Best customer success software

An outstanding customer experience (CX) is non-negotiable for successful businesses, but knowing how to deliver it can be tricky. That’s why organizations are turning to modern tools to help make life easier for customers and empower support agents to work more efficiently.

Customer success software, sometimes called customer success management (CSM) software, provides many resources—like AI and automation—that help businesses increase revenue, hit long-term goals, and deliver an outstanding CX. In this article, we detail a handful of CSM options to help you find the right solution for your business.

More in this guide:

• What is customer success software?
• What are the different types of customer success software?
• Benefits of customer success management tools
• Key features of CSM software
• The 18 best customer success software
• How to choose the right customer success tools
• Frequently asked questions
• Try CSM software for free

Customer success software, or customer success management software (CSM), is a tool that businesses use to deliver fast and personalized support to their customers in an effort to increase retention and improve the overall CX.

Customer success tools help teams be proactive by providing data and insights to get ahead of issues. With features like workflow automation, custom dashboards, self-service options, and more, businesses can use CSM tools to decrease the touchpoints that lead to customer churn and increase the interactions that foster long-term loyalty.

Customer success software comes in various types to help businesses meet their goals. Some different variations include:

• 
  Customer communication: Software like
  social media customer service software
  that helps teams interact with customers more effectively via social media, live chat, AI agents, and other omnichannel mediums.
• 
  Customer education: Platforms that prioritize content like
  customer onboarding
  guides, interactive tutorials, and product walkthroughs to foster learning and product adoption.
• 
  Customer support: Tools that help teams manage customer inquiries, track issues, and provide self-service options like
  knowledge bases.
• 
  Customer feedback and analytics: Solutions like
  customer feedback tools
  that can collect customer sentiment through surveys, track user behavior, and monitor usage to address customer churn proactively.

Organizations may use a combination of these tools or choose to invest in a partner like Zendesk, which has all of these capabilities in one system.

Customer success software integrates with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to create a unified view of the customer.

Using their combined powers, you can use your CSM software to achieve the following benefits.

Delivers visibility into customer interactions

CSM software allows you to understand your customers—specifically, the channels they spend their time on and how they behave.

This information lets businesses comprehensively view

customer needs, patterns, and preferences.

The increased visibility equips support teams with the information to personalize and tailor experiences to best suit their customers’ needs.

Provides omnichannel support

Customers interact with businesses across several channels, such as email, social media, and

live chat.

With so many communication platforms, consistency is important. With

omnichannel routing,

CSM software like Zendesk can transfer customers to the most capable agent. From there,

the agent can quickly get up to speed with the customer’s situation, resulting in a seamless and convenient support experience.

Identifies and prevents customer churn

Losing customers is one of the most significant impacts on businesses.

CSM software can analyze data, like

customer engagement

and behavior, to identify potential churn risks before they happen.

This predictive analysis helps

customer success managers

and their teams identify and reach out to high-risk customers to learn about issues and a lack of engagement before the problem escalates.

Doing so can increase the likelihood of

customer retention,

as well as aid

customer-first initiatives.

Improves customer onboarding

When you acquire new customers, they must receive comprehensive

customer onboarding

and support to help them understand your product. CSM software can streamline this process.

With CSM, you can easily send relevant onboarding resources, automate tasks, and track progress.

This can reduce the time it takes for new customers to realize the value of your offering, leading to higher retention and loyalty.

Increases agent productivity

With CSM software, businesses can support their agents with dashboards, task automation,

ticket management systems,

and easier access to

internal knowledge bases.

These features build on

customer service training,

allowing agents to focus on the level and quality of their customer support rather than mundane tasks.

Improves customer satisfaction

Finally, CSM software is a key driver of customer satisfaction.

It can help teams gain better visibility into their customers, monitor churn indicators,

improve customer onboarding, and empower agents to operate more productively.

These capabilities combine to help businesses provide a better CX, increasing customer satisfaction.

No matter which CSM software you choose, you need to ensure it has a few key features.

AI agents

AI agents are advanced chatbots that can provide

24/7 support to your customers.

