Amazon Interviews for customers
CUSTOMER OBSESSION - correct answers
Every company gets thousands of customer feedback everyday. Tell me how you process them and were
you successful with this approach in your company? - correct answers In my previous company, we
used to take customer feedback from different resources and they were really too many to go through
all of them. I asked the Tech Team to unify the feedback into one big pool and asked them to write an
application which will give me the word cloud of the feedback text. Using that word cloud I realized that
a lot of people were complain about 4-5 different areas and then I implemented improvements for
them. The customer complaints ceased after the implementation.
Some customers can be though. Please walk me through such an example and tell me how you handled
it. - correct answers Communication is always the key. You always need to look out for your customers
no matter how big is the problem. I've seen many problems with our customers in my previous job, and
my approach was always 1. Direct communication 2. Give them a small gift that they will make them
happy. The key point here is to make them feel they are being attended to. It always works.
How do you understand what the customer really wants? - correct answers I always try to understand
the problem fully by asking a lot of questions to the customer (in your interview it is important to note
that this customer may be an internal customer as well i.e. another team). In these types of scenarios it
necessary that you are very knowledgeable about your domain(product). Sample answer: One time a
customer called in and asked us to reduce the bill. After my communication with him it turns out that all
he wanted to do was to know where his money was going. He wanted to be "in control" of his money.
After I explained the bill in detail and our pre-payment notification options, he was more than satisfied
and I was also able to sell him another product at the end of our transaction.
Please tell me your best customer support experience. - correct answers Open with: "Nothing is above
and beyond. My duty is to make the customer happy so in all the scenarios I take it as my personal
responsibility to help him/her as much as I can." Give an example of calling a customer many times to
solve the issue and to make sure that him/her was happy with the outcome.
Please walk us through a problem you had with a problematic customer. How did you solve the issue (or
were not able to solve it and why)? - correct answers Happens a lot. You need to show here that you
don't loose your temper and you can manage these situations well. My response: "I ask for a pause, take
a step back and analyze who/what will be affected with this and how it can be resolved. Then return
back to the customer with your solution". Sample answer: One time a team that provides us the
products specs changed them completely but the management(customer in this case) still wanted the
product to be ready in 1 month. I took a step back made a quick analysis of the situation. Presented the
management with my report backed up with numbers (numbers are always important) and ask them
either to delay the product due date or pick some features to be left off. Seeing my numbers and my
analysis they were cooperative in the end.
, Tell me the key thing to be successful at dealing with customers. - correct answers It is important to
know that to be able to understand if a request is unreasonable, you REALLY know your product and
your teams well. For internal customers: use numbers to influence them. For external customers:
communication is key.
Tell me about a time you overcommitted to a customer and was not able to meet his requests in the
end. How did you solve the situation. - correct answers Sincerity is the key. Communicate that you
really wanted to help but overlooked some aspects of the work. Admitting honestly that you
overcommitted yourself is not a bad thing. You come up with an alternative solution to your customer
"before" the deadline is reached. If you think you maybe have overcommitted, do not forget to
communicate with the customer constantly and keep them updated. If your customer is "in the know"
of the latest status, he/she will be more understanding.
Tell me about a time when you had requests of two customers competed. How do you find balance in
those situations? - correct answers In these types of situations, it is important to analyze if the needs of
that particular customer is the need of all the customers (i.e. its impact). If so, then make necessary
changes, if not, bias towards the company's needs. Saying this is important because this is not a typical
answer and recruiters love these kinds of "out of the box" answers. Do not go and blindly say "I will do
this and this to balance the needs of both sides"
OWNERSHIP - correct answers
Walk me through a time when you took on a 20% project (something that normally was not in your
responsibility. Why did you decide to work on that? - correct answers I realized that using outlook email
significantly reduced the efficiency of the whole company (more than 3000) people. So I "lobbied" with
the tech team and moved the company to Slack for internal communications and that really helped a lot
with our workflows. "This may seem insignificant or not may responsibility but I take it as a personal
duty to improve all aspects of my work/company."
Stakeholder management. Go. - correct answers Number, number and numbers. Always provide
numbers and analysis to your stakeholders to get their consent about everything. Constant
communication is also key here. Important tip: I used to create an email list for my project and made it a
habit of constantly updating the stakeholder with the latest status of the project.
Show me an example of how you put business ahead of your promotion cycle. - correct answers
Completing a project would mean that I will get a very good rating this quarter but it would also mean
that some features would be missing from the product. Instead of completing it this quarter I
communicated that it should be completed next quarter. In the end the product was better and I got an
"golden star" for my contributions to this awesome product.
Building a community feeling by helping new hires is very important. Give me an example that shows
your "welcome to the team" skills. - correct answers A new hire was struggling with a piece of messy
code. I knew the code was heavy and I could see that he was stressed and did not quite grasp the code
fully, but he did not wanted to ask for help in order to be not be seen as incompetent. I offered him my
help and helped him dissected the code together. He is now one of our best coders.
