So you’ve finally closed the deal with an exciting new prospect. Now, it’s time to ensure they have a smooth, rewarding experience with your product. That’s where customer success management comes in. Success teams guide users through onboarding, resolve early challenges, and support renewals to maintain long-term engagement.
Specialized customer success software makes this process simple and efficient, and it’s a must for both mid-market and enterprise-level teams. These digital tools can help you prevent churn before it happens and find exciting upsell opportunities to boost customer lifetime value (CLV). Let’s explore the best customer success tools on the market to help you find the right option for your business.
What Are Customer Success Tools, and Why Do They Matter?
So what is customer success software? These platforms help teams proactively manage the customer journey from onboarding to renewals. They work to ensure a smooth customer experience by addressing needs before they escalate into problems. They also reduce manual work for customer success managers by automating key workflows.
Unlike CRM systems, customer success software focuses on the post-sale experience. It also differs from customer support software, which focuses on responding to customers’ problems after they arise.
Customer success automation tools have several key benefits for your business, including:
Preventing customer churn
Improving new feature adoption rates
Streamlining renewals
Improving customer visibility
Finding strategic growth opportunities
Top 9 Customer Success Tools
Here are some of the top CSM tools currently on the market to help improve your onboarding and customer retention strategies. Pricing for most of these tools is only available upon request and depends on the specific features you need.
Gainsight
Gainsight is a customer success platform that uses agentic AI to onboard customers and improve retention rates. Detailed analytics help you spot customers at risk of churning and implement solutions to keep them engaged.
Key features: Self-paced onboarding, customer knowledge base and forum, in-app adoption tools, customer journey tracking
Pros and cons: Customers enjoy the detailed reporting features and customer visibility, but setup and customization can be overly complex.
ChurnZero
ChurnZero is designed for enterprise brands. It helps success managers monitor customer engagement and forecast renewals.
Key features: AI-powered customer insights and engagement tracking, customer communication hub, onboarding management, automated renewals, product adoption and upsell messaging
Pros and cons: ChurnZero provides an accurate view of your current customer base and can help you forecast future changes. However, customization options are somewhat limited.
Totango
Totango helps customer success managers, revenue operations teams, and sales teams track and improve customer relationships. It focuses on detailed reporting to identify customer trends and churn risks.
Key features: Detailed customer health profiles, automated customer success workflows and playbooks, email campaign management, detailed analytics and growth insights
Pros and cons: Totango tracks a wide range of customer success metrics. However, it’s missing some popular features, such as onboarding support and customer portals.
Planhat
Planhat uses AI tools for customer success to help you onboard new clients, track relationship health, and execute churn prevention playbooks. It integrates with your existing tech stack to create a centralized management hub.
Key features: Onboarding management, expansion strategies, renewal forecasting and optimization, customer handover workflows
Pros and cons: Planhat has a visually appealing interface and makes it easy to build automated workflows based on your business and customer needs. It also has a wide range of integrations available, but the quality of the integrations can vary significantly.
HubSpot Service Hub
Service Hub is part of the broader HubSpot ecosystem. It combines customer success and support features in one convenient dashboard, helping you stay on top of your relationships.
If you’re already using HubSpot for your CRM, sales or marketing, this could be a good solution that integrates nicely with your existing operations. Pricing starts at $90 per month per seat for the Professional plan and $150 per month per seat for the Enterprise plan.
Key features: Customer relationship tracking, NPS and CSAT surveys, self-service knowledge base, integrated help desk with AI features
Pros and cons: Because it integrates with the broader HubSpot system, Service Hub can limit silos between sales, customer service, and marketing teams. However, the interface can feel cluttered, making it difficult to find what you’re looking for.
ClientSuccess
ClientSuccess is built for fast implementation and ease of use. It tracks the customer journey in centralized dashboards for easy reference and manages renewals.
Key features: Customer lifecycle tracking, automated workflows, customer onboarding and collaboration portal, detailed analytics
Pros and cons: ClientSuccess is an intuitive platform, making it easy to find helpful customer data. However, its customization and automation features are limited.
Zendesk Suite
Zendesk is a customer service platform that also has some customer success features. It’s ideal for fast-growing businesses that need to stay on top of customer queries but don’t need detailed customer analytics or forecasting. Zendesk’s AI agents handle basic customer requests, giving support teams more time to focus on complex problems.
Key features: Support tickets, live chat, customer knowledge base, AI-powered phone support
Pros and cons: Zendesk is effective for managing customer service requests on a large scale. However, it doesn’t offer proactive customer relationship management.
Custify
Custify helps brands track customer engagement and monitor their progress through the customer lifecycle. Feedback surveys and analytics help you measure your net promoter score and other key metrics.
Key features: Automated customer success workflows, customer feedback and collaboration portal, customer health tracking, growth and upsell management
Pros and cons: Custify has extensive automation options available, with reliable customer service to help with implementation. However, customization and integration options can be very complex.
Userpilot
Userpilot helps you better understand customer engagement patterns and visualize how customers use your product. With this information, you can identify what’s causing churn and improve your customer satisfaction rates. The platform offers a free trial, with a starter plan costing $299 per month.
Key features: Customer feedback surveys, session replays, customer engagement analytics, product walkthroughs, onboarding support, knowledge base
Pros and cons: Userpilot provides a granular breakdown of how users interact with your product and which features resonate with them. However, task management features are limited.
How To Select the Right Customer Success Tool
With such a large customer success platform market, SaaS companies need to compare options to find the right program for their business. Here’s a step-by-step guide to building your customer success tech stack.
Identify your customer success goals: First, decide what you want to accomplish with this software. For example, you might want to lower churn rates, improve your onboarding process, or increase your customer segmentation strategy.
Evaluate feature fit: When assessing CSM tools, look for specific features that align with your goals. For example, if growing your revenue is a priority, choose a platform that identifies upsell opportunities.
Check integration capabilities: Your customer success tool should integrate with your CRM and other systems. This ensures centralized data and avoids manual work.
Assess scalability: Look for a customer success tool that aligns with your projected growth. Ideally, it should scale with you as your brand grows and you onboard a large volume of customers.
Consider ease of adoption: Ask about onboarding timelines and available support. A long training process can delay customer success outcomes.
Test through a pilot: Before committing to a long-term contract, consider launching a short-term pilot program to evaluate performance. Be sure to track key metrics like churn, average contract value, and CSAT scores for a tangible comparison.
Give Your Customer Success Strategy a Boost With Rox
The right customer success tools help you create long-lasting relationships. However, every CSM needs operational support to drive true revenue growth.
Rox is a revenue operations platform that uses agentic AI to automate manual tasks and manage your pipeline. With Rox handling research, outreach, and follow-up, your team can consistently deliver customer success outcomes at scale. Try Rox today to automate research and accelerate wins.
FAQ
Can Small Teams Benefit From Enterprise-Level Customer Success Software?
With advanced features and complex dashboards, enterprise-level CSM tools may be overwhelming for small customer success teams. Instead, look for a more flexible customer success platform built for small-to-midsized businesses.
Which Customer Success Tools Are Best for SaaS Startups vs. Enterprise Companies?
Tools like HubSpot and ClientSuccess are accessible options for startups, while options like Gainsight, Planhat, and Totango are more enterprise-focused. However, the right tool for you will depend on your brand’s unique business model.
How Can CS Software Improve Customer Onboarding and Adoption?
Customer success onboarding software automates the onboarding process to provide a fast and consistent experience for every client. It also improves product adoption with detailed knowledge bases and engagement campaigns.
