RECRUITMENT GUIDE
Customer Success Specialist
A customer success specialist is responsible for assisting and supporting customers in achieving their intended goals with the business. Typically, before customers agree to working with a business, a customer success specialist will meet with them to get a deep understanding of why they are interested in the product/services available, and what they want to achieve from working with that company.
A customer success specialist will provide detailed onboarding information to new customers and maintain a strong relationship with them over time to ensure any issues that may arise are sorted out as soon as possible. They are also responsible for communicating the needs of customers to other members of the team such as the marketing, sales, and product departments, and passing on any feature requests from customers to the relevant team members. The aim of a customer success specialist is to ensure customers are always satisfied and have a great experience with the business to ensure long term customer retention and to reduce churn.
Day-to-day tasks of this role:
- Schedule meetings with existing and potential customers.
- Complete on-boarding sessions for new customers.
- Inform customers about any changes to the product/service.
- Be the voice for the customer and communicate their needs to other departments of the business.
- Follow up with customer renewals.
Recruitment Process
UNDERSTAND THE ROLE
Skills profile for a Customer Success Specialist
Most organizations require a customer success specialist to have a Bachelor degree in business administration, computer science, management information systems or another relevant field from a tertiary education institution. It is also favourable that a candidate has relevant industry experience and training. There are some common skills required for this position.
It is important that a customer success specialist has excellent communication skills. They must be able to communicate in a clear and concise manner both verbally and in writing, and have an open and honest communication style. They must be able to communicate effectively with both customers and the business, and be able to pass on improvement suggestions or any issues from the customers to the relevant team member in the organization.
A customer success specialist must be extremely customer-centric at all times. They must always focus on the customer experience and ensure that they see value from the service, engage with customers regularly and manage their accounts effectively.
It is essential that a customer success specialist also has strong problem solving skills. They must look outside of the box when solving problems, and view any problems as challenges to overcome, whilst ensuring that customers are kept up to date with progress. If an answer to a challenge is not immediately clear, they must always investigate other ways to solve the problem and keep persisting until the problem is resolved.
Once you’ve determined the skills required for the role, you can write the job description to advertise for your position.
SOURCE APPLICANTS
Customer Success Specialist Job Description
Summary:
- Why is this role being filled?
- How does this role fit into the organization and the team?
- What makes your company unique?
- What would it be like to work for you?
Requirements:
- What technical skills are needed for this role?
- Which soft skills are applicable?
- What are the nice-to-have experiences of your ideal candidate?
- Include availability preferences in this section
Responsibilities:
- What are the key deliverables for this role?
- What does the day-to-day of this role look like?
Benefits:
- Compensation & bonuses
- Employee benefits & perks
- Ongoing training benefits
PRO TIP #1
In building your candidate profile, you’ve already identified what skills are needed to be successful in the role. Here’s where to list your “must-have” skills and maybe a couple of “nice-to-have” skills. For example, a customer success specialist must have excellent communication skills, but it would be nice to have someone who has experience using platforms and software that the business may use and are essential for this role, for example: Zendesk, Hubspot, and other data integration platforms.
PRO TIP #2
Ensure that the entire recruitment process from job description to assessment to interview reiterates your company vision and values. This will help you identify the right people for the role, and applicants will know whether your company is the right fit for them.
SKILL ASSESSMENT
Sample skills assessment
Question 1
Problem Solving
Question Type: Doc
If a customer came to you with a problem and you didn’t know how to fix it, what would you do?
Question 2
Customer Centric
Question Type: Text
How would you be an advocate for our customers?
Question 3
Communication
Question Type: Video
Describe a time where you have had to communicate an unpopular message to a customer. How did you do this?
INTERVIEW
Interview guide for a Customer Success Specialist
Once your Vervoe skills assessment has surfaced the most qualified people for your open role, you can focus on interviewing these candidates. The PDF interview guide contains structured questions against each of the competencies for this role.
This interview guide is intended to be used in conjunction with the Vervoe skills assessment. Where a candidate has scored Low – Medium on a skill, focus on asking more questions from that skill to gain deeper insight into their level of competency.
PDF INTERVIEW GUIDE
Get your copy of the interview guide to complete the hiring process. Includes questions against each of the skill competencies for the role.
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