100

Customer Service
& Support Interview
Questions
Table of Contents

Introduction 03

Customer Support Interview Questions 04

Customer Service Interview Questions 06

Customer Success Interview Questions 07

Customer Success Manager Interview Questions 08

Conclusion 09
Introduction
When a company is hiring for customer facing roles, there
are some key character traits that the hiring team is looking
for during the interview process. Considering the potential
hiree will be interacting directly with customers, whether
face to face daily or through the phone, you want to find
candidates with strong communication and critical thinking
skills, demonstrated active listening, and genuine empathy.

If they are hired, these potential employees will be

representing your organization during every moment of
their customer interactions. So, hiring well for these roles is
as crucial as ever. For customer facing roles, you don’t just
want to hire a candidate that checks off all the standard
boxes. Instead, you are looking to hire talent that rises
to the occasion and is the best person to represent your
organization to customers. Now all you have to do is ask the
right questions to reveal whether your candidate is up for
the task.

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Customer Support Interview Questions
1. How would you define customer support? 12. Tell us about a time you assisted a difficult customer.
How did you navigate that interaction?
2. What are the tools that would be helpful to you in
identifying problems and solving them? 13. How can you utilize customer feedback to ensure
business excellence?
3. How would you describe your personal customer
support strategy? 14. Tell us about a time you received excellent customer
support as a customer. What did you learn from that
4. What might be a reasonable amount of time you’d
experience that influences how you interact with
expect to be on a customer call? At what point would
your own customers?
you ask for help from a team member or superior?
15. What customer support tools are you familiar with
5. What is the difference between good and great
and comfortable using?
customer support?
16. Tell us about a time you helped a previous employer
6. What do you do in a situation where you don’t know
increase revenue.
the answer to a customer’s question?
17. How do you prioritize tasks while scheduling
7. Tell us about a time when you assisted a customer to
your work?
resolve a particularly difficult issue.
18. How well do you work under high-pressure or tense
8. What do you do when your customer points out an
customer oriented situations?
issue with any product or service?
19. Why do you think you would be a good fit for
9. Which is more important: an excellent product or
our company?
friendly customer support?
20. Why do you want to work in customer support?
10. Would you consider yourself a team player?
21. What would you do if you did not know
11. Can you describe a past experience you have had as
how to best support a customer?
part of a high functioning team? What did you learn
from that experience?

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22. What are the three most important qualities 36. If you were in a situation where it felt impossible to
for a customer support representative to have? meet a customer’s needs, how would you proceed?

23. If a customer were to deliver negative feedback to
you directly, how would you handle that situation?
24. In your research of our company, which of our
products or services do you find the most interesting?
25. Tell us about a time that you were proud
of the support you gave a customer.
26. What does customer support mean to you?
27. What are the key differences between
customer support and customer service?
28. How do you collaborate with the sales
and product teams in your current role?
37. What has motivated you thus far in your career?
38. Tell us about a difficult day you have had at work
in your current position. What did you learn from
that day and how did you internalize that lesson
moving forward?
39. Give us an example of a time when you had to explain
something complex to a frustrated customer. How did
you make sure they understood you without escalating
the situation?
40. Describe an instance when you had to improvise or
think on your feet to solve a problem.

29. As an employee here, what would your ideal level of

collaboration with the sales and product teams be?

30. If you could change anything about our products,

what would you change?

31. Tell us about a time you used empathy to

connect with a customer.

32. Tell us about a time you failed to use empathy with a

customer, what did you learn from that experience?

33. How well do you know our product niche?

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34. How well do you know our industry,
Customer Service Interview Questions

1. What is customer service? 13. What does customer service mean to you?

2. What did success look like in your previous role?

14. Have you ever felt the need to lie to a customer? If
3. What do you think success will look like here?
so, talk us through that scenario.
4. What was your biggest failure in your previous role, and
15. How would you describe your current state of
how did you recover from it?
emotional intelligence?
5. What are your biggest workplace pet peeves?
16. Tell me about a time when you had to shift your
6. Can you walk me through every step in a communication approach with a customer to get the
common process? impact you wanted.
7. How do you de-escalate angry customers? 17. Why is customer service important to you?
8. Tell us about a time that you successfully de-escalated 18. Tell me about the most recent time you went above
a tense situation. What is the biggest lesson you and beyond to meet a customer’s needs.
learned from that situation?
19. Tell me about a time you thought you had
9. What are your personal career goals? communicated clearly with a customer, but were
10. What was the toughest customer service case you’ve misunderstood. How did you navigate that customer
ever handled? relationship moving forward?

11. How would you rewrite a canned response? 20. Tell me about a time a customer was particularly
pleased with your service.
12. What is your definition of empathy?

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Customer Success Interview Questions
1. What does customer success mean to you? 12. How do you handle rejection?

2. How do you deliver bad news to customers? 13. What skills are you hoping to develop in this role?

3. How do you communicate with customers if 14. How do you measure success in your current role?
you can’t resolve a problem right away?
15. What would you add to our culture, or what would
4. What is the toughest case you’ve ever handled? you change about it?

5. Explain to me how (Example Product Feature) works. 16. How would you prevent customer churn?

6. How would you explain Twitter to your grandparents? 17. How would you de-escalate a frustrated customer?

7. How do you demonstrate value in the first 18. When you have to complete multiple tasks, how
phone call or email? would you determine their priority?

8. Pitch us an upsell of our product’s next tier-level. 19. If you saw a customer using more seats than they’re
paying for, how would you handle it?
9. How would you explain our product or service
in a single sentence? 20. Give an example of constructive feedback.

10. How would you change our product or service?

11. Why do you want to be a member of our customer

success team?

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Customer Success Manager
Interview Questions

1. Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for 13. When you have multiple customer projects going on at
a customer. once, how do you keep track of and prioritize them?

2. How do you manage your personal time? 14. How do you keep yourself up to date on changes in
your industry?
3. How do you identify upsell opportunities?
15. Tell us about the most challenging relationship you’ve
4. What is your process for creating quarterly business
had with someone inside the company? What made it
reviews?
particularly challenging and how did you navigate it?
5. How do you perform when working by yourself?
16. When expectations or guidelines aren’t clear, how do
6. How do you prevent churn? you respond to that environment?
7. How do you measure customer satisfaction? 17. When you get stuck on an unfamiliar problem, what do
8. What tools and software are you familiar with using? you do?

9. What are your greatest strengths as a manager? 18. Describe a time when you inherited a displeased
customer and how you turned them around to become
10. Tell me about a time when things changed significantly
an advocate for your organization.
for you with a client. How did you navigate that change?
19. What types of goals have you been required to meet in
11. When a challenging situation arises with a customer, what
the past? Were you successful?
are the steps you would take to work through it?
20. How do you extend the client relationship to ensure
12. What was your most recent investment in your own
loyalty and retention?
professional development?

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Conclusion

Good customer facing interview questions help Customer Service

you determine if your candidate has drive,
empathy, and shares your company values.
No matter how finely tuned your processes
are, how good your data is, or how powerful
your customer support software is, hiring the
wrong team members will cause the customer
experience of your organization to suffer. Start
creating a customer-centric, high performing
customer facing system at your organization by
hiring the right people.
Software
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