Christine Knific

There are so many career paths for a Customer Success Manager! I don't view the CSM's path as necessarily linear, but a "typical" one might be: Customer Success Associate Customer Success Manager Senior or Enterprise Customer Success Manager Strategic Customer Success Manager  Manager of Customer Success Director of Customer Success Head of Customer Success That said, there are a lot of different specializations, such as Customer Success Operations, Renewal Management, or large-scale Customer Su ...Read More

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 customer on an individual basis, and more.  Example of a great answer: "To me, Customer Success is the driving of client business outcomes by providing value through our product and services." From there, the best candidates talk about being able to do this at scale (do more with less!), using technol ...Read More

The best metrics to use to justify a pay raise are those that tie to revenue and direct value impact (internally and customer-facing). I like to keep a private list (for example, Asana) of the projects I've worked on and my contributions to them so I can refer to it during performance reviews, promotion advocacy, etc.  Revenue metrics - must be quatifiable: Net Revenue Retention in my portfolio Expansion revenue Renewal win rate (this is a ratio or percentage, not a $ amount) CSQLs provided to s ...Read More

As a customer success manager, one of the most important skills someone can develop is setting the right expectations and getting alignment between internal and external stakeholders. The biggest frustrations I've exeperienced come from when we haven't reached alignment.  The best CSMs do this as part of their process whenever they work with someone new - internal or external. For example, a CSM's top priorities when being introduced to a client should be to set expectations about what they can ...Read More

The most important things to consider when assessing a new opportunity with a different company are: The company's trajectory. Is there a viable path to success for the organization, and are you comfortable with that path? (i.e. are they profitable? If not, what level of ambiguity works for you?) The definition of Customer Success at the company. With Customer Success being a relatively new field, the term can be used in a lot of different ways. It's really important to make sure the company's d ...Read More

The most important skills for a Customer Success Manager are: Ability to conduct discovery with a customer. In sales, we've heard the phrase "Always be closing." In Customer Success, we should Always be Discovering. This means that every conversation a CSM has with a customer is an opportunity to ask why, learn how, and dig deeper into the customer's business goals. The more we know about the client's goals and business, the more valuable we bcome.  Setting expectations early and often. CSMs mus ...Read More

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 ...Read More

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 o ...Read More

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 internal ...Read More

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 roun ...Read More