Effective Work Sample Exercises for Hiring Customer Success Advisors

Customer Success Advisors serve as the critical bridge between your company and your clients, ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes while maximizing the value they receive from your products or services. The effectiveness of your Customer Success team directly impacts customer satisfaction, retention rates, and ultimately, your company's bottom line through renewals and expansion opportunities.

When hiring for this pivotal role, traditional interviews alone often fail to reveal a candidate's true capabilities. While resumes and behavioral questions provide valuable insights, they don't demonstrate how candidates will perform in real-world scenarios that Customer Success Advisors face daily. This is where practical work samples and role plays become invaluable.

Well-designed work samples allow you to observe candidates' problem-solving approaches, communication skills, technical aptitude, and customer-centric mindset in action. They reveal how candidates think on their feet, handle challenging situations, and deliver value to customers—all essential qualities for success in this role.

The following four exercises are specifically designed to evaluate the core competencies required for Customer Success Advisors. Each activity simulates real-world scenarios that your CSAs will encounter, providing a window into how candidates will perform when facing similar situations on the job. By incorporating these exercises into your hiring process, you'll gain deeper insights into each candidate's capabilities and make more informed hiring decisions.

Activity #1: Client Onboarding Simulation

This role play assesses a candidate's ability to effectively onboard a new client, a critical responsibility for Customer Success Advisors. The exercise evaluates communication skills, product knowledge, ability to understand client needs, and capacity to build rapport—all essential for successful client relationships.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a scenario about a fictional new client who has just purchased your product/service and needs onboarding.
• Create a one-page brief that includes: client company background, their business goals, why they purchased your solution, and any potential implementation challenges.
• Assign a team member to play the role of the client's primary contact (ideally someone familiar with your product and onboarding process).
• Provide the candidate with basic product documentation or a brief overview of your solution's key features and benefits 24 hours before the exercise.
• Allocate 20-25 minutes for the role play, followed by 5-10 minutes for feedback.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the client brief and product documentation provided.
• Prepare to conduct an initial onboarding call with the client.
• During the call, you should:
• Build rapport with the client
• Confirm their goals and success criteria
• Outline the onboarding process and timeline
• Address any questions or concerns
• Establish next steps and set expectations
• Focus on demonstrating how your product will help them achieve their specific business goals.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the role play, provide specific feedback on one aspect the candidate handled particularly well (e.g., how they explained a complex feature in simple terms).
• Offer one piece of constructive feedback about an area for improvement (e.g., they could have asked more probing questions about the client's workflow).
• Give the candidate 5 minutes to reflect and then ask them to redo a specific portion of the conversation incorporating the feedback.
• Observe how receptive they are to feedback and their ability to adapt their approach.

Activity #2: Customer Health Analysis and Action Planning

This exercise evaluates a candidate's analytical skills, strategic thinking, and ability to translate data into actionable plans—crucial skills for proactively managing customer relationships and preventing churn.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a mock customer health dashboard for 5-7 fictional customers showing various metrics such as:
• Product usage statistics
• Support ticket history
• NPS/CSAT scores
• Renewal dates
• Expansion opportunities
• Recent engagement metrics
• Include a mix of healthy and at-risk accounts with different challenges.
• Provide brief context about each customer's industry, size, and how long they've been a customer.
• Allow 45 minutes for the exercise: 30 minutes for analysis and preparation, 15 minutes for presentation.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the customer health data provided.
• Identify which accounts are at risk and which present opportunities for growth.
• For each account, determine:
• Current health status and trajectory
• Key issues or opportunities
• Recommended actions with priority levels
• Expected outcomes of your proposed actions
• Prepare a brief presentation of your findings and action plan.
• Be prepared to explain your reasoning and prioritization decisions.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the presentation, highlight one particularly insightful observation or strategic recommendation the candidate made.
• Provide one piece of constructive feedback about their analysis or action plan (e.g., they missed a key risk indicator or opportunity).
• Give the candidate 10 minutes to revise their action plan for one specific customer based on the feedback.
• Evaluate their ability to incorporate new perspectives and refine their strategy.

Activity #3: Difficult Customer Conversation Role Play

This role play assesses a candidate's ability to handle challenging client situations, demonstrate empathy, problem-solve under pressure, and maintain professional composure—all essential skills for retaining at-risk customers.

