Customer Experience Insights and Market Research Lead

Join a Challenger

Being a traditional bank just isn't our thing. We are big believers in innovating the banking experience because we believe Canadians deserve better options, and we challenge ourselves and our teams to creatively transform what's possible in banking. Our team is made up of inquisitive and agile minds that find smarter ways of doing things. If you're not afraid of taking on big challenges and redefining the future, you belong with us. You'll get to work with people who will encourage you to reach new heights. We like to keep things fun, ask questions and learn together.

We are a big (and growing!) family. Overall we serve more than 670,000 people across Canada through Equitable Bank, Canada's Challenger Bank, and have been around for more than 50 years. Equitable Bank's wholly-owned subsidiary, Concentra Bank, supports credit unions across Canada that serve more than six million members. Together we have over $125 billion in combined assets under management and administration, with a clear mandate to drive change in Canadian banking to enrich people's lives. Our customers have named our EQ Bank digital platform (eqbank.ca) one of the top banks in Canada on the Forbes World's Best Banks list since 2021.

The Work

The Customer Experience Insights and Market Research Lead will be responsible for leading multiple mission-critical, strategic, customer-centric projects that will help shape the future direction of EQ Bank. The incumbent will lead generative research that will help inform new opportunity identification and evaluation, level 2 insights on customer needs and pain points, and new marketing and product concept testing. These projects will involve cross-functional teams and deliver the key insights required to shape the overall value proposition, product construct and feature set we offer to our customers. The incumbent will use their technical and creative abilities, as well as a customer-centric mindset, to provide CX strategy recommendations rooted in qualitative and quantitative research and deep customer insights to Senior Management. They will also be expected to lead Design Thinking workshops among internal product, marketing and engineering teams to help drive customer-centric ideation. In addition, this individual will be responsible for communicating findings and managing execution in partnership with other teams within EQ Bank.

Uncover Customer-Centric Insights to Inform Product Strategy and Roadmap

• Design, conduct, and synthesize generative customer research using mixed research methodologies (qualitative and quantitative) to identify unarticulated customer needs and help shape the multi-year product roadmap for EQ Bank.
• Design future-state customer journeys that bring to life potential "wow moments" for our customers.
• Design and facilitate Design Thinking workshops with internal stakeholders and/or customers to co-create new concepts and solutions.
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Identify and Resolve Customer Pain Points

• Interpret various Voice of the Customer feedback (e.g. customer research, product reviews, social media comments),behavioral data (e.g. transaction engagement, heat maps).
• Advocate research findings to internal stakeholders.
• Lead cross-functional problem-solving sessions with Product, Engineering, Contact Centre, Marketing and Ops to make recommendations to Senior Management on how to solve specific pain points via multiple levers across the short and long term.
• Work with cross-functional teams to communicate insights and help prioritize backlogs for the product teams.

Augment and Champion EQ Customer Segments and Personas

• Leverage ethnographies and other research methods to continue to expand our insight base for our EQ target Segments and Personas.
• Act as internal champion and 'voice' of these personas among key internal stakeholders to help ensure all teams are prioritizing the highest impact work for our target customers.
• Manage the self-serve research repository to curate a library of all our research findings that becomes the go-to source for customer insights across EQ.

Marketing Research

• Support the marketing teams with ad testing by designing, conducting and analyzing concept testing studies.
• Partner with Marketing teams to ensure they have a deep understanding and empathy for our target customers, helping equip them with key insights that will shape their campaign efforts.

Other Responsibilities

• Serve as EQ Bank's "macro trends hunter", staying on top of changes in consumer lifestyles and sentiment as it relates to the financial services industry and owning the process to share these insights with relevant teams on an ongoing basis.
• Contribute to the development of business cases for new opportunities by providing the customer / market rationale and concept design.
• Support Product team in the creation of discovery / pre-planning artefacts (e.g. personas, future-state customer journey maps, concept designs).

Let's Talk About You!

• 7+years' work experience in market research, CX research, customer experience strategy or equivalent field.
• Post-secondary education in business, research, or equivalent experience.
• Strong customer empathy skills.
• A background in Fintech or other financial related products is an asset.
• Experienced with Design Thinking, Human-Centered Design, and Service Design.
• Skilled in a range of qualitative researchmethodologies (e.g., contextual interviews, ethnographic observation, diary studies, co-design workshops etc.).
• Experience with quantitative research methodologies (e.g., surveys) and statistical analysis.
• Experience using survey platforms like Qualtrics, Alida, Forsta.
• Strong business acumen and passion for understanding and solving problems for consumers of financial services.
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to create concrete action plans from ambiguous business problems.
• Proven track record of designing and delivering thoughtful solutions to consumer problems and "dreaming up" of new experiences that benefit customers and business goals.
• Expert in MS Office.
• Strong attention to detail and time management skills.
• Experience synthesizing analyses and preparing presentations for senior executives (both oral and written) with minimal upfront direction.
• Independent, self-motivated and enthusiastic.
• French is an asset.

What we offer [For full-time permanent roles]

Competitive discretionary bonus

Market leading RRSP match program

Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits

Employee Share Purchase Plan

Maternity/Parental top-up while you care for your little one

Generous vacation policy and personal days

Virtual events to connect with your fellow colleagues

Annual professional development allowance and a comprehensive Career Development program

A fulfilling opportunity to join one of the top FinTechs and help create a new kind of banking experience

Equitable Bank is deeply committed to inclusion. Our organization is stronger and our employees thrive when we honour and celebrate everyone's diverse experiences and perspectives. In tandem with that commitment, we support and encourage our staff to grow not just in their career path, but personally as well.

We commit to providing a barrier-free recruitment process and work environment for all applicants. Please let us know of any accommodations needed so that you can bring your best self to the application process and beyond. All candidates considered for hire must successfully pass a criminal background check and credit check to qualify for hire. While we appreciate your interest in applying, an Equitable recruiter will only contact leading candidates whose skills and qualifications closely match the requirements of the position.

We can't wait to get to know you!