voice of the customer whilst balancing business objectives
• Utilise a broad range of design tools and techniques… the right tool for the job
• Expert communication through sketches, storytelling, and prototypes
• Knowledge of best practices and emerging service design techniques and trends
• Strong attention to detail with a desire for excellence in delivery
• Wide range of experience in user-centred design, usability, and accessibility best practices (incl. web accessibility standards (WCAG))
• Ability to demonstrate the behavioural competencies expected of a senior designer, including initiative, flexibility, influencing, negotiating, strong communication skills and ability to deal with ambiguity
• The ability to practice thought leadership and to advise stakeholders on how to best realise business, brand, and digital experience goals through the creation of best-in-class service design
• Proactive collaboration with project & product teams, the design community, and senior stakeholders alike