9 Interview Questions for a Customer Experience Manager Role

When hiring for the role of customer experience manager, you are hiring a face for your brand. The person you hire for the job has to meet certain criteria so your customers get the best experience possible.

So, to find the right person, you need to ask the right questions. In the interview, you should rely on a mix of behavioral, customer-centric, and situational questions. These will help to determine if the candidate is right for the job.

Since it is also a managership position, you need to be able to trust that the person can lead their team someday. These combined create a unique set of interview questions to help you uncover the right person for the job.

Let’s see first why each of these types of questions is important.

Types of questions you should ask during the customer experience manager interview

Behavioral questions

Regardless of the position you’re holding interviews for, a behavioral set of questions helps you to understand the person you are interviewing better. These questions assess the candidate’s skill set, problem-solving capabilities, and empathy.

Customer-centric questions

Since the candidate’s day-to-day tasks will revolve around the customers and their team, it’s important to try to estimate their people skills. These sets of questions will test the candidate’s understanding and dedication to the customers. It will also help you uncover how well the candidate will lead their team.

Situational questions

Situational questions will help you judge the candidate’s experience, professionalism, and knowledge. These questions might be the most important ones for customer experience managers. They will help you estimate the candidate's performance in real-life situations. Pay close attention to the answers they give to the hypothetical situations.

9 Customer Experience Manager Interview Questions

Hopefully, now you have a basic understanding of what you should aim to find out during the interview. Let’s give you a bit of extra help in the form of the most common questions interviewers ask when applying for the role of customer experience manager.

1. How do you define excellent customer experience, and why is it important for a business?

This is a basic question, but the answer will provide you with an excellent idea of who the candidate is. It will also show you what their experience and priorities are when it comes to customer experience management. You can compare their priorities with your company’s goals for this role to understand whether the candidate is the right one.

2. How do you handle escalations and complaints from dissatisfied customers?

Complaints and escalations will happen frequently. This question will help you discover how the candidate aims to handle them. Your new manager must know how to de-escalate a situation. They should be able to turn a negative customer experience into a positive one.

3. Can you provide an example of a difficult customer interaction you've handled and describe how you resolved it?

Experience on paper and experience in practice are two different things. It’s important to understand how your candidate will perform under pressure. It can also help you estimate how resourceful the candidate is. You'll also understand better whether their idea of excellent customer experience meets yours.

4. Can you share your approach to training employees for exceptional customer service?

When interviewing for a management position, you need to consider the entire customer service team. This question is a great way to assess a candidate’s leadership skills, which will be necessary for the role.

5. Can you describe a situation where you had to balance customer needs with business objectives?

Having a customer experience manager who values customer’s needs and goes the extra mile to keep them happy is a blessing. Still, the manager should know how to balance the customer’s needs with the company’s goals. It’s important to find a candidate who will be able to consider both sides of the situation and find the right solution.

6. How do you stay updated on best practices in customer experience management?

Trends and practices change. Whoever you hire for the position should be familiar with the most recent trends in customer experience. They should also know the high-quality practices of the old days. It’s important to understand how your candidate stays up to date with emerging trends and technologies.

7. How do you foster a customer-centric culture within an organization?

There is a lot that customer experience managers can do and achieve on their own. Still, the whole company must have a customer-centric culture. This question can help you understand how your new manager can help your company get there.

8. Can you discuss a time when you had to collaborate to put in place customer-focused initiatives?

Knowing how to create a customer-centric culture is important. But, your manager must also know how to encourage other teams within your company to adopt it as well. This question will show you the level of their management skills. Plus, it will help you understand how well they will work with other teams in your company.

9. Can you provide an example of a time when you had to innovate to meet evolving customer expectations?

When dealing with customers, your new customer experience manager should follow a set of best practices. But, they also need to be able to think on their feet and outside of the box in exceptional situations. This question will help you uncover whether the candidate will be able to rise to any challenge.

FAQ:

What questions are asked in a customer service manager interview?

For a customer service manager, interview questions will test customer-facing and problem-solving skills. You can expect some general questions about your previous experience. But, you should also expect to provide examples of previous situations that you solved effectively.

What are the 5 qualities of great customer service managers?

The five most important service manager qualities are communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills. Multitasking and customer-forward skills are also important customer service managers skills.

How to ace a customer service manager interview?

To ace the customer service manager interview, you should pair your answers with examples from your past experiences. Provide your interviewers with insight into how you handled challenging situations in the past. Make sure to support it with examples of how you plan to provide great customer service while keeping the company’s best interests in mind.