Service Designer

we encourage you to apply

Service Designer

Are you looking for a role that enables you to design innovative service solutions, optimise service delivery, and create exceptional customer experiences?

Contract: Permanent

Working hours: 35 hours per week

Salary: Circa £60,000 dependent on experience

Reporting to: Transformation Projects Enablement Manager

Location: London, docklands or Coventry. Our permanent hybrid policy sees us all working at least four days across a fortnight in the office

At the Financial Ombudsman Service, we’re working to enhance our service by setting the standard for modern, efficient, accessible alternative dispute resolution.

Over recent years, the Service has undertaken significant change to improve our customer experience and our financial sustainability. For the next phase of our journey, we have even bigger ambitions to reimagine our customer experience and we’re determined to move at pace.

Working alongside Customer Journey Owners, Process Improvement specialists and technology platform owners, you will help improve the experiences of our customers by designing and optimising our services. This work is critical to the success of the transformation portfolio, the achievement of our benefits and thus our strategic objectives.

Based on insights into the needs, behaviours and preferences of our customers, you will apply your expertise in customer-centred design thinking to design innovative service solutions, optimise service delivery, and create exceptional customer experiences. You will employ research, design thinking, prototyping, and collaboration to develop and improve services that align with our goals and provide value to customers.

This is a role which demands specialist technical skills in a customer-centred service design, alongside strong communication and influencing skills.

Key responsibilities

Applying best practice methods in customer-centred service design to achieve our customer experience ambitions.

Customer understanding: gathering the necessary data and commissioning the necessary research to gain insights into our customers’ needs, behaviours and preferences.

Design and innovation: applying design thinking methodologies to map customer journeys, define touchpoints, and design service blueprints that outline the end-to-end customer experience.

Problem definition and solutioning: engaging stakeholders in activities to gather feedback and validate service ideas.

Optimisation: the ongoing analysis and optimisation of services to enhance the overall customer experience, proposing and working with others to implement changes to streamline processes, and improve efficiency and customer experience.

Communication and visualisation: using visual tools and techniques to communicate service concepts, ideas, and improvements in an easy-to-understand format for varying audiences. This includes creating service design artefacts such as service maps, customer journey maps, personas and service blueprints to convey insights and recommendations to stakeholders.

Engagement and collaboration: engaging and collaborating with stakeholders throughout the design process at all levels of the organisation, including through the facilitation of ideation and customer-centred design workshops.

Being an advocate for customer-centricity, with the ability to develop and translate user stories and propose design approaches or services to meet these needs and engage in meaningful interactions and relationships with users.

Minimum Criteria

A proven track record of using best practice service design methodologies to achieve meaningful improvements in a customer-focused service organisation.

Using data, insights and design thinking and agile ways of working to design, develop, test and iterate service offerings.

Ability to create service design artefacts and outputs, such as current and future-state user journeys, personas, service concepts, service blueprints and other artefacts.

Facilitating workshops, design sprints, ideation sessions or similar.

Critically breaking down complex problems in a fast-paced environment.

Ability to work at pace and manage competing priorities in a tight timeframe with a proactive mindset.

Strong stakeholder management skills, including at the most senior levels of the organisation, with the ability to balance competing views as part of the design process.

Desirable

You should hold a recognised certification and / or qualification in Service Design or Design Thinking, such as (but not exclusive to) Google UX design certificate or Service Design Practitioner certification through the Service Design Network.

We also offer an attractive, competitive salary and flexible benefits to suit our people. Here’s a list of some of the many benefits and perks you can get for working with us:

25 days holiday entitlement, with the option to buy extra or sell days

Generous pension

Employer provided benefits such as Private medical insurance, virtual GP, Critical illness cover, Life assurance cover, to name a few

Choice of voluntary benefits including Technology scheme, Cycle to work scheme, Will-writing service amongst others

Employee Assistance Programme

Extensive opportunities for personal and career development

Fully equipped on-site gym open 24 / 7 (London office only)

Extensive Well-being resources including on-site therapists (London office only)

Beautiful and bright London office looking over the Thames and near to mainline stations

Our Coventry office is 2 minutes’ walk from the main station

Our employee led networks do fantastic work in educating and raising awareness across a range of experiences and support us in being an inclusive employer and a great place to work. You can get involved, too

How do I apply?

Please upload an up-to-date copy of your CV ensuring you are highlighting those skills and experience that are relevant to the role (as per the minimum criteria)

A statement of interest is always welcomed, but not essential.

Applications need to be submitted by midnight on Tuesday 11th June 2024

A full job profile is available on request and will be provided to candidates shortlisted to the first stage of the assessment process.

We’re proud to be an inclusive employer

We view diversity as fundamental to our success and welcome applications from underrepresented groups across all communities.

We’re committed to being a great place to work– attracting and developing people from the widest possible range of backgrounds. We want everyone to perform at their best and feel able to be themselves. We understand that if we’re diverse and inclusive, we’ll better understand different perspectives, which is fundamental to our job resolving financial complaints.

We welcome applications from Black and other ethnic minority candidates, and female candidates, for all positions and particularly so for senior leader positions as they are under-represented within the Financial Ombudsman Service at this level.

Find out more

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Good luck with your application