Associate Director, Customer Experience & Digital Engagement

Job Description

Our Marketing team are passionate about bringing our medicines and vaccines to our customers around the world. Through digital listening and patient analytics, we are able to understand our customers’ needs and strive to provide solutions to meet them.

The Associate Director of User Experience (UX) and Digital Engagement Research is responsible for providing leadership to build and embed UX research capabilities across the Global Customer Insights function in support of our company’s digital engagement strategy. The Associate Director will be responsible for balancing priorities and insights resources across the teams supporting the US digital engagement strategy. The primary focus for each team is to improve the customer experience and optimize brand performance through a deep understanding of the customer experience provided by the UX and Insights team members. The Associate Director will bring a strategic perspective on how to reveal what customers need by conducting primary research through an experience lens, exploring customer behaviors and motivations so that the marketing and digital engagement teams understand what is needed to ensure that customer experiences are relevant, useful, and meaningful.

This individual will collaborate with the Business Insights Management Team, Digital Engagement Teams (DETs) and brand research teams as a consultant and expert resource for development of comprehensive UX insights and analytics, study designs, implementation, and analysis to advance our company’s digital strategy. The incumbent is responsible for understanding business challenges, managing agency partners, and collaborating with brand insights and analytics team members to guide the discovery of customer experience requirements. This individual will conduct research studies where necessary, provide turn-key solutions and agency recommendations, and ensure alignment, consistency, executional excellence, and compliance. In this role, the individual will be expected to develop and socialize best practices.

The Associate Director performs these functions fully independently and at a high level of achievement with minimal managerial assistance while keeping both the Director and appropriate commercial partners apprised of progress and issues as they arise.

Primary Activities:

• Leads UX and Agile MR capabilities development, supporting the culture and mindset shift associated with agile work processes within regulatory and compliance requirements. Building from expertise, develops business rationale that impacts resource allocation, project or service support, agency selection, and evolution of the UX and digital engagement process.

• Leads and facilitates work-shop sessions around the design / development of Personas, Customer Journey Maps, Experience Plans Organizes work efforts by prioritizing tasks, using resources optimally, establishing appropriate deadlines and ensuring on-time delivery. Balances resources across DETs and ensures that research team members receive needed support including coaching and staff augmentation support.

• Anticipates business and regulatory/compliance issues and recommends appropriate product, process, and methodological improvements to enhance decision support utilizing analytical tools, agile methods, and distillation of insights across multiple sources.

• Serves as a consultant and expert resource for customer experience and digital engagement marketing research. Advises on the conduct of independent research on multiple aspects of products and experiences in support of the US Digital Engagement Teams.

• Partners with DET and brand researchers, and DET team members including UX Design, UI Design, Content Strategy, IT, and others to prioritize research opportunities and align on appropriate methodologies. Collects or advises on the collection and analysis of user behavior through lab studies, field visits, ethnography, surveys, benchmark studies, and online experiments (A/B testing). Communicates and champions customer insights and research findings to diverse audiences through written reports and in-person presentations.

Education:

• Required: BA/BA degree required in Sociology, Psychology, Marketing Research, Anthropology, Behavioral Sciences, Human Computer Interaction, Service Design or related fields

• Preferred: Masters or Ph.D. in related field

Experience:

• Required: 2 years relevant work experience in applied user experience design research or conducting semi-structured interviews, contextual field visits, usability studies either live or remote

• Minimum 5 years of relevant experience in related functions (including marketing, design, market research, moderation, behavioral science, advertising, mobile).

• Experience working in a healthcare environment or related field is desirable but not required.

Skills:

• Highly developed analytical skills, strong problem-solving and demonstrated ability to think strategically and objectively.

• Is at mastery level in the full range of insights methodologies; able to coach/guide others in the application of market research methods and data analysis.

• Effective verbal, written and oral presentation communication skills

• Proven analytical (quantitative and qualitative) and data interpretation skills

• Strong planning and project management skills

• Demonstrated ability to manage effectively in ambiguous, frequently changing environment and effectively shift direction as needed to address emerging organizational needs

• Demonstrated experience in negotiations with third parties (e.g., contractors, agencies, associations), or with team members in the absence of positional authority

Who we are …

We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.

Our Human Health Division maintains a “patient first, profits later” ideology. The organization is comprised of sales, marketing, market access, digital analytics and commercial professionals who are passionate about their role in bringing our medicines to our customers worldwide.

What we look for …

In a world of rapid innovation, we seek brave Inventors who want to make an Impact in all aspects of our business, enabling breakthroughs that will affect generations to come. We encourage you to bring your disruptive thinking, collaborative spirit and diverse perspective to our organization. Together we will continue Inventing For Life, Impacting Lives while Inspiring Your Career Growth.

Invent. Impact. Inspire.

NOTICE FOR INTERNAL APPLICANTS

In accordance with Managers' Policy - Job Posting and Employee Placement, all employees subject to this policy are required to have a minimum of twelve (12) months of service in current position prior to applying for open positions.

If you have been offered a separation benefits package, but have not yet reached your separation date and are offered a position within the salary and geographical parameters as set forth in the Summary Plan Description (SPD) of your separation package, then you are no longer eligible for your separation benefits package. To discuss in more detail, please contact your HRBP or Talent Acquisition Advisor.

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

For more information about personal rights under Equal Employment Opportunity, visit:

EEOC Poster

EEOC GINA Supplement​

OFCCP EEO Supplement

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing diverse, talented, and committed people together. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when diverse ideas come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively. We are an equal opportunity employer, committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace.

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., Kenilworth, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Number of Openings:

Requisition ID:R117225