They can understand and respond to natural language queries, guide users to relevant resources like how-to articles,

and autonomously resolve requests like password resets, refunds, and order status updates.

If the problem is too complex for the AI agent, the technology can route the customer to the most qualified support agent

with the full context of the situation.

AI-powered QA

AI-powered

quality assurance (QA) tools

can proactively address customer churn by automating the review of

customer interactions,

scoring them based on pre-defined criteria, and providing actionable coaching tips.

These tools look for indicators of dissatisfaction, such as negative sentiment or unresolved issues.

By identifying potential areas of concern, businesses can proactively intervene and address customer needs before they escalate.

Additionally, these tools offer valuable insights into

agent performance,

allowing for targeted coaching and development to improve overall customer satisfaction.

Workflow automation

Workflow automation streamlines

customer support

for businesses and consumers. It simplifies support teams’ duties, offering assistance for simple tasks

so they can focus on more complex issues. For example,

Liberty London, a UK-based premium department store and retailer,

uses workflow automation to automatically classify and route incoming customer support tickets to the right agent,

helping decrease ticket resolution time by 11 percent.

AI-powered self-service

Empowering consumers to find solutions to issues or queries is crucial to boosting customer satisfaction

while easing the workload of a support team. Articles, guides, FAQ pages, and other

knowledge base solutions

can result in faster resolutions and a positive customer experience.

The addition of AI enhances the overall capabilities and effectiveness of self-service resources.

Customer segmentation

With customer success tools, businesses can

segment customers

based on demographics, behavior, trends, and other factors.

With this information, management can use

customer success playbooks

to target a specific customer segment—like consumers at high risk of churning—and deliver tailored solutions to meet their needs.

Some tools may also include

customer loyalty software

capabilities to build on those customer segments and deliver personalized incentives and support.

Reporting and data management

CSM software can deliver valuable insights into your consumers' health and behavior.

Reporting dashboards can provide a real-time view of essential metrics like ticket times and

customer satisfaction

so you can make the most effective data-driven decisions.

Modern CSM software should also provide a unified hub where businesses can gather, organize, and access consumer information

from various touchpoints. This gives support teams and operations managers a roadmap to deliver personalized

and relevant consumer interactions.

Powerful integrations

You won't be able to use CSM software to its full potential if it can't integrate with the tools you use every day.

At Zendesk, for example, we offer 1,700+ apps and integrations via the

Zendesk Marketplace

so you can sync all of your software into one unified ecosystem.

This allows your team to operate more efficiently and eliminates unnecessary downtime when first adopting CSM software into your operations.

Below are 18 customer success software options on the market.

Our overview breaks down each tool and its pricing so you can make the best choice for your operations.

• Zendesk: Best for AI-powered CX
• Gainsight: Best for customer health
• ChurnZero: Best for subscription businesses
• Planhat: Best for customer acquisition
• UserGuiding: Best for product walkthroughs
• Custify: Best for SaaS businesses
• Totango: Best for churn prevention
• ClientSuccess: Best for product adoption
• Vitally: Best for visual workflows
• ZapScale: Best for customizable workflows
• SmartKarrot: Best for customer playbooks
• Akita: Best for startups
• InMoment: Best for customer insights
• EverAfter: Best for B2B businesses
• OnRamp: Best for customer onboarding
• Intercom: Best for multilingual teams
• HubSpot Service Hub: Best for HubSpot users
• Help Scout: Best for shared inboxes

Zendesk

Best for AI-powered CX

Zendesk is a leading

customer experience software

that empowers businesses to deliver an exceptional CX across all channels.

Organizations can use it to streamline their support operations, enhance agent productivity, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Our intuitive interface and robust features suit businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprise-level corporations.

For businesses looking to gain deeper insights into their customer support performance, Zendesk QA offers advanced analytics and quality assurance.

These features provide real-time reports on key metrics, agent performance, and customer satisfaction trends so you can make data-driven decisions

to continually improve your success strategies. QA tools score interactions, noting if the customer had a positive or negative sentiment,

allowing your team to enact churn prevention strategies.

Unlike the general AI that other software employs,

Zendesk AI is purpose-built for CX and trained on over 18 billion customer service interactions.

