Hiring Guide
Director of
Customer Success
Specific duties of a Director of Customer Success can vary from business to business — along with factors like company culture, work environment, and team dynamics — it’s vital to tailor any job description and interview content to your company’s needs and expectations.
Hiring Guide: Director of Customer Success
Director of Customer Success interview templates
Featuring content from professionals at companies like:
Why you should hire a Director of Customer Success
Directors of Customer Success help organizations achieve strategic goals by setting and managing the vision for product adoption, a positive customer experience, and revenue growth. They do so by building and leader the customer success team and working with senior leadership to ensure the customer success strategy is aligned with the overall goals of the business.
In this hiring guide, we'll provide everything you need to hire a great Director of Customer Success.
Top 12 skills for Directors of Customer Success
Internal Stakeholder Collaboration
Leadership and Navigation
Driving Customer Value
Creating an Inclusive and High Performing Team
Sample Director of Customer Success job description
Directors of Customer Success build and lead the customer success team and drive the organization’s customer success strategy to ensure business success. Their primary goal is to create and execute a customer success strategy that focuses on driving product adoption, creating a positive customer experience, and achieving growth through renewals and contract improvements. They work closely with Sales leaders and other senior leadership to align on strategies and goals to ensure their operations are aligned with other initiatives across the business.
A critical part of a senior customer success role is building and leading an inclusive, diverse, and high performing team by fostering collaboration and developing operational practices to track the performance of their team and individuals. Performing this role successfully requires someone who is highly motivated and engaged and takes initiative to maximize the strength of the team and align their efforts to the vision of the organization.
Sample interview questions for Directors of Customer Success
Question 1
Tell me about how you have worked with cross-functional and geographically dispersed teams in the past to successfully maintain customer satisfaction. How did you collaborate with those teams, and why was it successful?
Director of Customer Success - 20 years professional experience
What does this question reveal?
Candidate has the ability to understand interdependencies between teams/regions
Answer tips
- Actively listens to others to solicit and incorporate ideas/feedback
- Addresses team/region priorities through data-led conversations
- Implements high levels of empathy and critical thinking in collaboration and risk/reward trade-offs
- Explains how their approach to collaboration contributed to the project’s success
Question 2
What strategies or approaches do you implement to enhance diversity, belonging, participation and effectiveness in your team?
Director of Customer Success - 20 years professional experience
What does this question reveal?
Candidate has the ability to encourage inclusive collaboration
Answer tips
- Discusses giving people a voice and soliciting their input on projects/policies/practices for constructive debate opportunities
- Instructed employees to keep each other informed with relevant work information
- Introduced a strategy/method for ensuring consistent, ongoing communication
- Seeks out differences to be celebrated, especially for creative and contrarian points of view
- Suggests meeting regularly to ensure goals and work streams are aligned
