Service Designer, Customer Experience and Innovation, Financial Services

Publicis Sapient is a digital transformation partner helping established organizations get to their future, digitally-enabled state, both in the way they work and the way they serve their customers. We help unlock value through a start-up mind-set and modern methods, fusing strategy, consulting and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity. United by our core values and our purpose of helping people thrive in the brave pursuit of next, our 20,000+ people in 53 offices around the world combine experience across technology, data sciences, consulting and customer obsession to accelerate our clients’ businesses through designing the products and services their customers truly value.

The Publicis Sapient Customer Experience & Innovation Consulting (CX&IC) Team:

We are a group of super-smart people with diverse skills and experience who like solving complex challenges to create what’s next across a wide range of industries – from retail to energy, from automotive to financial services.

We work at the intersection of innovation in technology, business and customer experience to conceive, develop, design and help deliver new experiences that will transform businesses and make life better for millions of our clients’ customers.

We harness deep customer research, insight and understanding to identify, test and validate new opportunities, then shape them into market-defining strategy and solutions for our clients.

We work in a fast-paced, ‘sprint’-based environment where no two days and no two challenges are the same.

We thrive on innovative and impactful work for clients and for ourselves.

We can draw upon an unrivalled depth and breadth of technical, creative and consulting capability across Publicis Sapient to shape businesses so they can meet ever-evolving customer needs.

We do this at scale. We make an impact.

As a Service Design Senior Manager at Publicis Sapient, you will act as a transformation partner for our clients – helping them understand how changing customer expectations will require them to deliver new, innovative experiences, propositions, products and services. 

You are an eclectic thinker who can balance multiple considerations simultaneously – changing technologies, emerging business models and customer insight – to identify new opportunities for our clients.

You will be well versed in design thinking, and the application of these techniques to uncover, identify and understand customer interests, motivations and behaviours, then work iteratively and collaboratively towards experiences that meet these customer needs.

You will use these techniques to map out the customer experience and the business capabilities required to deliver it; and use design research to iteratively test hypotheses underpinning the new experience as it evolves into design, build, launch and beyond.

As a Service Design Senior Manager in the CX&IC team, you will:

Act as a transformational partner for clients - including departmental heads and project sponsors

Work autonomously in the strategic ownership of larger, more complex projects from the client briefing through to final recommendations and delivery

Work collaboratively with all disciplines (and the client) to define how we will create customer and market insights that inspire the team and generate breakthrough solutions

Conduct customer and market place research that helps strategically frame, validate or test core hypotheses, then distil this research into actionable insight

Use design thinking techniques to identify opportunity areas for new experience, propositions, products and services, then help converge thinking around feasible, viable and desirable solutions

Map out the customer experience and the technology and organisational capabilities that are its necessary pre-requisite

Clarify and translate the strategic direction into priorities, objectives and a clear evaluation framework

Facilitate the creation of design artefacts - e.g. personas, as-is and future state customer journeys, service blueprints, storyboards, prototypes, etc.

Be a strong and convincing narrator and moderator both internally and with clients, reconciling perspectives, finding common ground and advocating customer value and business solutions at critical moments

Mentor more junior staff, defining a role for them on projects, overseeing their work and guiding their development in the discipline

Actively seek out thought leaders and different perspectives on industry approaches, developments and break-through methodologies

Develop new techniques and approaches, then collate and share expertise across the discipline in order to help build the company’s collective capability

Act as a champion and advocate for design thinking and techniques both internally and to a wider external audience

You are commercially minded; you can identify and pursue new opportunities to bring value to client engagements.

You are able to see the big picture and zoom in on the details to impactful moments of the customer experience.

You champion the customer and you are passionate about delivering meaningful experiences which positively impact the lives of customers.

You have an appreciation and an interest in how technology can support the design solution

You are confident working in multidisciplinary design, technology and consulting teams

You display empathy, intellectual curiosity and openness to learn about new industries, new fields, new disciplines and are excited by change and learning.

You are comfortable designing journeys from scratch for net new propositions that didn’t previously exist

What you need to have:

An outstanding portfolio of work demonstrating strong customer insight-drivendesign thinking across a diverse range of projects

Experience within financial services – either within a consultancy, agency, fintech or client-side

Experience formulating novel research and development programmes that iteratively identify, test and refine new and innovative propositions, products and services

Experience working collaboratively with colleagues and clients in a variety of different ways – flying solo, as part of an “agency” team, co-working with the client in “agile” teams

A mind set that’s open to change and to challenge – you need to be curious, consultative, self-starting, collaborative, empathetic, helpful, not prepared to settle for ‘that’ll do’, resilient, and eager to learn

Pride and passion in your work

What you'll get from us:

A big canvas – major companies, major brands, major challenges – our clients want us to answer big questions about what their future business should look like. You will be the at the spear point answering that question – and the answer will shape the experience of millions of people.

Capability – Publicis Sapient works at scale with a breadth and depth of creative, consulting, and technology talent – the ideas you shape will be translated into reality.

Autonomy – you’ll be faced with unique questions and challenges; client teams will look to you for your expertise in your field; you’ll have the chance to shape the company’s response, applying your thinking and expertise in the way that best meets the client’s needs.

Support – we’re committed to making you better at what you do best - plenty of training, learning and development opportunities from conferences to courses to simply working alongside some of the best and friendliest people in the industry.

In the company you’ll find:

Smart, decent, fun, stimulating, collaborative folk to work with.

Lots of travel/work abroad opportunities.

Wellbeing perks included subsidised gym and in-house massages.

Lots of support networks - VivaWomen! (for all genders), Egalite (for LGBT), Uni (diversity council), Hue (people of colour).

Free barista drinks all day, Frinks (free Friday night drinks), free fruit and chocolates (it’s the little things), quarterly Town Halls (with free pizza and drinks).

Benefits of Working Here:

An array of benefits are offered to Publicis Sapient employees. In addition to a leading compensation package, 25 days paid annual leave, life assurance, dental insurance, income protection, private healthcare for you AND your family (pre-existing conditions included), and a pension is the least we want to provide to you.

The learning opportunities here are endless plus of course the opportunity to be part of a game-changing organisation that encourages outside-the-box thinking and empowerment to know that the world is your oyster when it comes to your career! With free soya lattes and gym fee reimbursement being thrown in, you’ll get to taste the best coffee in town (in our opinion).

Flexibility and mobility is required to deliver this role as there may be requirements to spend time onsite with our clients to enable delivery of the first class services we pride ourselves in.