In customer success, your best efforts are only as good as the software you use.
The right customer success (CS) software will help your CS teams streamline their operations, keep better track of customers and their journeys, develop and implement CS playbooks, and more.
In this article, we’ve rounded up the best CS software solutions available to SaaS businesses.
Customer Success — An Essential Part of SaaS Businesses
Before we dive into the list of top CS software solutions, let’s take a step back for a quick refresher on the basics. Namely, let’s answer the question: what is customer success?
Customer success (CS) or customer success management (CSM) is a client management method that businesses use to ensure that their customers successfully use and benefit from their product or service.
Due to its product/service-based nature, CS is especially prevalent in the SaaS industry, particularly among subscription-based software businesses.
CRM vs. Customer Success
The term customer success is often used interchangeably with customer relationship management or CRM — however, this is not exactly correct because CS and CRM practices and software tools serve different purposes.
CRM tools are, essentially, used for account management — maintaining and fostering customer relations, identifying opportunities for upselling, and so on. In that sense, CRM is a sales-driven process.
Customer success, on the other hand, prioritizes proactive customer engagement and customer lifecycle management — all with the goal of building meaningful, long-lasting relationships with customers. CS is all about customer loyalty and turning your customers into trusty advocates of your products or services.
15 Best Customer Success Software Solutions
Now that we’ve covered the definition and basics of customer success, let’s jump right into our round-up and comparison of the best CS software solutions.
What Are the Best Customer Success Platforms?
For this roundup, the best customer success programs are:
- Custify
- Salesforce
- Gainsight
- Support Genix
- Totango
- Zendesk
- Churnzero
- Planhat
- ClientSuccess
- Qualtrics
- Freshdesk
- LiveAgent
- Ringblaze
- FuseBase
- Survicate
1. Custify — Best CS platform
Custify is a top-rated CS software platform built to help SaaS businesses reduce their customer churn, automate their customer success platforms, gain rich data insights into their customers, and more.
The Customer 360 feature allows you to collect, manage, and analyze all of your customer data in one easy-to-use dashboard, while the new Surveys allow you to track Promoter Score and CSAT across individual customers.
Furthermore, Custify’s Automation capabilities allow you to create flexible CS playbooks and workflows to automate customer onboarding, communication, account management, and more.
Whether you’re a startup or an already established business, Custify is the best all-around CS solution that offers a high degree of customizability, an easy-to-use interface, and stellar support.
Best features:
- Customer 360 view dashboard;
- Customer Health KPIs tracking;
- Concierge onboarding support;
Pricing: Get in touch for a custom quote.
2. Salesforce
As one of the most popular CRM solutions, the USA-based Salesforce needs little introduction — it’s a powerful cloud-based tool that merges customer relationship management with sales automation, eCommerce, customer service, and more.
And while Salesforce is, at its core, a CRM platform, it can still be used as a customer success management solution, especially if you’re only looking to establish a low-touch approach to CS and/or don’t have a dedicated CS specialist team.
Best features:
- Salesforce Genie real-time CRM
- AI-powered sales force automation
- Lightning app builder
Pricing: $25-$300 per user per month, depending on the functionality.
3. Gainsight
Gainsight is the heavyweight in the world of customer success software as one of the original and most popular solutions built from the ground up for customer success management.
It’s rich in features, from Customer 360 view to playbooks, and is primarily aimed at large-size businesses that aim to scale their growth by establishing and optimizing their CS processes.
Gainsight’s CS Scorecards allow you to unite customer data from various sources under one roof to get a comprehensive view of a customer’s health, while its AI-powered analytics enable you to take data-driven customer experience decisions.
Best features:
- Customer Health Scorecards;
- Customer Journey Orchestrator;
- Business Impact Analyzer.
Pricing: Get in touch for a quote.
4. Support Genix
Support Genix is an all-inclusive WordPress support ticket plugin that empowers businesses to manage their customer service experience. It provides a robust system for managing and monitoring ticket requests. Support Genix offers unlimited tickets, agents, and users, all from a single, centralized platform.
Support Genix empowers you to handle even the most demanding workloads effortlessly. Its seamless transfer feature enables swift task delegation and seamless collaboration across departments. This ensures a streamlined approach to meeting your customers’ needs.
With powerful functionalities like email piping, WooCommerce integration, email notifications, incoming Webhooks, agent control, and ticket transfers, Support Genix has become an invaluable plugin for businesses in an ever-evolving world.
Best features:
- Create, assign, and transfer tickets across departments;
- Unlimited tickets, agents, and users in one central location;
- Email piping.
Pricing: Free plan available. Upgrade to a paid plan starting at just $59/year.
5. Totango
Totango describes its CS software solution as the world’s first and only Composable Customer Success platform — meaning that its solution comes with pre-built customer success workflows that you can mix and match to achieve your CS goals.
