How would you design a customer health score for a team that does not have one yet?

What the interviewer is looking for

• This question tests data-driven account management. Uses usage data, health scores and customer success platforms to prioritise and can explain what metrics matter and why.
• Strong answers: Choosing a few predictive inputs, validating against past churn, keeping it simple and refining it over time.
• Likely follow-up: How would you check that the score actually predicts churn?

Another way it may be asked: Your team has no way to rate how healthy customers are. How would you build one?

A structure to follow: Requirements, sketch, deep-dive, trade-offs

1. Step 1

   Requirements

   Ask who uses it, what it must do, and which qualities matter most: speed, reliability, cost, consistency.

2. Step 2

   Sketch

   Draw the main parts and the path one request takes through them before adding detail.

3. Step 3

   Deep-dive

   Pick the riskiest part (storage, queueing, failure handling) and go deeper there.

4. Step 4

   Trade-offs

   Name what you gave up for each choice, and what you would do first if it needed to grow.

This is guidance on shape, not a script. Use your own real experience and facts; never invent details to fill a gap. See the STAR guide and answer frameworks.

Common slips

• Naming tools before establishing requirements.
• Drawing every box at the same depth instead of going deep where it matters.
• Presenting one design as the only answer, with no trade-offs.

How to practise it

Time yourself: two minutes on requirements, five on the sketch, five on one deep-dive, two on trade-offs.

Related questions

• How do you use product usage data and your customer success platform to decide where to spend your time each week?
• A new customer just signed. What would you want to happen in their first thirty days to set them up well?
• Tell me about a time you helped someone who was frustrated. How did you turn it around?
• How would you go about learning a new software product well enough to coach customers on it?
• What signals do you look at to judge whether a customer is healthy or at risk of leaving?

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