AMA: mParticle Director, Customer Success Operations, Christine Vienna Knific on Customer Success Interviews

To gauge autonomy of Customer Success Manager candidates, I like to ask: * Describe what role the CSM plays with the customer, in your experience? This helps me see the candidate's willingness to be strategic or tactical (hopefully both, when necessary!), how they work with internal cross-functional teams, and how they view ownership of commercial responsibilities. * Provide an example of a customer escalation and how you turned it around. In this question, I'm looking for a candidate to both show ownership over the ultimate resolution of the issue and the ability to navigate difficult internal and external situations. The best answers are those that demonstrate collaboration and use of resources without placing blame on others or an over-reliance on executives. * How do you work with the support team for defects or other issues? Success of the customer is a team sport, with CS driving proactive results and support working to resolve problems when they arise. The best CSMs understand that one doesn't work without the other and demonstrate that in the answer to this question. * What are some things you've done to drive success that aren't directly related to your book of business? In other words, I want to learn about the other projects a CSM has done in the past to keep the business moving forward. Some examples I've seen in my own experience are working with marketing to create an industry-related podcast, driving a customer advocacy and review program, and creating shared materials to save time and help the business scale.

* Show that you're a team player! It's a huge red flag when a candidate demonstrates a lack of willingness to work as a team. The ability to work cross-functionally to drive customer results is critical. If a candidate conveys the message "that's not my job," they aren't a good fit for our team. * Not understanding support vs success. There are a lot of definitions of Customer Success, but I need CSMs who work proactively to drive results. Using "support" and "success" interchangeably in a resume or interview discussion raises a concern. * Lack of metrics. Customer Success is often more difficult to measure than, say, a sales role because our metrics are not all quantitative, but that doesn't mean we aren't focused on showing results. Demonstrating a combination of qualitative and quantitative results in your experience set is important.

It's really important to be prepared for any interview you take the time to do, both out of respect for the hiring manager's time and your own. That said, I view an interview as a conversation and opportunity for both parties to learn about each other. Here are two tips for being prepared and showcasing yourself in the best way: * Any presentation or demonstration project should be done explicitly for the hiring company. Many Customer Success roles will require candidates who advance multiple rounds to prepare a presentation, written project, or sample QBR. Though interviewing multiple rounds for multiple roles is time consuming and often downright exhausting, it's critical that you make sure what you put forward shows preparation and willingness to do the role. I often give candidates a prompt with sample scenarios that are unique to the skill sets the job requires or situations we're experiencing and trying to solve for. The interviewees who stand out most are those who take the time to prepare as the prompt requests. We often get candidates who say "oh, this is a QBR I did at my old company, does that work?" While I totally understand that doing presentations for multiple roles in an interview process takes a lot of time, those who prepare specifically for us send the message that they will do the work and want the job. * Do your research... but don't make it weird. It may sound silly, but it's true! Candidates should be as versed as possible with what the company does, their target market, ideal customers, etc. Likewise, candidates should have looked at the hiring manager's LinkedIn to be familiar with their basic background and any known mutual connections. The critical part, however, is that the candidate uses the background information they've researched as part of their answers to questions. Resist the urge to say something like "Hey, Go Eagles! ... I saw you went to North Olmsted High School." Fun fact: a candidate really said that to me. The awkward conversation that followed highlighted that no, we didn't go to school together, nor did we have mutual acquaintances, but they found it on social media and thought it would be a cool fact to share.

* What does "Customer Success" mean to you? Customer Success as a field and profession is relatively new, and the term can mean different things to different people. A candidate's answer helps me assess their whether their experience is aligned to a proactive vs reactive approach, what kinds of customers they've worked with in the past, how they think about the customer experience, and more. * If you were constructing a CS team from scratch, what metrics would you use to gauge success? Both internally and customer-facing? While this is a highly debatable topic, the key is that metrics described cannot only be financial. Yes, at the end of the day (... or, quarter) we are all working towards financial outcomes. But Revenue Retention is a lagging indicator, and it's important to understand that leading indicators such as product usage, presence of risk factors, and engagement are critical for proactive customer success. * How do you know a customer is successful? The best candidates use this as an opportunity to talk about aligning the value a company's product and services drive to the customer's business goals. I'm looking for CSMs who focus on a customer's business-level outcomes at a strategic level, rather than those who focus on getting their customers to adopt our product or services.