Customer Success Interviews

The best customer success candidates: • Communication skills: The ability to communicate with customers and all stakeholders clearly and effectively. • Customer-centric mindset: The ability to put on

I find the best CSMs are: Curious - they want to understand “why”. This translates well with customers as it means they have an innate desire to understand their business. It also means that they are

Customer Success is different in every organization. Some companies see CS as product experts or an extension of Support. I see Customer Success as Consultants and Change Agents and so I hire for the

The best candidates can relate their experience to how they will be successful in the role. They will have thought about scenario-based questions and be ready to describe how they have tackled specifi

The intangibles: assertiveness, strong sense of ownership, business acumen, very strong communication at the exec level, soft-sales experience, technical acumen (at a high level),  All of these are

I love when the candidate is smiling and have friendly energy. That tells me if he/she is making me feel comfortable, it is highly probable that he/she will do the same with the customers. These are

Rather than just asking a candidate about their background, I prefer to ask about real situational questions. Here are a few of my favorites: Tell me about a time you had an unhappy customer. What w

There are two questions I always like to ask during an initial interview with a candidate: 1. Tell me about a problem you have worked on and how you solved it? - In full transparency, I actually borr

This question is a bit subjective as going "above and beyond" can mean different things to different people. If a candidate truly wants a role, in my opinion, they should do whatever they feel puts th

In my experience there are a few characteristics/skillsets that the best CSMs I have hired all have in common: 1. Organizational skills - This is #1#1 for me. I have never seen a CSM who was not orga

Here are a few mistakes I see most often: 1. Not doing their research on the company/role they are interviewing for. It is surprising how many interviews I have participated in where the candidate ha

Question: What does customer success mean to you? What is it, what is it not? Why it's good: It's open-ended, and gives the candidate a big opportunity to talk about CS as a field, the success of a

Almost did not want to answer this question because it would give it away. Haha! I ask: Has it ever happened to you if a very red customer is moved to your portfolio? What's your first reaction when t