How to Interview for a Customer Success / Experience Leader? (Executive level)

Luke Cullimore

Hi all,

We are actively recruiting for a VP of Customer Success / Experience. The responsibilities for this individual will ultimately be to line manage a Head of Customer Support as well as managing 5 CSMs & managing the End to End customer lifecycle.

What we really want to test is:
1. Their ability to develop and grow a team

2. Identify where there are skill gaps and capacity gaps and hire for those roles

3. Application of Customer Success theory in real life scenarios

Our interview process includes a Role Play where we craft out some real life scenarios based on the context of our business and test the candidates skill sets.

For 1) & 2) I am considering sending over the development plans & skills assessments for the team and asking them to provide feedback on areas of growth to the individuals directly.

I was wondering what you feel might be the best way to test the above particularly number 3) in a role play setting.

Any feedback / guidance would be great!

Thanks

Jordan Silverman

Sounds like you have a great plan in place. I would add two suggestions.

1) Ask candidates to put together a 30-60-90 plan
- This will not only show how they think about their role but also test their communication skills

2) Ask existing CS team members for scenarios to test
- Then make these scenarios the role plays

These are just two small ideas that I think could help!