It makes it easier to serve customers and improve their experiences.

Zendesk AI agents provide immediate answers to customers and perform complex tasks,

so fewer requests get pushed to your agents.

Our customer success solution also features AI-powered self-service options, enabling customers to find answers to their questions quickly and easily.

This includes intelligent knowledge management tools and community forums that use machine learning to improve search results and suggest relevant content.

Knowledge management tools

will also identify content gaps so your team can create new articles that address more customer inquiries.

While AI has plenty of ways to assist the customer directly, it can also make your human agents more effective.

The Agent Copilot feature leverages AI to suggest relevant responses, articles, and solutions during conversations,

significantly reducing resolution times and increasing personalization.

Additionally, Zendesk workflow automation capabilities allow businesses to create custom rules and triggers,

automating repetitive tasks and ensuring consistent service delivery across all customer touchpoints.

G2 score: 4.3/5

User reviews:

• "Zendesk is by far the best platform for customer support companies."
• "Zendesk makes ticketing much simpler."
• "All in one tool to support our clients in different channels."
• "Review of a ticket solving and time management tool: Zendesk."

Gainsight

Best for customer health

Gainsight provides a customer success platform that allows businesses to build and maintain customer relationships.

Using information like survey responses, integrated data, and customer health scoring (CHS), Gainsight pairs your customer tickets

to provide a view of the customer. The CHS system lets businesses track and analyze various customer satisfaction, engagement,

and risk metrics. Additionally, Gainsight offers features such as customer journey mapping, customer segmentation,

and automated workflows to manage the customer experience.

G2 score: 4.5/5

User reviews:

• "Gainisght is unmatched and strives to deliver!"
• "Excellent in areas."
• "Good, but needs constant support."

ChurnZero

Best for subscription businesses

ChurnZero is a CSM software designed for subscription businesses. By integrating with a business’ CRM,

ChurnZero helps evaluate how customers use products, how likely they are to renew, and how personalized and appreciated their experience is.

The platform uses an algorithm to collect and analyze customer participation data and generate reports within the software

and across a business’s tech stack. For instance, the system can alert you in real time when customers make changes to their accounts

so agents can take the appropriate actions.

G2 score: 4.7/5

User reviews:

• "Very useful tool for all customer success professionals."
• "Easier to deploy, harder to long-term manage."
• "Great at customer tracking, but lacking in other areas."

Planhat

Best for customer acquisition

Planhat is a CSM built to manage business workflows while fostering customer acquisition, providing customer insights,

and identifying real-time churn warnings. The customer health dashboard visually represents customer metrics,

allowing businesses to identify at-risk customers. Organizations can use the software to monitor customer health

and help teams set realistic goals and outcomes.

G2 score: 4.6/5

User reviews:

• "An essential tool for customer success teams."
• "Great customer success/support teams but lacking approachable usability."
• "Slightly overwhelming to work with."

UserGuiding

Best for product walkthroughs

UserGuiding is a specialized customer success software focused on guiding customers through onboarding and product walkthroughs.

The platform includes features like onboarding checklists, resource centers, guided product tours, and analytics tracking

so businesses can monitor their processes' effectiveness. Additionally, UserGuiding lets businesses promote new or underutilized

product features in their walkthroughs.

G2 score: 4.7/5

User reviews:

• "Amazing experience."
• "Easy integration and customization, but needs improved responsiveness."
• "Good features but need code integration."

Custify

Best for SaaS businesses

Custify is a CSM platform for software as a service (SaaS) businesses. The product helps organizations understand customer health

and use that data to create action plans and business strategies. Its Customer 360 feature gives a central dashboard of customer health,

which determines their actions and how long they are using your product. Its automation capabilities can help companies send welcome emails,

assign accounts to team members, and automatically notify companies of customer behaviors.

G2 score: 4.6/5

User reviews:

• "A good customer success platform for a large customer base."
• "Good for basic use cases but not customizable enough."
• "Custify experience has been ok."

Totango

Best for churn prevention

Totango is software that provides customer success and churn prevention tools.

