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What is your favorite customer success interview question and the best answer you've heard?

Caoimhe Carlos

Udemy Vice President Global Customer Success • 2y

One of my favourite CS interview questions is some variation of "Can you share a time when you received constructive feedback from a peer, manager, or cross-functional pa...

1,911 Views

What are the most important skills (both tactical and intangible) that are must-have for customer success managers?

Gabriela Ribeiro

3y

2 Views

Are technical skills necessary to be an effective CSM?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

Increasingly, yes. With tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Second Brain, you no longer need to code to build useful things, but you do need curiosity and a willingness to le...

372 Views

What is your least favourite thing about being a CSM

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

Honestly, this hits harder for me as a CS leader than as a CSM.The thing that drains me most is constant change at the exec level. When leadership turns over every quarte...

362 Views

What type of skill sets and experiences do I need to build in order to strengthen my career and move from being a Sr. customer success manager to Director level and above?

John Brunkard

Salamander Advisory Customer Success Advisor | Formerly Adobe, Sitecore, Red Hat, Symantec, Blue Coat, Intel, Dell, Dialogic • 3y

I am assuming this is while maintaining an individual contributor role.Consistently meet and exceed your KPIs. Be the go to person for Customer Success within your organi...

931 Views

What's a typical career path for a customer success manager?

Matt Kiernan

HubSpot Senior Director, Customer Success • 1y

I have hired over 100 CSMs so far in my career. I believe that competencies and attributes are what is most important hiring in CS vs. a typical career path. I've hired f...

153 Views

What hard skills are must haves to be a customer success leader? What are nice to haves?

Manil Vasantha

Leader, Customer Service • 3y

Some essential hard skills that are considered must-haves for a customer success leader include: (must have does not necessarily mean now - you can and should be trained ...

8,432 Views

What's the best way to break into the tech industry as a customer success manager?

Ed Sowden

Splunk EMEA Director of Customer Success • 8mo

It's very feasible to break into the tech industry as a CSM without prior experience. The key thing is to understand what the tech provider is looking for from the role a...

1,000 Views

If someone is looking to begin their career as a CSM what are some must have online resources that you would recommend? thanks.

Conor Holmes

Confluent Senior Director of CS & Account Management • 2y

I answered a similar question for new grads looking to get into a CSM role, the same advice applies. Learn about the role. I have included some links below that can help ...

840 Views

I just got put on a PIP. What do I actually do?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

Most PIPs are not recoverable. I know that’s hard to hear. The data inside companies is usually that 70-80% of PIPs end in exit. In 15+ years in leadership roles, I've do...

394 Views

What’s the right next move: CSM, AM, RevOps, Solutions, or out of post sales entirely?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

Depends on what you actually like doing. Here’s how I think about it:AM (account management): Right move if you love commercial conversations and relationship work but wa...

378 Views

Should CSMs own the number, and how do I get comfortable with revenue ownership?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

If your team isn’t there yet, it will be. The era of “CS is a cost center, sales owns the revenue” is mostly over at strong companies. The teams I’m building today own re...

336 Views

Should I stay IC or move into management, and is there actually a senior IC track?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

Both paths are valid. They are not the same job, and a lot of people pick management because it sounds like the next step, then hate it. Don’t do that. Management isn't a...

367 Views

How do I break into CS (or back into CS) in this market?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

This market is brutal and I don’t want to sugarcoat it. I’ve reviewed reqs with 600+ applicants for a single CSM seat. You have to be deliberate.What is actually working ...

364 Views

Will AI replace CSMs, and how do I stay employable?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 2mo

Short answer: AI is replacing parts of the job. It is not replacing the job. The CSMs who get cut in 2026 are the ones whose work product looked like AI output already: c...

495 Views

What KPIs are most relevant to track and recommended tools to easily maintain them as a CSM leader?

Ed Sowden

Splunk EMEA Director of Customer Success • 8mo

This will depend on how you have set your customer success function up. Are you using CS to drive growth and retention, are you setting up the function to drive technical...

1,746 Views

What should a CSM focus on in regards to leveling up in their career?

Entry level CSMs

Jessica Haas

Appcues Chief of Staff & VP of CX • 3y

The two areas I would recommend are 1) Sharpening your Sales skills and 2) Adopting some Product Manager mindsets. When working with customers and the further upmarket ...

4,706 Views

Where do you see the future of customer success heading?

What skills will a future customer success manager need that he/she doesn't have today?

Ed Sowden

Splunk EMEA Director of Customer Success • 8mo

Great question.Customer Success has been asking itself this for the past two years:Are we primarily a revenue-generating function?Are we a technical team focused on produ...

713 Views

What framework do you use when assessing a new opportunity at a different company?

Meenal Shukla

Zoom Head of Scaled Customer Success, Onboarding, Learning and Adoption • 3y

Product: Is the product something I will be excited about? Ultimately, a CSM's role is to drive value through Product. If you are not convinced about the impact of the pr...

973 Views

What are the biggest frustrations you have as a customer success manager?

Matt Kiernan

HubSpot Senior Director, Customer Success • 1y

I think the most frustrating thing about Customer Success is that without agreement across the organization about the importance and role of Customer Success, it can beco...

1,842 Views

What metrics do you use to justify a pay raise?

Meenal Shukla

Zoom Head of Scaled Customer Success, Onboarding, Learning and Adoption • 3y

Metrics - Gross Retention of your book of business - Net retention of your book of business Leading indicators that you are doing your job well: - ROI delivered: We look ...

1,221 Views

What are your strategies for identifying risk early in an account? How do you think about measuring customer health?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 8mo

I think about risk in a couple different categories. If we're talking about the beginning of the journey, I tend to lean more on monitoring stakeholder behavior for signs...

1,639 Views

Can you share an example of CS Ops framework that worked for you?

Meenal Shukla

Zoom Head of Scaled Customer Success, Onboarding, Learning and Adoption • 3y

One example of a Customer Success Operations framework is the "Customer Success Management Framework" developed by Gainsight. The framework includes five key components: ...

2,289 Views

Customer Success Career Path · Developing Your Customer Success Career