Essential Work Samples for Hiring a Strategic Customer Success Manager

The Strategic Customer Success Manager (SCSM) role is pivotal for organizations that prioritize long-term customer relationships and revenue growth. These professionals serve as the bridge between your company and your most valuable clients, ensuring customers derive maximum value from your products while identifying opportunities for expansion. Given the strategic importance of this position, traditional interviews alone are insufficient to evaluate candidates effectively.

Work samples and role plays provide a window into how candidates will actually perform in real-world scenarios they'll face daily. For Strategic CSMs, these exercises reveal critical abilities that might not emerge in standard interviews: their strategic thinking when analyzing account data, their executive presence when presenting to C-level stakeholders, their consultative approach when addressing client challenges, and their collaborative skills when working across departments.

The cost of a poor hire in this role is particularly steep. Beyond the typical hiring expenses, an ineffective Strategic CSM can damage relationships with your highest-value accounts, potentially resulting in churn that significantly impacts your bottom line. Conversely, an exceptional hire can drive account expansion, improve retention rates, and serve as a valuable voice of the customer within your organization.

The following work samples are designed to evaluate the essential competencies for Strategic Customer Success Managers: strategic thinking, relationship building, data-driven decision making, consultative approach, and cross-functional collaboration. By incorporating these exercises into your hiring process, you'll gain deeper insights into candidates' capabilities and make more informed hiring decisions for this critical role.

Activity #1: Strategic Account Plan Development

This exercise evaluates a candidate's ability to analyze account data, identify growth opportunities, and develop a strategic plan to maximize customer value and retention. Strategic thinking and data-driven decision making are core competencies for successful CSMs, and this activity provides a practical assessment of these skills in action.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a mock customer account profile including: company background, current product usage data, renewal timeline, stakeholder map, business goals, and potential pain points.
• Include 6-12 months of usage metrics showing some concerning trends (e.g., declining feature adoption, missed QBRs, stakeholder turnover).
• Provide the candidate with this information 24-48 hours before the interview.
• Allocate 20 minutes for the candidate to present their strategic account plan, followed by 10 minutes of questions.
• Prepare questions that challenge their assumptions and recommendations to assess adaptability.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided account information and develop a 12-month strategic account plan.
• Your plan should include: account health assessment, identified risks and opportunities, specific growth strategies, success metrics, and a stakeholder engagement approach.
• Prepare a brief presentation (5-7 slides) outlining your strategic plan.
• Be prepared to explain your rationale and answer questions about your approach.
• Focus on demonstrating how you would drive value for both the customer and your company.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the presentation, provide specific feedback on one strength (e.g., "I appreciated how you identified the declining usage in the marketing department and proposed specific adoption strategies") and one area for improvement (e.g., "I'd like to see more specific metrics for measuring success").
• Ask the candidate to revise one element of their plan based on the feedback, giving them 5 minutes to think and respond. This tests their ability to incorporate feedback and adapt quickly.

Activity #2: Executive Business Review Role Play

This exercise assesses the candidate's ability to communicate effectively with senior stakeholders, demonstrate the value of your solution, and handle challenging questions. Executive presence and consultative skills are essential for Strategic CSMs who regularly engage with client leadership teams.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a scenario for a Quarterly Business Review with a strategic customer who has experienced some challenges with your product/service.
• Develop 2-3 executive personas with different priorities (e.g., CTO focused on technical integration, CFO concerned about ROI, CMO interested in specific outcomes).
• Provide the candidate with basic information about the account, including 6-month performance metrics, current challenges, and business objectives.
• Have 2-3 interviewers play the roles of these executives during the role play.
• Prepare some challenging questions or objections that executives might raise.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Prepare and deliver a 15-minute Quarterly Business Review presentation to the executive team.
• Your presentation should include: a summary of the partnership to date, key performance metrics, successes and challenges, and strategic recommendations for the next quarter.
• Demonstrate how your recommendations align with the customer's business objectives.
• Be prepared to handle objections and challenging questions from the executives.
• Focus on communicating value and building trust rather than just presenting data.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the role play, provide feedback on one strength (e.g., "You did an excellent job addressing the CFO's concerns about ROI with specific metrics") and one area for improvement (e.g., "You could have been more proactive in addressing the known integration challenges").
• Ask the candidate to re-approach one of the challenging moments from the role play, incorporating the feedback. This tests their ability to adjust their approach based on stakeholder reactions.

Activity #3: Churn Risk Analysis and Mitigation

This exercise evaluates a candidate's analytical abilities and proactive approach to identifying and addressing potential churn risks. Retention is a critical responsibility for Strategic CSMs, and this activity reveals how candidates approach this essential aspect of the role.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a dataset for a fictional strategic account showing various usage metrics, engagement data, and other relevant indicators over a 12-month period.
• Include some clear warning signs (e.g., declining executive engagement, support ticket increases, missed implementation milestones) as well as some more subtle indicators.
• Provide context about the account's business situation and stakeholder information.
• Give candidates 30-45 minutes to analyze the data and prepare their assessment and recommendations.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided account data and identify potential churn risk indicators.
• Develop a comprehensive risk assessment that categorizes the severity and immediacy of each risk.
• Create a detailed mitigation plan that addresses each identified risk with specific actions, owners, and timelines.
• Prepare to present your analysis and recommendations in a 15-minute presentation.
• Be ready to explain your methodology for identifying risks and prioritizing actions.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on one strength (e.g., "Your analysis of the correlation between support ticket topics and feature adoption was insightful") and one area for improvement (e.g., "Your mitigation plan could have included more cross-functional collaboration").
• Ask the candidate to revise their prioritization or approach to one specific risk based on additional information you provide. This tests their ability to adapt their strategy as new information emerges.

Activity #4: Cross-Functional Collaboration Scenario

This exercise assesses the candidate's ability to navigate internal teams and advocate for customer needs while balancing company priorities. Strategic CSMs must excel at cross-functional collaboration to drive customer outcomes and product improvements.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a scenario where a strategic customer has requested a product enhancement or customization that requires collaboration across multiple internal teams.
• Develop a brief on the customer's request, its business impact, and the technical complexity involved.
• Outline the various stakeholders involved (e.g., product management, engineering, sales, finance) and their potential concerns or priorities.
• Have interviewers role-play as internal stakeholders with competing priorities.
• Structure this as a 25-30 minute exercise with time for planning and execution.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the customer request and internal stakeholder information.
• Develop a strategy for advocating for the customer's needs while addressing internal concerns.
• Prepare for and facilitate a cross-functional meeting to discuss the request and determine next steps.
• Your goal is to reach a resolution that satisfies the customer while respecting internal constraints and priorities.
• Demonstrate how you would communicate the outcome back to the customer, regardless of whether the request was approved.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on one strength (e.g., "You effectively translated the customer's business needs into terms that resonated with the product team") and one area for improvement (e.g., "You could have better addressed the engineering team's timeline concerns").
• Ask the candidate to revise their approach to one challenging stakeholder based on the feedback. This tests their ability to adapt their communication style to different internal audiences.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should we allocate for these work samples in our interview process?

Each exercise requires approximately 30-45 minutes, including time for setup, execution, feedback, and candidate response. We recommend selecting 1-2 exercises that best align with your specific needs rather than attempting all four in a single interview process. The Strategic Account Plan Development and Executive Business Review exercises are particularly valuable for assessing core Strategic CSM competencies.

Should we provide these materials to candidates in advance?

For exercises like the Strategic Account Plan Development, providing materials 24-48 hours in advance allows candidates to demonstrate their strategic thinking and preparation skills. For role plays and collaboration scenarios, providing a brief overview in advance with full details shared at the time of the interview often yields more authentic responses.

How should we evaluate candidates' performance on these exercises?

Create a structured scorecard based on the key competencies for your Strategic CSM role. Rate candidates on specific behaviors observed during the exercise rather than general impressions. Have multiple interviewers evaluate the same exercise to reduce individual bias, and compare candidates against your defined criteria rather than against each other.

What if our product or service is highly technical or complex?

For technical products, consider simplifying the scenario or providing additional context to ensure candidates can focus on demonstrating their customer success skills rather than technical knowledge. Alternatively, you can extend the preparation time to allow candidates to familiarize themselves with the technical aspects before the exercise.

How can we make these exercises fair for candidates with different backgrounds?

Ensure that the exercises focus on transferable skills rather than specific industry or product knowledge. Provide sufficient context and background information so that candidates without direct experience in your industry can still demonstrate their strategic thinking, relationship building, and other core competencies.

Should we use the same exercises for all Strategic CSM candidates?

Yes, using consistent exercises across candidates enables more objective comparison. However, you may want to develop different versions of each exercise (with equivalent difficulty) if candidates might share information about the interview process.

The Strategic Customer Success Manager role is pivotal to your organization's retention and growth strategy. By incorporating these practical work samples into your hiring process, you'll gain deeper insights into candidates' abilities to develop strategic account plans, engage with executives, analyze data for proactive risk management, and collaborate across teams. These insights will help you identify candidates who can truly drive customer success and business growth in this critical role.

For more resources to enhance your hiring process, check out our AI Job Description Generator, AI Interview Question Generator, and AI Interview Guide Generator. You can also explore our comprehensive Strategic Customer Success Manager job description template for additional insights into this role.

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