Senior Specialist: Customer Journey & Lifecycle Mgmt at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Description

KEY FOCUS AREAS

• Customer Journey Mapping: Design and optimize end-to-end customer experiences across all touchpoints.
• Lifecycle Strategy: Develop tailored strategies for each stage of the customer lifecycle (acquisition to retention).
• Segmentation & Personalization: Use data to deliver relevant, personalized experiences to different customer segments.
• Data & Analytics: Leverage insights to drive decisions, track KPIs, and predict customer behavior.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Align efforts across marketing, sales, product, and service teams for a unified experience.
• Technology & Automation: Implement and manage tools for journey orchestration, CRM, and campaign automation.
• Voice of the Customer (VoC): Integrate customer feedback to continuously improve journeys and experiences.
• Retention & Loyalty: Design programs that increase customer loyalty and maximize lifetime value.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

Strategy Formulation and Execution

Own the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of end-to-end customer journeys, ensuring alignment with business goals and customer expectations.

• Develop and execute strategies for each stage of the customer lifecycle (acquisition, onboarding, engagement, retention, reactivation). Drive initiatives that increase customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Campaign Oversight. Lead the planning and execution of lifecycle campaigns across channels. Ensure campaigns are timely, relevant, and aligned with customer needs.
• Data & Insights: Monitor and report on key metrics (e.g., CLV, churn, NPS, engagement), use insights to inform journey improvements and strategic decisions.
• Technology & Tools: Ensure the effective use of CRM, marketing automation, and journey orchestration platforms and drive integration and optimization of customer data systems.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with marketing, sales, product, and customer service to ensure a seamless customer experience. Act as the voice of the customer in strategic planning.
• Customer Feedback & VoC: Integrate Voice of the Customer (VoC) insights into journey design and lead initiatives to close the loop on customer feedback.
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and customer obsession.
• Be aware of and advise on how the business should respond to emerging policy and regulatory trends in order to adapt operational strategy and ensuring compliance alignment.
• Track execution progress against key strategic initiatives and highlight non-performance in order to correct course where needed.
• Support transformation initiatives through structured programme delivery and change management practices.
• Provide expert advice and support in operating model, strategy, and value chain formulation and delivery alignment.
• Identify practices and technologies that provide competitive advantage and enable knowledge sharing and integration of practice areas.
• Undertake analysis of management and specialist information and guide reporting tool implementation to improve decision-making quality.

Customer Primacy

• Lead journey mapping and lifecycle design to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Oversee the creation and use of customer segments to deliver tailored experiences, ensuring personalization strategies are data-driven and measurable.
• Use behavioural and transactional data to personalize experiences across touchpoints.
• Interpret market and customer insights to inform operational plans and prioritise capability investments.
• Utilise customer data to improve processes and propositions, ensuring measurable customer value delivery.
• Implement initiatives that improve customer engagement and retention through operational enhancements.
• Coordinate cross-functional initiatives to deliver consistent customer journeys and service quality.
• Represent the voice of the customer within internal forums to influence service delivery priorities.
• Plan and deliver services that create a culture which aims to exceed customer expectations in all aspects of the business.
• Provide expertise in designing integrated frameworks to embed service excellence.

Sustainable Growth

• Drive customer retention and value growth through lifecycle management strategies.
• Identify and act on opportunities to deepen customer relationships and reduce churn.
• Develop business area growth plans aligned to segment and enterprise priorities.
• Work with business partners to define and execute on growth strategies and operational initiatives.
• Monitor growth delivery, identifying and actively participating in resolving barriers to achieving strategic objectives at operational levels.
• Evaluate financial and customer returns on initiatives to ensure alignment with business viability.
• Formulate and develop multi-function operating frameworks that contribute to sustainable growth.

Client-Driven Innovation and Change

• Introduce innovative customer journey design practices and tools.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives to transform customer experience through lifecycle insights.
• Monitor competitive landscape and identify opportunities to improve products, services, or operations.
• Drive continuous improvement and innovation to enhance customer outcomes.
• Shape client experience initiatives through project ownership and delivery responsibility.
• Manage implementation of operational change, ensuring readiness, engagement, and measured impact across delivery teams.
• Influence and communicate to all stakeholders to minimise resistance to change and ensure onboarding of target audiences.
• Scan the external environment to investigate alternative delivery models and offer innovative advice for competitive advantage.
• Drive change management activities across a single value chain for optimal adoption of change.

