Strategic Customer Insight Lead

Asda Stores Ltd; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary company bonus

Company pension up to 7% matched

Company Car allowance of £5,700

15% colleague discount in store and on

Job summary

Asda Stores Ltd is seeking a Customer Research & Insight Manager to lead end-to-end qualitative and quantitative research projects within the Customer Planning & Insights team. You will translate customer needs into actionable insight to drive decision-making across strategy, proposition, brand and shopping experience.

The role requires strong analytical skills, experience in retail research, and the ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Proven experience across qualitative and quantitative research, ideally within the retail industry with commercial judgement.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with understanding of customer metrics.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, turning complex evidence into actionable recommendations.
• Confident to influence cross-functional and leadership stakeholders.
• Experience managing third-party research agencies and suppliers.
• Ability to prioritise a varied research programme with budgets, timelines and recurring deliverables.
• Strong capability in Excel and PowerPoint.
• Curious, proactive and improvement-focused mindset.

Responsibilities

• Shape and lead end-to-end qualitative and quantitative customer research projects, translating business challenges into clear research questions, identifying existing knowledge and gaps, and designing robust approaches that deliver actionable recommendations.
• Manage and develop key customer listening programmes, including customer closeness, brand and perception tracking, mindset insight and the virtual customer community.
• Act as a visible and trusted insight partner to cross-functional stakeholders, shaping briefs, prioritising research needs, recommending the right approach, and embedding customer evidence into decision making.
• Bring together and analyse customer, brand, market and competitor evidence to identify trends, understand behaviour and highlight opportunities for Asda.
• Manage our external agency partners, subscriptions, and self-serve tools, providing clear direction, challenge and governance to ensure high-quality research and value for money.
• Create and share compelling reports, presentations and engagement moments that bring the customer voice to life and drive action across stakeholders at different levels of the organisation.
• Continuously improve how research is conducted and delivered, using feedback and learning from what drives engagement and action to shape future approaches and outputs.
• Adopt a proactive approach by anticipating emerging business needs, highlighting opportunities early and ensuring insight is embedded within governance, planning and decision-making cycles.
• Contribute positively to the Customer & Digital function community and culture through active participation in team meetings, events and cross-functional collaboration.

Skills

Qualitative & quantitative research

Analytical thinking

Excel

PowerPoint

Stakeholder influence

Agency management

Communication & presentation

Retail industry experience

Job description

Asda Stores Ltd is seeking a Customer Research & Insight Manager to lead end-to-end qualitative and quantitative research projects within the Customer Planning & Insights team. You will translate customer needs into actionable insight to drive decision-making across strategy, proposition, brand and shopping experience.

The role requires strong analytical skills, experience in retail research, and the ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders.