13 customer success manager skills (And how to assess them)

Once you build a product, you must find new customers who want to buy it. Overseeing the customer needs and lifecycle is the job of a customer success manager.

Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are critical business outcomes – and a skilled customer success manager (CSM) is directly responsible for both.

With the rising importance of the customer success management position, you must assess the skills of potential employees who are taking on such a customer-facing role.

Instead of traditional, time-consuming resume screening methods, perform high-quality, targeted pre-employment testing. 

In this article, we explore what fundamental skills to look for in a customer success manager and their importance.

What is a customer success manager?

Customer success managers facilitate the communication between a business and its customers. Each one is typically assigned as a dedicated account manager for specific clients.

With crisp communication and strong tech skills, they help ensure that customers get the most out of a product or service, stay satisfied with their purchase, and remain clients of the company. 

To be successful in the role, customer success managers need to be constantly in touch with the customers and various internal teams of the organization, such as sales, marketing, customer support, and product development.

To perform effectively, customer success managers must be able to:

• Address complex issues in a customer-centric way 

• Analyze customer data and customer feedback

• Build strong relationships with customers and team members

• Have a deep understanding of the customer journey and different customer success methodologies

Let’s talk about how to screen candidates for these critical customer success manager skills:

What is a customer success manager skills assessment? 

A customer success manager skills assessment is a set of tests that evaluate if candidates have the appropriate skills, traits, and capabilities listed in your job description for the role. An assessment evaluates how well candidates manage customer relationships and drive business success. 

Usually, customer success management assessments involve various soft skills tests including communication, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills, and also include hard skills tests covering specific programs, computer proficiency, and customer success management concepts. 

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Why are customer success management skills important? 

Highly skilled customer success managers are vital for the prosperity of any business. 

Strong customer success management skills ensure:

1. Smooth customer service

2. Seamless customer onboarding

3. Improved customer retention

4. More upselling and cross-selling opportunities

5. Less costly client churn

6. Continuous subscription renewals 

7. More referrals of your company between customers

13 customer success manager skills and competencies

Customer success teams need a broad skill set to succeed in their role.

In this section, there is a list of the top 13 vital skills for this position, along with ideas for how to test each skill during recruitment.

1. Communication

Customer success managers are the link between customers and your business, so they need to be able to effectively communicate with customers and team members. 

Great customer success managers must understand their customers’ goals, guide them through the onboarding process successfully, show them how to get the most out of the product, and even explain complex technical concepts in layman’s terms. 

2. Empathy

Customer success managers must understand and address customers’ concerns, questions, and issues. 

They need to be patient and helpful to connect with customers emotionally while knowing how to handle customers’ frustration and dissatisfaction to de-escalate tense situations.

3. Relationship building

Customer success managers must build strong relationships with customers and coworkers.

They need to gain customers’ trust and loyalty by being proactive in making them feel heard and valued. To accomplish this, they require strong interpersonal skills, listening skills, and verbal and non-verbal communication skills. 

To assess applicants’ relationship-building abilities, you can observe their interactions with you and see whether they can build rapport and trust.

4. Customer service

Customer success managers need to be customer service-oriented since they’re the first point of contact between customers and your company. They must provide an excellent customer experience by being helpful, responsive, and professional at all times. 

To test for this skill, you can give candidates a customer service scenario and see how they deal with the issue. You can also use a Customer Service test.

5. Customer relationship management (CRM) software

Customer success managers often need to use a range of software tools and apps to stay in touch with customers, perform data analysis on customer metrics, and spot issues. Depending on the tools you’re using, you should test your candidates’ proficiency with them. 

With TestGorilla, you can easily screen your candidates with our Salesforce CRM test, among others.

6. Project management

Most customer success managers work with numerous clients who are often spread across multiple products or projects. Therefore, customer success managers must be organized with strong project management skills. 

This ensures they are efficient and able to deliver the required level of customer service. Organized employees also make fewer mistakes and contribute to overall business growth and productivity. 

7. Critical thinking

Customer success managers need to be able to think critically and analyze customer data to identify customer trends and issues.

It’s critical that they can draw conclusions, make recommendations, and come up with innovative products that improve customer satisfaction and achieve their business goals.

To assess critical thinking skills during the hiring process, you can use TestGorilla’s Critical Thinking test.

8. Time management

Customer success managers must be able to manage their workflow efficiently to meet deadlines and achieve results. They have to be effective at prioritizing tasks, planning, and staying organized.

One way to assess time management skills is with the help of a Time Management test.

Additionally, you could give them a timed task during the interview and observe how they handle it.

9. Problem-solving

Look for customer success managers who can solve customers’ problems efficiently with the knowledge and resources they have at their disposal. They need to be able to troubleshoot, find the root causes of problems, and come up with solutions that work.

To assess candidates’ problem-solving skills, you can give them a scenario-based question and see how they respond. You can also use a Problem Solving test during your screening. 

10. Attention to detail

Customer success managers need to be accurate and precise in their work to avoid mistakes. They must be capable of double-checking their work, paying close attention to detail, and diligently following procedures.

To assess candidates’ accuracy, you can give them a task that requires a fine grasp of details or use a rigorous Attention to Detail test.

11. Continuous learning

The modern business landscape is continuously changing, meaning your customer success managers should be adaptable and willing to learn new skills. This enables them and your business to remain at the forefront of the industry and stay ahead of the curve.

12. Motivation

To succeed in such a dynamic role, customer success managers need to be self-starters able to stay motivated independently.

One way to assess candidates’ level of initiative is by giving them a hypothetical scenario to evaluate how they’d handle a specific situation. Alternatively, you can use TestGorilla’s Motivation test.

13. Decision making

Coming up with long-term solutions that benefit both the customer and the company is essential for this role. Customer success managers need to be able to see the big picture and have a clear vision of where they want to take the customer relationship.

How to assess customer success manager skills and traits: 5 assessments

TestGorilla offers more than 400 tests to mix and match to create the perfect skills assessment. Here are the most effective tests for assessing customer success manager skills. 

1. Customer Success Manager (SaaS) test

With TestGorilla’s Customer Success Manager (SaaS) test, you can evaluate a candidate’s communication and relationship-building abilities. It also assesses competencies in identifying and resolving customer issues using a dynamic data-driven approach. 

This is an advanced test that functions to assess candidates for positions requiring a significant amount of customer success management experience. The 10-minute time limit ensures that successful candidates can work well under pressure. 

Applicants who perform well in this test have the skills to manage and mentor a team of customer success managers. They can make informed decisions and put the correct processes in place to ensure maximum customer satisfaction. 

2. Customer Service test

For lower-level customer success management positions requiring less experience, TestGorilla’s Customer Service test might be more appropriate. It’s a 10-minute, intermediate-level test that enables you to identify candidates with strong customer service skills. 

It uses real-life scenarios to ensure responses are as accurate as possible. Candidates are presented with a situation and asked to select the most appropriate response for maintaining customer engagement.

You can expect well-performing applicants to be able to understand customer inquiries, interact professionally, and present effective solutions to customer concerns. 

3. Communication test

You can use our Communication test to assess an individual’s ability to communicate in a clear, professional manner. Top-performing candidates can listen well, communicate clearly and concisely, and offer feedback where appropriate. 

It assesses aspects of both written and verbal communication, ensuring that successful applicants have strong all-around communication skills. Applicants are also assessed on their ability to use professional etiquette, interpret non-verbal cues, and summarize messages. 

Hire the best customer success manager with TestGorilla

Use a customer success manager skill test to hire your next customer success star. Sign up for a demo to see how TestGorilla gives you multi-measure assessments that provide all the data you need to only hire the best

4. Problem Solving test

Strong problem-solving skills are one of the traits that set excellent customer success managers apart from the crowd. You can evaluate these using TestGorilla’s short Problem Solving test. 

This intermediate-level test is designed to evaluate an individual’s ability to interpret data and make decisions, identify and solve problems, and respond appropriately to complex situations. Candidates must select the correct answers in a fast, efficient manner. 

You can expect individuals who perform well in this test to make appropriate decisions in high-pressure customer service environments.

5. CRM tests

Our CRM tests measure customer success manager technical skills with the leading databases, including an applicant’s proficiency in and familiarity with the program.

From handing tickets to advanced-level reporting and automations, we empower you to screen applicants and find the best candidates in your applicant pool.

Our CRM tests include:

• Zendesk CS test

• HubSpot CRM test 

• Salesforce CRM test

Summary: The top customer success manager skills and how to test for them

Now that you know the most impactful tests to screen for customer success manager skills, let’s put it all together and match the assessments to the skills.

How to develop customer success manager skills

Here is a quick cheat sheet for developing customer success manager skills with your team. By performing the following simple actions, they can hone these traits that are fundamental to many of the skills listed above:

How TestGorilla can help you find the right customer success manager

TestGorilla’s powerful pre-employment screening platform makes finding the right customer success managers easier than ever. We have a library of more than 400 tests that you can use to evaluate a range of soft and hard skills, including customer success management skills, customer service ability, and more. 

Each test has been scientifically validated, and you can combine up to five tests to create a custom pre-employment assessment. What’s more, you can view test-taker scores from the TestGorilla dashboard and rank your top candidates based on these results. 

If you’re planning to screen for skilled customer success managers, we’re here to help. Sign up for a free 40-minute live demo. 

Take a look at our product tour to see for yourself how much easier it can be to hire the right person. 

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