Interview Tip

Kristi Faltorusso - Chief Customer Officer - ClientSuccess
Marketing Manager, Adjunct Professor, Director of Digital Acquisition. All titles that Kristi had throughout her career. She's been in Customer Success leadership for a decade and has built out teams, departments and companies.

Her website is FULL of gems no matter if you're in Customer Success, Sales or any GTM role. Interview questions, CS templates, you name it!

Let's learn what she asks in interviews and why.

2 Questions she asks in interviews:

1. We are looking for a solutions oriented CSM, can you please describe an inefficient process that you found and how you improved it?

2. Tell me about a customer that churned. What happened, what could you have done differently and what did you learn from it?

What she looks for:

1. We are looking for a solutions oriented CSM, can you please describe an inefficient process that you found and how you improved it?

-> I need people to come in and be a part of building a process, not wait to be told what to do
-> This tells me if people are paying attention or going through the motions, are they an active voice or passive, can they implement and execute with the prowess to explain the improvements with metrics
-> Everyone has gaps and inefficiencies so if you can't provide an answer, red flag
-> You don't have to be a CSM to answer the question because of the way it's phrased

2. Tell me about a customer that churned. What happened, what could you have done differently and what did you learn from it?
-> This is an ego question for me, don't play the blame game
-> If you don't have an introspective lens, I don't want you on my team
-> We all lose customers
-> I listen for the ability to identify risk early, creativity in approach, what you deploy, who you brought in, what levers you pulled, what you could've done better and what you'll do differently next time
-> If trying to save a customer is emailing them every day and being ghosted, red flag

A Tip For Candidates Out There:

"Use numbers as your language. Understand how to speak towards impact and it needs to be directly correlated to metrics."