7277 - Senior Customer Researcher

Overview

HM Courts and Tribunals Service underpins the delivery of justice, making sure trials and hearings run fairly and efficiently. Every year, millions of people seek justice in our courts and tribunals and we are here to ensure anyone in need of our courts and tribunals receives a service that suits their needs.

We have a brand with an outstanding heritage and history. Being around for hundreds of years makes us proud but not complacent. We are required to continually update and modernise to ensure we align our service with the society we serve. In recognition of this, HMCTS gained £1 billion of funding in the last Government Spending Review for a root and branch ‘Reform’ of our services. We are now ready to put our plans into action and deliver.

We are focused on radically improving the customer journey for all, to ensure that they do feel like a customer. In broad terms, changing that outcome, generating satisfaction and confidence in our justice system, is our primary goal, by:

• streamlining processes and eliminating waste so we can reinvest in improvements that our customers can touch and feel;
• employing digital technology to enable access to justice; for example supporting victims and witnesses to give evidence in a less intimidating way via video link;
• enabling self-service, where appropriate, so people can get fast and easy access to simple judicial services.

For HMCTS, the changes we are making will reduce our own costs and remove service failure from our system, allowing us to put resources where they matter most. The Customer Directorate in HMCTS is working with all parts of the organisation to drive a customer centric approach in new and existing services for customers of the courts and tribunals.

Main purpose of the team
The Customer Insight function is a newly established team who will ensure that our understanding of customer characteristics, behaviours and needs, is analysed and shared in inspiring ways to inform decision making throughout HMCTS. You will support the development and deployment of a multi-disciplinary insight approach to create a comprehensive and effective view of our customers.

The team will lead the development of insight on customers from all available sources to inform what we know, supporting and analysing the development of new digital and operational solutions. We are looking for experienced analysts, scientists and researchers to help us develop our understanding of our customers’ including their behaviour to develop better services whilst collaborating with other government departments and external organisations to fill data and knowledge gaps.

This work will be a challenging role and offers a wide range of opportunities to develop your experience whilst making a real difference to services for millions of citizens. You will join a team dedicated to developing your skills and career within a multi-disciplinary environment. The team currently contains expertise and leadership experience across social and market research, behavioural science, digital development, economics, experimental/trials evaluation, operational research and data science.

Key Accountabilities (Band B):

This an exciting opportunity to be part of the new, multidisciplinary team, setting the direction for the use of analysis to develop insight about our customers and apply this to the services we deliver in courts and tribunals. The key objectives for these roles include working collaboratively together and with the business to;

• Define and solve ambiguous problems – identifying opportunities for insight to inform creative solutions to issues by utilising the latest evidence on customers from HMCTS, the justice sector and the wider literature
• Providing authoritative, clear and timely advice our customers’ experiences, needs and attitudes so that we might use this to deliver better services
• Building the evidence base on HMCTS customers’ by engaging with internal (e.g. the wider Customer Directorate, contact centres, courts) and external partners (including agencies, government and academia). A key focus of the role will be to understand our evidence needs and gaps, and to work collaboratively to develop insight that informs key decisions across the organisation
• Designing, resourcing and managing customer centric projects, both proactively and in support of the delivery of business delivery
• Work closely with the organisation’s user research and UX design community to turn customer insight into actionable product/service requirements that feed into prototype development, and influence product direction
• “Knowing what we know” and support the Customer Directorate to visualise and communicate insight to HMCTS staff in informative, helpful and inspiring ways, in line with strategic priorities
• Building and maintaining excellent relationships with the senior leaders, key Ministry of Justice stakeholders, external organisations, as well as customer insight communities across government.

Skills and Qualifications being assessed

In your application you must provide evidence of how you meet the following core competences, (250 word limit for each competency) as detailed in the Civil Service Competence Framework:

Making Effective Decisions

• Identify a range of relevant and credible information sources and recognise the need to collect new data when necessary from internal and external sources.
• Recognise patterns and trends in a wide range of evidence/data and draw key conclusions.
• Invite challenge and where appropriate involve others in decision making to help build engagement and present robust recommendations.

Leading and communicating

• Take opportunities to regularly communicate and interact with staff, helping to clarify goals and activities and the links between these and Departmental strategy.
• Communicate in a succinct, engaging manner and stand ground when needed.
• Communicate using appropriate styles, methods and timing, including digital channels, to maximise understanding and impact.

Managing a Quality Service

• Make effective use of project management skills and techniques to deliver outcomes, including identifying risks and mitigating actions
• Establish mechanisms to seek out and respond to feedback from customers about service provided
• Develop proposals to improve the quality of service with involvement from a diverse range of staff, stakeholders or delivery partners

Collaborating and Partnering

• Establish relationships with a range of stakeholders to support delivery of business outcomes
• Invest time to generate a common focus and genuine team spirit
• Encourage collaborative team working within own team and across the Department

Delivering at Pace

• Successfully manage, support and stretch self and team to deliver agreed goals and objectives.
• Plan ahead but reassess workloads and priorities if situations change or people are facing conflicting demands.
• Regularly monitor own and team’s work against milestones or targets and act promptly to keep work on track and maintain performance.

Civil Service Competency Framework

Please also see the: guide to writing competencies

Essential Skills and Knowledge:

You should have excellent knowledge of customer insight and experience of applying it to influence business decisions. You should also have experience of using primary and secondary research to contribute to policy and service outcomes. It is vital that you are interested in people and improving customer service delivery, mixing soft skills with critical thinking and an analytical mind-set.

We’re looking for a highly motivated person who also meets the additional essential criteria:

• Demonstrate experience of using customer insight in practice to solve issues and problems, for example within a business or organisation
• An understanding of customer insights’ application in the public and/or private sector
• Have experience of, and appreciate the strengths / weaknesses of, a wide range of research methods (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods) to apply a multi-disciplinary approach
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex ideas, in a range of formats, simply to technical and non-technical audiences
• Able to confidently influence stakeholders from across a range of backgrounds
• Comfortable managing a diverse, complex portfolio of work and able to manage your work flexibly to adapt as priorities change.

Desirable Skills and Knowledge:

• An understanding of public policy and services, particularly in the justice sector
• Experience of working closely with designers and developers to turn customer or behavioural insight into actionable product/service requirements that feed into prototype development, and influence product direction
• Experience of conducting in-house research to develop an understating of the organisations’ customers
• Familiar with Excel, and in addition statistical packages such as SPSS, SAS or R
• Experience conducting qualitative research, knowledge of evaluation methods and tools
• Experience of conducting user research.

Closing Date: 31st March 2017 at 23:55 hours

Contact point for applicants: Luc Atlmann – Luc.Altmann@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk

If you require any assistance please call 0845 010 3512 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment@noms.gsi.gov.uk Please quote the job reference.