Director, Customer Experience at Absa Bank Limited

Job Summary

To lead the design and implementation of Absa Bank’s Customer Experience strategy.
The role holder will provide vision and strategic leadership to the entire customer service and experience functions responsible for the quality and effectiveness of customer service being offered to all the customer touch points, overall service management and quality improvement both internally and externally.
The role will also ensure delivery of a consistent customer-centric culture that leads to increased customer satisfaction, increased efficiency, and profitability.

Job Description

Key accountabilities/Deliverables/Outcomes:

Customer experience strategy design and implementation (35%)

• Define, and articulate the Bank’s customer experience requirements and align these to the overall strategic goals through design and implementation of an effective Customer Experience strategy.
• Identify mission critical customer experience management focus for the Bank’s delivery channels, benchmark best service practices to support business performance and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty scores.
• Oversee the development of customer journey mapping capability at Absa Bank and optimize these across the physical channels i.e., Branches, Merchants, Contact Centre, and Digital channels.
• Support in implementation of new product launches through engagements with existing and potential customers using available channels of communication at the disposal of the Customer Contact Centre.
• Contribute to product development and improvement through continuous feedback analysis collected through the customer service forms and feedback.
• Play a key role in outlining and improving customer brand perception through driving higher customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score, Customer retention, new business growth and profitability per Customer.
• Drive the ongoing development of a customer service culture across the organization, supported by effective policy and process frameworks and responsive customer service systems to embed best practice customer-centric behaviors.

Customer engagement, analytics, and reporting (15%)

• Develop customer incentive and retention programs across all segments to ensure customer loyalty and increase customer lifetime value.
• Manage the customer feedback framework with the aim to carry out root cause analysis of customer complaints and provide immediate and long-term strategic solutions to eliminate/minimize customer complaints proactively.
• Oversee market research activities to drive the strategic planning process within Business and to design and build the customer information reporting capability across the Bank’s segments.
• Utilize customer data and analytics to drive appropriate level of customer segmentation to deliver personalized and relevant customer touchpoints.
• Build and operationalize an elaborate Voice of Customer Platform which can drive actionable insights, and an effective means of benchmarking service quality against the competition and other service leaders.
• Advise the senior management on customer satisfaction measures, customer experience programs and initiatives to enable customer-centric decision processes and critical issues response.
• Implement relevant customer experience metrics across all internal and external service points
• Measure and report adherence to service level agreements

Operational management (25%)

• Establish and ensure integration of customer experience processes, including but not limited to customer contact facilities, customer interaction model, consultative selling, complaint management, referral management, customer retention, voice of customer retention management, performance metrics, process improvement toolkit and change management.
• Provide leadership in all aspects of service quality and operational excellence, thereby facilitating transformational change in the level and quality of service provided to customers (external and internal).
• Take ownership of complex account servicing and error resolution issues, including those escalated by other units.
• Oversee agreed process improvements and facilitate, teamwork across businesses to achieve end-to-end customer experience.
• Work with the functional “service champions” to establish peer reviews, adopt and implement best practices, develop internal and external benchmarking, and continually improve the service and operational processes.
• Drive changes in process and mindset around how we organize work and deliver functionality for customers, maintaining "good" processes and eliminating inefficiencies.
• Proactively design processes & implement innovative customer journeys to improve the customer experience based upon direct and indirect customer feedback, and market trends.
• Monitor business and process metrics to measure and manage customer service effectiveness.

Leadership and people development (15%)

• Build, develop and motivate a high-performance team committed to success.
• Create strategic alignment with other business leaders for Customer Experience KPIs and drive ownership throughout the organisation.
• Set challenging performance objectives and measures for the team and provide regular feedback and honest assessment on achievement.
• Train, guide and provide Customer Experience leadership, direction and pace to the team and organization at large.

Risk governance (10%)

• Oversee and ensure customer management, sales and service processes are always compliant to regulatory and risk-related requirements.
• Ensure that Absa Bank is a market leader in terms of clear communication to customers and compliance with any consumer protection legislation.
• Value-add to the business by identifying new and developing risks through risk-based process reviews on critical processes

Role/person specification

Preferred Qualification

• Bachelor’s degree in a business-related field.
• Professional qualification in Customer Experience Management or equivalent

Preferred Experience

• At least 12 years’ experience in a customer Service or retail environment, seven of which should be at a management level.
• A track record of developing & implementing continuous improvement in service delivery, and improved outcomes in Customer Service.
• Experience of leading and delivering significant change and business improvement initiatives, including people and cultural change.

Knowledge and Skills

• Knowledge of Banking and Business Operations: Well round knowledge of banking operations and processes and excellent knowledge of Bank policies and procedures.
• Compliance and Regulatory Framework: Top notch understanding of the regulatory issues, reporting and operational requirement as provided by CBK, KRA, KBA, etc.
• Technology Awareness: Knowledge of latest technology systems that enhance customer experience and digital transformation across all channels.
• Customer Experience Management: Deep knowledge of implementing the CEM models across all stages of the customer journey.
• Business Process Management: Knowledge of business process improvement methodologies
• Communication & Social Media Management