Leading Talent

• Provide thought leadership as a specialist in the field.
• Foster a culture of customer obsession, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Create inclusive team environments that support performance, wellbeing, and growth.
• Develop future capability in the field through providing mentorship to interested colleagues.

Operational Effectiveness

• Establish journey KPIs and dashboards to track performance and impact.
• Ensure operational alignment across functions to support seamless customer experiences.
• Ensure integration across business units by highlighting operational friction and dependencies, where they arise, for resolution.
• Represent the business area in operational forums and with delivery partners.
• Leverage data insights to improve operational effectiveness and customer outcomes.
• Continuously improve processes for agility, quality, and alignment with customer needs and digital tools.
• Identify problems and formulate alternate solutions to resolve value chain conflicts.
• Provide expert advice on operating model, strategy, value chain formulation, and business controls/governance frameworks.

Digital Adoption

• Leverage digital platforms to enable journey orchestration and lifecycle automation.
• Promote the use of analytics and AI to enhance personalization and engagement.
• Execute digital initiatives and promote adoption of technologies that improve efficiency and user experience.
• Monitor digital platform performance and ensure integration with business processes and outcomes.
• Deliberately identify opportunities to digitise, automate, and implement solutions for customer primacy, innovation, and operational effectiveness.

Good Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Ensure journey and lifecycle initiatives comply with regulatory and internal standards.
• Monitor and mitigate risks related to customer experience and data usage.
• Apply governance, risk, and compliance frameworks in business processes.
• Promote risk awareness, guide the response to regulatory changes and emerging issues and support audit readiness activities.
• Define and consolidate the risk profile for the business unit, manage critical risks, and ensure resolution feedback to stakeholders.
• Enable the development and implementation of integrated corporate governance frameworks in areas of specialisation.
• Influence the implementation of effective internal controls systems and corporate governance practices.

Data Monetisation

• Use predictive analytics to identify high-value customers and tailor engagement strategies in order to increase revenue per customer and improve customer retention.
• Use journey data to streamline onboarding and increase early engagement in order to accelerate time-to-value and reduce drop-off.
• Use data to automate and optimize lifecycle campaigns in order to reduce marketing costs and improve scalability.
• Apply data insights to support business planning and decision-making in the business area.
• Develop mechanisms to ensure data is collected, validated, and used to drive performance improvement.
• Oversee the explicit use of data and its inherent value to explore opportunities and guide decisions.

Stakeholder Management

• Partner with internal stakeholders to align journey initiatives with business priorities.
• Represent the voice of the customer in strategic forums where decisions that impact the customer experience are being made.
• Manage relationships with key stakeholders to support aligned delivery and issue resolution.
• Ensure stakeholder expectations are managed and engagement is consistent with transformation priorities.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Education/ Qualification:

• Post Graduate Degree: Honours Degree, Post Graduate Diploma and Professional Qualifications [NQF8]

Field of Study:

• Customer Experience, Marketing, Business Strategy, or related fields.

Work Experience:

• 8 - 10 years’ experience in a specific capability of importance to the bank.
• Experience must include developing integrated customer-centric product or service solutions or corporate practice development while working with and managing stakeholders across business and/or functional areas and budget management.
• Exposure to digital transformation and data-driven decision-making is preferred.
• Demonstrated success in designing and delivering customer journey and lifecycle strategies that improve engagement, retention, and satisfaction across complex environments.
• Experience in engaging stakeholders in aligning customer journey initiatives with strategic priorities, influencing cross-functional collaboration, and embedding customer-centric thinking across the organisation.

COMPETENCIES

Leadership Competencies:

• Strategic visioning & planning
• Business Acumen
• Communication
• Influence and leadership
• Innovative problem-solving
• Delivering Results
• Adaptability
• Collaboration

Knowledge and Skills:

• Customer-centric mindset: A deep understanding of customer needs, behaviours, and preferences.
• Data analysis skills: Ability to analyse customer data and identify insights that inform customer lifecycle value management strategies.
• Strategic thinking: Ability to develop and implement effective customer lifecycle value management strategies.
• Customer journey mapping, lifecycle design, personalisation and segmentation strategies
• Customer analytics and behavioural insights
• Cross-functional collaboration and alignment
• Customer experience measurement (NPS, CSAT, VOC)
• Digital engagement and automation, leveraging journey orchestration platforms and tools
• Strategic planning and execution
• Stakeholder influence and communication
• Regulatory and compliance awareness in Customer Experience

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)

End Date: January 5, 2026