Directions for the Company:

• Develop a scenario involving a frustrated customer facing issues with your product/service.
• Create a brief that includes:
• Background on the customer relationship
• Details of recent problems they've experienced
• Their communication history with support
• Their current emotional state (frustrated, considering cancellation)
• Assign a team member to play the role of the upset customer.
• Provide the candidate with the scenario 15 minutes before the exercise to prepare.
• Instruct the role player to begin the conversation clearly frustrated but be receptive to good solutions.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the customer situation provided.
• Prepare to handle a call with this frustrated customer.
• During the conversation, you should:
• Demonstrate active listening and empathy
• De-escalate the situation professionally
• Identify the root causes of their frustration
• Propose concrete solutions to address their concerns
• Rebuild trust and confidence in your company
• Your goal is to turn this negative situation into a positive customer experience.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the role play, provide specific feedback on one aspect the candidate handled well (e.g., how they showed empathy or proposed a creative solution).
• Offer one piece of constructive feedback (e.g., they could have acknowledged the customer's frustration more directly).
• Ask the candidate to redo the opening of the conversation incorporating the feedback.
• Evaluate their receptiveness to feedback and ability to adjust their approach.

Activity #4: Implementation Planning Exercise

This exercise evaluates a candidate's project management skills, attention to detail, ability to anticipate challenges, and cross-functional collaboration capabilities—all critical for successful customer implementations.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a scenario involving a complex implementation for a new enterprise customer.
• Provide details including:
• Customer's business requirements and goals
• Technical environment and integration needs
• Timeline constraints
• Available internal resources
• Potential risks or complications
• Include any relevant documentation templates your CSAs typically use.
• Allow 45 minutes for the exercise: 30 minutes for planning, 15 minutes for presentation.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the implementation scenario provided.
• Create a comprehensive implementation plan that includes:
• Key milestones and timeline
• Required resources and team members
• Customer and internal responsibilities
• Risk mitigation strategies
• Success criteria and measurement approach
• Communication plan
• Prepare to present and explain your implementation approach.
• Be ready to discuss how you would handle potential roadblocks or scope changes.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the presentation, highlight one particularly strong element of their implementation plan.
• Provide one piece of constructive feedback about an aspect they could improve (e.g., they underestimated a particular risk or missed a key dependency).
• Give the candidate 10 minutes to revise the specific portion of their plan based on the feedback.
• Evaluate their ability to incorporate feedback and improve their planning approach.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Each exercise requires approximately 45-60 minutes including preparation, execution, feedback, and adjustment time. We recommend selecting 1-2 exercises most relevant to your specific Customer Success role rather than attempting all four in a single interview process. The onboarding simulation and difficult customer conversation are particularly effective for evaluating core CS skills.

Should we provide candidates with preparation materials in advance?

Yes, providing basic information 24 hours in advance is recommended, especially for the onboarding simulation and implementation planning exercises. This reflects real-world conditions where CSAs have time to prepare for client interactions and allows you to evaluate how thoroughly candidates prepare when given the opportunity.

How should we evaluate candidates across multiple exercises?

Create a simple scoring rubric aligned with your key competencies (e.g., communication, problem-solving, customer focus) and rate candidates consistently across exercises. Focus on both the quality of their initial performance and their ability to incorporate feedback, as the latter is a strong indicator of coachability and growth potential.

Can we adapt these exercises for remote interviews?

Absolutely. All these exercises can be conducted via video conferencing. For the analysis exercises, use screen sharing to review documents together. For role plays, ensure all participants have stable internet connections and consider recording sessions (with permission) for later review by the hiring team.

What if a candidate has limited experience with our specific product?

Focus your evaluation on transferable skills rather than product knowledge. Provide sufficient product information before the exercise and assess how quickly they grasp key concepts and apply them to customer scenarios. Strong candidates will demonstrate the ability to learn quickly and translate their existing CS experience to new contexts.

How should we incorporate these exercises into our broader interview process?

These exercises are most effective after initial screening and basic behavioral interviews. Consider using one exercise during a second-round interview and perhaps a different exercise during final rounds. This allows you to evaluate different competencies while giving candidates multiple opportunities to demonstrate their skills.

Customer Success Advisors play a pivotal role in driving customer satisfaction, retention, and growth. By incorporating these practical work samples into your hiring process, you'll gain deeper insights into candidates' abilities to perform in real-world scenarios and identify those who will truly excel in this critical function.

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