To start with, who is a customer success manager? A customer success manager is an individual who helps and guides customers in the support phase.
Below Are The Top 20 Customer Success Manager Interview Questions And Answers
1. Why Are You Interested In This Role?
First, if your interviewer asks you this question, they expect you to tell them why you want to work for them. Consider talking about putting your skills into place and learning from them as well.
Sample Answer
“Having learned that you were recruiting, I was motivated to apply for this role to put my knowledge and skills into place. I want to use the skills I gained from my university and the experience I have had in my previous roles to better your company’s performance. As I was researching your company, I loved the good performance I saw. I want to be part of a team that helps customers get their desired expectations. Lastly, I am a person who likes learning from others. I am not shy to say that I would like to sharpen my skills further by learning from your company. ”
2. What Are The Roles Of A Customer Success Manager?
The interviewer expects you to mention the essential duties and responsibilities you should perform as a customer success manager in this question. Only mention the critical roles.
Sample Answer
“There are several duties that I, as a customer success manager, should perform. Among them are;
a) Advocating the company
b) Onboarding new customers
c) Building close relationships between the customers and the company’s support team
d) Encourage upsell and cross-sells.
e) Follow up on renewals
I believe that those are the top customer success manager roles that I will be delighted to perform in your company.”
3. What Are The Qualities That A Customer Success Manager Needs To Be Successful?
As a customer success manager, you should have certain qualities to be successful in the role. Mention the qualities that you think can help you be successful in this role.
Sample Answer
“As a customer success manager, there are qualities that I need to have so that I can be successful in this role. First, I need to have good communication skills to make it easy to communicate efficiently to the customers and other customer support teams. In addition, I should have problem-solving skills to solve problems whenever they arise. As a customer success manager, I am also expected to have industry knowledge, managing skills, and have active listening skills. Lastly, I am expected to be able to teach, mentor and train. I believe that having all that is what defines a successful customer success manager.”
4. What Major Challenges Did You Face During Your Last Role? How Did You Manage?
The interviewer knows that at some point, you faced challenges. That’s what they expect you to talk about. Tell them about the challenges and how you managed them.
Sample Answer
“Due to high customer expectations, sometimes the customers could find no value for their money in the product. This is a challenge that my previous company and I went through at our early stages. However, I realized that it is good to engage with your customers and tell them what to expect and what not to expect in the product. I must say that this was my biggest challenge, but I managed to solve it through the customer engagement program.”
5. Describe Your Daily Routine As a Customer Success Manager
When the interviewer asks this question, they expect you to tell them what you would do as your daily activities. Give them a very organized routine of your daily activities as a customer success manager.
Sample Answer
“After arriving at the office, I would start by reviewing tasks for the day and create a schedule. I would then meet with my team to brief and respond to emails and prior support tickets. I would then attend to onboarding customer’s calls. I would then follow up on customers before breaking for lunch. After lunch, I will handle customer support communications across multiple channels. Lastly, I would then hold inter-departmental meetings and check-ups. That would be a perfect day for me at work.”
6. Describe Briefly About Your Experience
Here, the interviewer wants you to talk about your previous work experiences. Talk about where you have worked and for how long.
Sample Answer
“After completing my university degree, I was employed in a supermarket as an intern. Here I interacted with a lot of seniors who trained me. After completing the first year, I was permanently employed for a contract of three years. Meaning, I have four years of experience in this field as a customer success manager. I believe that I will use these relevant skills and experience to work for your company for better customer satisfaction.”
7. What Kind Of Strategies And Mindset Are Required For This Role?
The interviewer wants to know your primary focus as a customer success manager. Talk about your attitude towards this role.
Sample Answer
“As a customer success manager, it should always be at the back of my mind that I am working towards customer success. And so, customer first. All the activities that I need to perform should always be focused on customer satisfaction first. One should ensure close relationships, communication efficiency, customer advocacy, and support. Whenever a customer raises an issue, it should be handled and solved immediately without any delays. The response should be 100%. I believe having that kind of mindset is what we call success!”
8. What Is The Biggest Challenge That You Foresee In This Role
Since you have experience or knowledge in this role, the interviewer might ask you these questions to see whether you can research and predict future challenges. Talk about a big challenge that you think might affect this field negatively.
Sample Answer
“As a customer success manager, I see a challenge in the response sector in this field. More than one must be an online shopper in every four individuals you see in today’s world. A large percentage of customers are online, and they keep increasing as technology advances. In the future, we need to use more advanced customer software and tools to help us manage a large number of emails, tickets, and chats that we will be receiving. The improvement in websites and electronic payment systems have greatly impacted online shopping.”
9. How Do You Stay Motivated In Your Work?
Here, your interviewer is trying to understand your daily morale keeper. Consider talking about achievements and meeting your expectations as your motivation.
Sample Answer
“As a customer success manager, nothing motivates me more than meeting my client’s expectations. Whenever there is an issue that arises from our customer, I try my level best to solve it. Solving the problem is my motivation. That makes me see that my strategies and skills are being useful in this role. That is the biggest motivation in my career. Solving customer’s issues and meeting my customer’s expectations.”
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10. Describe A Time When You Failed In This Role And The Lessons You Learned.
The interviewer knows that you might have made a mistake at some point and led to poor performance. They are asking you this to see how you can learn from making mistakes. Talk about a time when you made a mistake, and you could solve the error and the lesson you learned.