This CSM provides real-time health reports, risk alerts, and specified engagement opportunities to help businesses monitor their customers' statuses.

It also provides pre-built success program templates so businesses can onboard, upsell, and monitor customer engagement.

G2 score: 4.3/5

• "Easy to use and fine-tune segments!"
• "Intuitive for young teams, but a bit overwhelming! Usage [is] hard to follow."
• "A viable option but nothing spectacular."

ClientSuccess

Best for product adoption

ClientSuccess aims to help organizations build a customer journey through four areas of focus: onboarding, adoption, expansion, and renewal.

Features like Pulse™ provide real-time customer updates so businesses can identify churn risks and upsell opportunities,

while its SuccessCycle and customer feedback capabilities focus on customer retention and growth initiatives.

Teams can set and track organizational goals, including metrics like progress percentage, current stage, and target objective.

G2 score: 4.4/5

• "ClientSuccess has great ease of use."
• "Good for individual data checks but can improve on [the] reports section for team leader."
• "Nice, but there are still many features to be developed."

Vitally

Best for visual workflows

Vitally is a customer success software that focuses on strategies, processes, and workflows.

The platform offers customer hubs, full-scale integration, and omnichannel communication options.

Businesses can establish hubs for teams and individuals so everyone has a dedicated workspace to manage customer data, documents, and projects.

Users can also create visual workflows that include playbook automation and lifecycle tracking.

G2 score: 4.5/5

• "Vitally is a fantastic site. I am able to sync my meetings with meeting notes."
• "Good to track customers but hard to navigate."
• "Takes a bit getting used to."

ZapScale

Best for customizable workflows

ZapScale is a customer success platform that seeks to bring visibility to customer relationships

so businesses can address churn rates and product adoption.

Its predictive analytics analyze customer behavior and provide insights into potential upsell opportunities and overall engagement.

Additionally, ZapScale offers customizable workflows and automation tools so teams can manage tasks, monitor account health, and communicate with clients.

G2 score: 4.8/5

• "Great product, great collaboration!"
• "A tool for scaling CS teams."
• "Dedicated team. Good tool for CS in hardware start-ups."

SmartKarrot

Best for customer playbooks

SmartKarrot is a customer success software that can help teams increase customer visibility and develop automated playbooks.

Onboarding features allow teams to automate product adoption and scale what works. Integrated data provides a full view of customer information,

while health scores pinpoint churn risks and the strength of client relationships. Teams can use account expansion capabilities

to identify and contact new business opportunities.

G2 score: 4.4/5

• "A customer-focused team."
• "Generally positive."
• "Good customer success platform."

Akita

Best for startups

Akita is a customer success software geared toward SaaS businesses and startups.

Actionable alerts allow teams to establish pre-defined triggers that flag when customers perform certain actions—

allowing them to address churn or present an upsell opportunity.

Customer segmentation allows teams to create different strategies for their customer bases,

while automated playbooks help users establish pre-defined workflows based on customer behavior or attributes.

G2 score: 3.8/5

• "Akita is great for helping me manage my tasks and gauge customer health."
• "Akita is a great tool, but believe we weren't using it to its full potential."
• "Cannot recommend at all."

InMoment

Best for customer insights

InMonment helps teams with their customer experience strategy. AI capabilities analyze consumer behavior to generate customer insights

and predict user behavior and intent. Reputation management helps teams monitor their social media activity and track reviews and ratings.

Customer feedback tools like surveys, ratings, reviews, and summarized chat logs provide insight into customer sentiment.

Market research capabilities allow businesses to use AI to learn about consumer trends.

G2 score: 4.7/5

• "Seamless customer experience tracker."
• "Good price, good analytics, but slow moving."
• "Suboptimal platform."

EverAfter

Best for B2B businesses

EverAfter is a customer success software geared towards B2B teams. The AI-powered interface builder allows businesses to build a customer interface

that can help with onboarding, success plans, and POC management. Task management helps users create success plans,

while data collection capabilities can gather customer information and help import it into a CRM system.

G2 score: 4.6/5

• "Excellent platform that allows us to deliver personalized recommendations to customers at scale."
• "Good tool if managed."
• "Concept is good, but usage is shaky."