How do you keep track of the project you work on? - correct answers Important to note that you have
the habit of starting the documentation from day 1. Example: Safety Project - It was successfully
CUSTOMER OBSESSION - correct answers
Every company gets thousands of customer feedback everyday. Tell me how you process them and were
you successful with this approach in your company? - correct answers In my previous company, we
used to take customer feedback from different resources and they were really too many to go through
all of them. I asked the Tech Team to unify the feedback into one big pool and asked them to write an
application which will give me the word cloud of the feedback text. Using that word cloud I realized that
a lot of people were complain about 4-5 different areas and then I implemented improvements for
them. The customer complaints ceased after the implementation.
Some customers can be though. Please walk me through such an example and tell me how you handled
it. - correct answers Communication is always the key. You always need to look out for your customers
no matter how big is the problem. I've seen many problems with our customers in my previous job, and
my approach was always 1. Direct communication 2. Give them a small gift that they will make them
happy. The key point here is to make them feel they are being attended to. It always works.
How do you understand what the customer really wants? - correct answers I always try to understand
the problem fully by asking a lot of questions to the customer (in your interview it is important to note
that this customer may be an internal customer as well i.e. another team). In these types of scenarios it
necessary that you are very knowledgeable about your domain(product). Sample answer: One time a
customer called in and asked us to reduce the bill. After my communication with him it turns out that all
he wanted to do was to know where his money was going. He wanted to be "in control" of his money.
After I explained the bill in detail and our pre-payment notification options, he was more than satisfied
and I was also able to sell him another product at the end of our transaction.
Please tell me your best customer support experience. - correct answers Open with: "Nothing is above
and beyond. My duty is to make the customer happy so in all the scenarios I take it as my personal
responsibility to help him/her as much as I can." Give an example of calling a customer many times to
solve the issue and to make sure that him/her was happy with the outcome.
Please walk us through a problem you had with a problematic customer. How did you solve the issue (or
were not able to solve it and why)? - correct answers Happens a lot. You need to show here that you
don't loose your temper and you can manage these situations well. My response: "I ask for a pause, take
a step back and analyze who/what will be affected with this and how it can be resolved. Then return
back to the customer with your solution". Sample answer: One time a team that provides us the
products specs changed them completely but the management(customer in this case) still wanted the
product to be ready in 1 month. I took a step back made a quick analysis of the situation. Presented the
management with my report backed up with numbers (numbers are always important) and ask them
either to delay the product due date or pick some features to be left off. Seeing my numbers and my
analysis they were cooperative in the end.
, Tell me the key thing to be successful at dealing with customers. - correct answers It is important to
know that to be able to understand if a request is unreasonable, you REALLY know your product and
your teams well. For internal customers: use numbers to influence them. For external customers:
communication is key.
Tell me about a time you overcommitted to a customer and was not able to meet his requests in the
end. How did you solve the situation. - correct answers Sincerity is the key. Communicate that you
really wanted to help but overlooked some aspects of the work. Admitting honestly that you
overcommitted yourself is not a bad thing. You come up with an alternative solution to your customer
"before" the deadline is reached. If you think you maybe have overcommitted, do not forget to
communicate with the customer constantly and keep them updated. If your customer is "in the know"
of the latest status, he/she will be more understanding.
Tell me about a time when you had requests of two customers competed. How do you find balance in
those situations? - correct answers In these types of situations, it is important to analyze if the needs of
that particular customer is the need of all the customers (i.e. its impact). If so, then make necessary
changes, if not, bias towards the company's needs. Saying this is important because this is not a typical
answer and recruiters love these kinds of "out of the box" answers. Do not go and blindly say "I will do
this and this to balance the needs of both sides"
OWNERSHIP - correct answers
Walk me through a time when you took on a 20% project (something that normally was not in your
responsibility. Why did you decide to work on that? - correct answers I realized that using outlook email
significantly reduced the efficiency of the whole company (more than 3000) people. So I "lobbied" with
the tech team and moved the company to Slack for internal communications and that really helped a lot
with our workflows. "This may seem insignificant or not may responsibility but I take it as a personal
duty to improve all aspects of my work/company."
Stakeholder management. Go. - correct answers Number, number and numbers. Always provide
numbers and analysis to your stakeholders to get their consent about everything. Constant
communication is also key here. Important tip: I used to create an email list for my project and made it a
habit of constantly updating the stakeholder with the latest status of the project.
Show me an example of how you put business ahead of your promotion cycle. - correct answers
Completing a project would mean that I will get a very good rating this quarter but it would also mean
that some features would be missing from the product. Instead of completing it this quarter I
communicated that it should be completed next quarter. In the end the product was better and I got an
"golden star" for my contributions to this awesome product.
Building a community feeling by helping new hires is very important. Give me an example that shows
your "welcome to the team" skills. - correct answers A new hire was struggling with a piece of messy
code. I knew the code was heavy and I could see that he was stressed and did not quite grasp the code
fully, but he did not wanted to ask for help in order to be not be seen as incompetent. I offered him my
help and helped him dissected the code together. He is now one of our best coders.
How do you keep track of the project you work on? - correct answers Important to note that you have
the habit of starting the documentation from day 1. Example: Safety Project - It was successfully
