Senior Manager: Service Design

Purpose of the role

• Cell C is a leading telecommunications company in South Africa, committed to providing innovative solutions and exceptional service to our consumers B2C and business customers B2B. Cell C is positioned as a Spirited Disruptor and values integrity, transparency, honesty, and simplicity.
• The Senior Manager: Service Design is accountable for defining, integrating and governing the service design strategy, standards and enterprise-wide customer journey frameworks across digital and assisted channels. The role translates customer insight, operational data, commercial priorities and technology capability into scalable service solutions that improve customer satisfaction, enable omnichannel execution and support business performance.
• In addition, the role is the line manager for the UX/UI design team and is accountable for the combined service design and UX/UI discipline. It sets design direction, governs design quality across all customer-facing touchpoints, and builds a single coherent design capability spanning end-to-end service journeys and the interfaces through which customers experience them.
• The role provides senior functional leadership across customer journeys including onboarding, sales, support, retention, billing and digital self-service. It oversees the portfolio of service design and UX/UI initiatives, drives cross-functional alignment, manages design governance and mitigates customer, operational and delivery risks across the service ecosystem.
• The role is transformational in nature and is expected to build service design and UX/UI capability, embed customer-centric ways of working and position design as a sustainable organisational competence within Cell C.

Key Requirements: Functional Strategy, Service Design Leadership and Governance

• Define and integrate the service design and UX/UI strategy, principles, standards and governance approach across digital and assisted customer channels
• Shape the target-state service design roadmap and translate enterprise and functional priorities into service design plans, initiatives and measurable outcomes
• Govern end-to-end customer journey architecture, service blueprints, experience frameworks and design quality standards across onboarding, sales, support, retention, billing and digital self-service
• Lead the development of current-state and future-state journey maps, service blueprints, process flows and experience frameworks
• Set service design direction for complex, cross-functional initiatives and ensure alignment between customer needs, commercial priorities, operational capability and technology platforms
• Act as final design approval authority for service design and UX/UI outputs, ensuring consistency and quality across all digital and assisted touchpoints
• Govern the design system, component library and central design repository, ensuring design outputs are documented, reusable and consistently applied
• Sponsor and oversee the adoption of repeatable service design methodologies, artefacts, tools and governance forums across the organisation
• Customer Insight, Enterprise Experience Optimisation and Commercial Impact
• Lead the interpretation of customer behaviour, research findings, analytics, operational data and market trends to identify systemic experience gaps and improvement opportunities
• Prioritise customer journey improvements based on strategic value, customer impact, commercial benefit, operational feasibility and risk exposure
• Define and monitor experience outcomes including NPS, tNPS, customer effort, digital adoption, drop-off, conversion and resolution measures
• Direct user research, usability testing and design validation across digital and assisted touchpoints to evidence design decisions
• Integrate accessibility, simplicity and inclusive design principles into service experience and interface standards and decision-making
• Provide strategic recommendations that improve customer satisfaction, self-service adoption, retention, conversion and operational efficiency

Portfolio Delivery, Operating Model Alignment and Performance Oversight

• Oversee the service design and UX/UI portfolio and ensure delivery is prioritised, sequenced and aligned to transformation roadmaps, backlog initiatives and business performance priorities
• Sponsor high-impact service design initiatives and orchestrate delivery across internal teams, external partners, technology, operations, marketing, product, retail and customer service stakeholders
• Ensure service design and UX/UI outputs are implementation-ready and include journey maps, service blueprints, operating model impacts, process flows, wireframes, prototypes, storyboards and experience artefacts
• Govern design intent through implementation to ensure customer outcomes, operational feasibility and measurable benefits are maintained
• Ensure timeous execution of design deliverables across internal teams and external partners so that downstream business units can execute against customer experience strategy and market demand
• Track initiative performance, manage escalations, resolve cross-functional blockers and report progress against agreed business outcomes

Enterprise Stakeholder Alignment, Risk and Decision Influence

• Act as a senior advisor on service design, customer experience and omnichannel service excellence to executives, senior leaders and cross-functional decision forums
• Influence enterprise decisions by providing customer journey insight, service design expertise, operational impact assessment and commercial implications
• Collaborate with marketing, brand, commercial, product, technology, operations, retail, customer service and analytics teams to shape roadmaps based on customer and UX insight
• Identify and mitigate systemic risks linked to customer friction, fragmented journeys, poor adoption, operational inefficiency, compliance considerations and inconsistent service experiences
• Drive alignment across prepaid, postpaid, fibre, digital, retail and contact centre environments to ensure coherent customer journeys and consistent service standards
• Stay informed on industry trends, emerging technologies, digital customer experience innovation and competitor benchmarks to shape continuous improvement

Lead Service Design & UX/UI Capability, People and Thought Leadership

• Line manage the UX/UI design team in addition to service design resources, carrying accountability for performance management, goal setting, development planning, resourcing and retention across both disciplines, in line with the approved organisational structure.
• Lead, coach and develop service design and UX/UI capability across designers, managers, specialists and cross-functional squads, in line with the approved organisational structure.
• Build capability through mentoring, design critique, co-creation, design forums, knowledge-sharing and consistent application of service design and UX/UI standards.
• Chair design forums and critique sessions, and ensure design decisions, rationale and artefacts are documented, reusable and centrally stored.
• Facilitate strategic workshops, journey mapping sessions, blueprinting activities and stakeholder alignment forums to embed customer-centric ways of working.
• Strengthen succession, capability development and knowledge management for the service design and UX/UI disciplines.
• Provide thought leadership that advances service excellence, transformation, innovation and enterprise-wide customer impact.

Qualifications

Minimum Bachelor's Degree or Diploma NQF Level 7 in one of the following:

• Service Design
• Human-Centre Design or Human-Computer Interaction HCI
• UX / Interaction Design
• Industrial / Organisational Psychology
• Business
• Marketing
• Digital Transformation or a related field
• NQF Level 8 Honours Degree is advantageous and aligned to the complexity of the role
• Relevant certification in Service Design, Design Thinking, Customer Experien