Sample Answer
“As we all know, mistakes are there to be made. And we learn from our mistakes. As a customer success manager from my previous role, I used to get a lot of pressure from customers enquiring about product details. There would be thousands of emails flowing in and lots of website support service tickets. This was overwhelming us. Sometimes, customers would complain about late responses from the support team. However, we were able to solve this. We had to update all the information about the products we offered. Many customers could access any information they needed without emailing or booking a ticket with customer support. Lately, we have been getting a few emails just for follow-ups.”
11. Why Do You Feel You Are Most Suitable For This Role?
The interviewer is asking why you feel that they should choose you over the other candidates. Talk about the unique qualities, experience, and achievements that you have that no other candidate has.
Sample Answer
“Despite having all the academic qualifications, it is my understanding that this role needs someone who has enough experience from a very company-customer interaction. Having worked at a bustling institution with a lot of customer engagement, I think I am the candidate you are looking for. In addition, the strategies that I have learned from my previous role will help in bettering this field in your company.”
12. Share With Us Your Greatest Achievement
The interviewer is asking you the most meaningful goals you have achieved while working in this role. Talk about your achieved goals and any promotions and awards that you have ever received in your career.
Sample Answer
“In my previous work, a customer would rate your service after attending to them. That would add or deduct your performance points which were being reviewed at the end of the year. There could be an award for the top positively rated employees. That could be the employee of the year. I have won this title three times for the four years I have worked in that company. That means that it’s only one year that I did not get this award. Yes. Of course, that was my entry-level position year. Along with this, there could be a trophy for the staff of the year title.”
13. Talk About The Customer Success Process And Its Process
The interviewer is testing your academic knowledge on this role. Give an organized approach from the first activity involved in the process up to the last one.
Sample Answer
“A customer success process is a framework that ensures that your customers understand your product, improves on your ability to engage with them, and answer questions and feedback as soon as possible. The process involves;
- Identification of customer preferences
- Formation of customer success journey map
- Creation of a customer success team
- Getting the right tool
- Establishing your metrics
- Customer onboarding
- Customer engagement
Having such a customer success process is very important since it entails everything involved in customer success. Using the process mentioned in your company could give the expected customer success.”
14. Define Customer Success Software And Give Us Six Examples Of The Software.
The interviewer wants to know whether you know the technology tools used in the customer success role. Clearly define and mention six of them.
Sample Answer
“This is a software that allows you to have a 360 degrees view of all customer data pulled together and combined from third-party applications like the email, live chat, customer support tickets, among others. Some of the top five examples are; Gainsight, Live Agent, Client Success, UserIQ, and Custify. These apps help you manage all the data coming in.”
15. What Are The Benefits Of Using The Customer Access Tools
In other words, the interviewer wants to see whether you know the importance of using the mentioned tools and software.
Sample Answer
“There are many benefits of using these software and customer success tools. Among them are;
i) Keep track of customer’s data and requests
ii) Respond to every customer request with an automated response
iii) Get the customer request to the right person
iv) Ensures quick response
v) Keep all customer support information in one place.
These are just five among other benefits of using software and tools in the customer success field.”
16. Tell Us The Different Types Of Customers That You Know Of.
The interviewer wants to see whether you know the types of customers you will interact with within this role.
Sample Answer
“There are different types of customers that I will be expected to deal with and serve as a customer success manager.
a) Loyal customers
b) Impulse shoppers
c) Bargain hunters
d) Wandering consumers
e) Need-based customers.
These are the top five types of customers that I will be serving in your organization if given a chance to.”
17. Give Us A Customer Success Strategy Framework.
The interviewer wants to know whether you have a strategy in your mind that you are supposed to use to make this field a success. Talk about the strategic framework for customer success.
“I would say that the framework depends on the type of company’s products. But there is a general and standard customer success methodology used to better the customer success field. The methodology involves;
a) Brand awareness
b) Product/service education
c) Customer acquisition
d) Guided onboarding
e) Customer support
f) Value realization
g) Customer loyalty
h) Expansion offers
These are the main methods that you can use to strategize customer success.”
18. What Is Your Biggest Strength
The interviewer wants to know what it is that you think that you are best in. Talk about any quality that you think it’s relevant to this role.
Sample Answer
“As far as my biggest strength is concerned, I would prefer saying that working as a team is my biggest strength. I am a people person. I love working with hardworking people and have one major goal to attain at the end of it all. In my previous role, I had a team that used to pull together towards a certain goal. The morale was so high, and no one could get bored. I believe that I will meet a hardworking team to work with like the one I had before. ”
19. What Do You Know About Our Products And Have You Ever Used Them? If So, Tell Us The Experience.
The interviewer wants to know whether you know the products that you are coming to promote. Tell them what products they are using and give them a review.
Sample Answer
“First, I must say that your makeup foundations are just on point. I understand that you have used 95% herbal as the components of this product. It was introduced in the market in 2012. Yes. I use it and am proud to say that I used it today as I was coming for this interview. What a beauty indeed.”
20. What Would Be Your Best Part Of Working In This Role?
The interviewer wants to know where your main interest is in this field. Tell them what part of the field you like working on as a customer success manager.
Sample Answer
“I must say that I am good in this role in general, but my best is responding to customer’s queries about our products on emails, support tickets, direct messages, and other platforms.”
Conclusion
This is a significant role in every company and a fascinating one indeed. You should be able to show politeness while answering questions. All the best
