Strategic Designer - Customer Experience

Location - flexible, with travel to our London and / or Bristol office

We’re making zero carbon happen

We’re OVO Group, a big family of companies united by a single vision: to get to zero carbon, fast. 

We call this Plan Zero – and it shows how we’ll be fighting the climate crisis and transforming the way people use energy over the next decade. To do this, we need the sharpest minds. Are you up for the challenge?

Do great green things with OVO Energy

So much has changed since we launched in 2009.  Our goal remains the same though: make energy cheaper, greener, and simpler. Just as it was on day one.

Everyone belongs at OVO

Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive movement: teams of brilliant people, with unique talents, skills, passions, and experiences. 

We encourage everyone to join us, whatever your gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, life experience, or background. So please come as you are – we can’t wait to meet you.

Where in the world of OVO will I be working?

We’re looking for an enthusiastic and talented Strategic Designer who is passionate about working on exciting new  projects to help us reach Plan Zero. As OVO moves closer to 5m customers, we are expanding and scaling up our customer experience program to ensure we can design, implement and measure customer experiences across the business at all levels. Developing easy and effortless customer experience  journeys to help us move towards a world leading, carbon net zero customer experience.

You will be a key part within our Customer Experience team, in a newly created Strategic Designer role as part of a team responsible for creating content that surprises and delights our existing customer base and prospective customers across multiple energy and decarbonisation products.

This is a really exciting part of the business, as we look to scale and accelerate our customer programmes of work.

What will I be doing?

You’ll develop transformative solutions based on customer research and insight by identifying intangible attitudes & behaviours which drive customer choices. By uncovering what is important to our customers, you’ll be able to create suitable experiences which provide real value to them. We want to see through the eyes of real people – understanding their context, motivations, and needs. We use a variety of tools and methods to make the greatest impact.

Your main responsibilities

• Work closely with the business  to understand their key challenges, define design Strategies, win buy-in for your recommendations and collaborate with relevant teams across OVO
• Drive  inspiration, knowledge and guidance throughout the strategic design lifecycle 
• Design and facilitate immersive workshops at different stages of the innovation journey
• Lead our design strategy, keeping the customer perspective and voice at the heart of everything along the whole process
• Design & develop research to better understand our customers choices, motivations and what they need from us
• Lead, design & develop quantitative and qualitative research (internal & external) to uncover and understand customer behaviours, obstacles, needs & motivations.
• Translate and synthesise learnings on customer behaviour, needs and aspirations into a compelling and actionable insights , with clear short and long-term innovation opportunities
• Bring research to life through personas, customer journeys, stories and scenarios
• Understand the competitor landscape
• Drive our  future vision by presenting relevant insights and trends to develop future scenarios, implications and opportunities 
• To always work collaboratively across the business to dƒrive customer experience objectives at  all levels and  to promote CX expertise and skills, training in CX methodologies and techniques where appropriate
• Be tenacious and curious in everything we do as a CX team, to bring the voice of the customer to the fore and to deliver the key improvements required, delighting our stakeholders and colleagues as we go.
• Ensure that we add value both commercial and to the customer, in all projects, activities and improvements undertaken.
• To be responsible for our own development, to be proactive in upskilling ourselves and our teams, supporting each other and excelling in teamwork and seeking to utilise all team members skills on projects
• Sharing, communicating and working with others

Is this the job for me?

• A passionate belief in the importance of delivering excellent customer experience
• A strong background in service or product design
• A clear understanding of human centred design principles & applications
• Ability to apply design methodology & research techniques  to understand customer needs
• Experience of project management & agile methodologies
• Understanding of all CX strategy and principles, proven understanding and delivery of customer experience design, improvement and measurement methodologies
• Ability to apply business and commercial understanding to proactively identify opportunities
• Passionate about instilling a culture of customer & design innovation at OVO
• Strong communication skills including excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills as well as someone who is motivated and eager to learn new ways of working
• Confident working with all levels of the business demonstrating how user research and service design analysis techniques have been used to support the design decisions
• Strong relationship management skills and ability to work collaboratively to achieve outcomes
• Organisational skills, self-motivation and resourcefulness coupled with a creative mind-set, presence and gravitas
• Be able to create trust and authenticity in teams and can respond to challenges.
• Demonstrate  & champion a collaborative approach to working within the CX team & wider business

You’ll love working with us if you…

• Are looking to continue developing understanding & maturing Strategic Design which is still a relatively new discipline to OVO.
• Find new concepts easy to understand, and show the tenacity to keep asking the right questions.
• Love sharing your skills and experiences with colleagues.
• Recognise assumptions (including your own) and seek ways to try and validate them.
• Know your strengths, yet recognise there’s always more to learn from others.
• Are adaptable and take change in your stride.

Brilliant benefits for a world-changing team

Our people are at the heart of Plan Zero. That’s why we offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to make you feel at home.

For starters, you’ll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays).

Then there’s Flex Pay. It’s an extra 9% of your salary on top of your core pay to use as you like. You can take it as cash, add to your pension, or choose to spend it on a huge range of flex benefits.

Here’s a taster of what’s on offer:

For your health
With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and more

For your wellbeing
With gym membership, gadget, travel and cyber insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, DNA testing, dental insurance, and more

For your lifestyle
With extra holiday buying, discount dining, culture cards, tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations

For your home 
Get up to £300 off any OVO Energy plan (when you pay by Direct Debit), plus personal carbon offsetting and great discounts on smart thermostats and EV chargers

For your commute
Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing, plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans 

Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies? Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

Oh, and one last thing...

We’d be thrilled if you tick off all our boxes yet we also believe it’s just as important we tick off all of yours. And if you think you have most of what we’re looking for but not every single thing, go ahead and hit apply. We’d still love to hear from you!