Insight Graduate Holly Jordan tells us what the Customer Insight scheme is really about
Holly Jordan
What is Insight?
This is a question I was asked a lot before starting the graduate scheme. To be honest, initially I wasn’t entirely sure and each time I gave a rather pathetic attempt at an answer.
So, now well into my first placement, I thought I would try and shed some light on this by explaining my current role in the Brand and Marketing Insight Team. I would break my role down into two main parts:
Understanding brand performance
Have you ever received a text from your phone provider asking you to rate your recent customer service experience, or any company for that matter? This is called a net promoter score and it helps us understand our brand’s performance in the market. In the Insight team we use this and other quantitative methods to help us answer a number of key business questions, to understand consumer perceptions of British Gas. Some examples: how are we performing? Which customer experiences cause issues? Was our latest advertising campaign successful?This consumer data is extremely influential and used throughout the business to guide decision making.
So what are the best parts of this role? You don’t have to be a statistician to understand it! You work closely with different business areas – great for networking, but it also ensures variety in the role. But the best bit is you know this work really does make a difference and senior stakeholders really value the insight.
Making customer lives simpler
This part of the job is all about the customer, and understanding exactly what they want. This role uses a variety of different methods to really understand customers’ opinions on a new business idea. This can be anything from the format of a paper bill, to a new advertising campaign or the opportunity for expanding the business into new areas. We work closely with the Marketing and Propositions team to ensure all new ideas are robust and aligned to consumer needs.
What is great about this role is the interaction you have with customers – this could be listening to them discuss a new idea or bill format - and is a unique chance to really gauge how the business can ensure customers are at the heart of decision making.
Overall one of the best things about the Insight team at British Gas is just how important our work is to other departments. This means you get to really understand what other departments are up to, engage with key decision makers, and have a great variety in your job.
So there you go, that’s my life as an Insight graduate. Hopefully this brief summary has helped give you a better understanding into Insight and, if this has sparked your interest, why not apply to the programme?