OnRamp

Best for customer onboarding

OnRamp is a customer success software that prioritizes the onboarding process. Personalized customer portals allow teams to build client workspaces and guide project completion.

Progress trackers give insight into how the customer is completing onboarding, and helps users achieve pre-defined goals.

Workflow mapping capabilities leverage Kanban project management techniques and automation to launch, organize, and guide users throughout onboarding.

G2 score: 4.5/5

• "Overall, a very positive experience."
• "Mostly awesome, a little clunky."
• "Rough around the edges, but gets the job done."

Intercom

Best for multilingual teams

Intercom is a customer service software with customer success capabilities. Fin, the product's AI agent, can interact with customers, gather insights, and complete basic actions.

Help center capabilities allow teams to create multilingual self-service resources. The product's ticketing system allows support agents to deliver omnichannel service

and assist customers across channels, while workflow automation features help teams build roadmaps and tasks for customers and employees.

G2 score: 4.5/5

• "All in one solution for most support needs."
• "There's room for development - reports and assignment, as well as support quality."
• "Platform complicated to use."

HubSpot Service Hub

Best for HubSpot users

HubSpot Service Hub is a customer service software in the wider HubSpot ecosystem. The platform has self-service features like a knowledge base

and a help desk integrated with AI to assist support agents in helping customers.

Customer health scores and product usage allow businesses to gain insight into consumer behavior and identify churn risk.

Furthermore, the platform can also link with other HubSpot products like Sales and Marketing, so teams that use those systems can integrate everything.

G2 score: 4.4/5

• "A perfect tool for startups, but there's room for improvement."
• "It's a great product, but it's a little difficult to use."
• "Hubspot was great prior to the latest update."

Help Scout

Best for shared inboxes

Help Scout is a customer success software that prioritizes shared inboxes, help centers, and customer live chat.

Generative AI capabilities can summarize customer support ticket threads, edit and translate replies, and suggest responses that support agents can modify or execute.

'Snooze' and 'Send Later' ticket capabilities can temporarily pause non-urgent conversations and schedule replies for a later date, respectively.

Reporting and analytics can help teams monitor customer behavior and identify areas of improvement.

G2 score: 4.4/5

• "Down-to-earth product that works."
• "Entry-level customer care platform."
• "Good core product, poor SDK."

With so many options available, choosing the right CSM tool for your business can be tough. Here are a few of the top factors to consider.

Make sure it integrates with existing programs

If your CSM tool cannot integrate with your existing tools—especially your CRM and

customer retention management software—then it’s not for you.

Without an open and flexible CSM software that integrates with your other tools and systems, agents will be forced to toggle between different interfaces to get key customer information,

which decreases efficiency, negatively impacts collaboration between departments, and leads to

data silos.

Make sure integration is seamless and all relevant personnel have complete access.

Prioritize an AI-powered solution

By leveraging AI, you can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, automate workflows and complex tasks, and deliver personalized support.

AI agents, copilots, and QA tools enable proactive issue resolution, improve customer satisfaction, and drive long-term loyalty.

Investing in such a solution enhances customer experiences, streamlines operations, boosts agent efficiency, and contributes to business growth and success.

Consider the total cost of ownership

While the initial price of the software may be a significant factor, it’s crucial to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO).

It includes all direct and indirect costs of ownership, such as maintenance, training, customization, full-scale adoption, and other factors a business may accrue while owning the product.

At Zendesk, for example, we are a top vendor for total ROI and low TCO.

Evaluate the level of security provided

CSM software is all about data—and it’s important to consider how your business and consumer data will be protected and stored.

When evaluating software options, pay attention to the vendor’s security measures.

Look for customer data protection features such as data encryption and compliance with industry standards to protect sensitive information.

Assess ease of use and scalability

If CSM software is challenging to operate, you won’t have much success with implementation and facilitating wide-scale adoption in your organization.

Consider how responsive the vendor is and if the software offers user-friendly navigation and an easy-to-use interface.

Also, ensure you can easily find answers to your problems via an internal help center or forum—like what we established in the

Zendesk community.