The platform offers multiple plug-and-play customer journey templates (also known as SuccessBLOCs) with pre-set goals, KPIs, customer segments, and so on. For example, the Ensure Customer Renewal journey/SuccessBLOC is aimed at businesses that wish to improve their product/service renewal rates.
Totango is the perfect tool for SaaS companies that have specific CS challenges they want to resolve and are looking for a quick, simple solution.
Best features:
- Pre-built customer journey toolkits (SuccessBLOCs);
- Customer Experience Canvas;
- SuccessPlays and Workflow Automation.
Pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $249 per month for 2 users.
6. Zendesk
The Zendesk Support Suite is a CRM platform that allows customer support and sales teams to develop what Zendest calls personalized “conversational experiences” and enhance their customer support practices.
While customer success and customer support are not the same things, quality customer support is one of the building blocks of your customer’s experiences with your product or service. And quality customer support can be made possible with dedicated tools such as Zendesk.
Zendesk’s solution allows you to engage with your customers across various channels, including phone, email, chatbots, or messenger app integration with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and more. Moreover, it enables you to create an integrated help center, knowledge resources base, or customer forum for community-driven, self-service support.
Best features:
- Messaging & live chat support;
- Help center platform;
- AI chatbots.
Pricing: $49-$215 per user/month for the Support software and $19-$99 per user/month for the Sales software.
7. Churnzero
Churnzero is a holistic CS software platform that is aimed at subscription-based SaaS businesses that are looking to combat customer churn.
The focus of Churnzero’s platform is split across four main CS verticals: customer onboarding optimization, product adoption management, renewal/expansion management, and customer insights.
With Churnzero, you can gain a better understanding of your customers’ behaviors and lifecycles within all four verticals and develop data-driven strategies to minimize your churn rate.
Best features:
- Real-time alerts;
- In-app communications;
- Customer walkthroughs.
Pricing: Get in touch for a quote.
8. Planhat
Planhat is a horizontal customer success software platform designed to solve complex post-sales challenges.
Somewhat similar to Churnzero, Planhat’s software solution rests on and helps manage four CS pillars:
- Customer data: including a Customer 360 view, customer health scores, and NPS
- Automation: including no-code app integrations and custom bots
- Workflow management: including playbooks, conditional sequencing, and usage analytics
- Presentation: including dashboards, graphs, and revenue management
Planhat also features a set of solutions for product-led growth and is suitable for both growing and enterprise-level businesses.
Best features:
- Out-of-the-box automations;
- Opportunity pipeline;
- No-code data queries.
Pricing: 3 plans available, get in touch for a quote.
9. ClientSuccess
ClientSuccess is a customer success management platform that is often described as the “easiest to use” and “easiest to implement” CS software solution by its subscribers.
This is largely due to features, such as ClientSuccess’ portfolio of pre-built integrations with CRM, support, and sales solutions, as well as a streamlined user experience that prioritizes the fundamentals of customer success and doesn’t require a full-time admin.
Best features:
- Pre-built integrations;
- Pulse (customer health management toolkit);
- SuccessCycle (customer lifecycle management toolkit).
Pricing: Get in touch for a quote.
10. Qualtrics
Qualtrics offers an extensive portfolio of experience management software, one of which is the CustomerXM — essentially, a customer success management platform.
Despite being labeled as an experience management tool, Qualtrics CustomerXM offers all the essential features you would expect from CS software — and more. Some of the highlights include predictive intelligence and analytics, ticket management automation, and omnichannel customer engagement and feedback analytics.
Best features:
- iQ predictive intelligence engine;
- Contact Centre (AI-driven customer engagement tool);
- CrossXM (customer experience data management tool).
Pricing: Get in touch for a quote.
11. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a comprehensive portfolio of customer service tools that includes a dedicated solution for customer success management. Combined with the rest of their toolkit, Freshdesk’s CS management platform is a comprehensive solution for any CS team.
Its features range from an Account 360 view dashboard for unified customer data management to customer segmentation, proactive alerts, and more. Moreover, with over 150 integrations available, Freshdesk is an out-of-the-box CS management solution that fits growing companies and enterprises alike.
Best features:
- Account360 view;
- Churn reports;
- Proactive alerts.
Pricing: Access to the Customer Success toolkit ranges between $79 and $129 per user/month, while access to the rest of the Freshdesk platform costs between $499 and $799 per month (all billed annually).
12. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a feature-packed omnichannel help desk software that makes managing customer support operations seamless and efficient. Businesses can organize and prioritize customer requests based on urgency and complexity through a robust ticketing system. Using this software, you can manage all customer requests across multiple channels, including email, social media, phone, live chat, and knowledge base, from a unified inbox.
LiveAgent’s customizable chat widget feature allows businesses to incorporate custom branding that aligns with their brand image. Integrations with numerous CRM, VoIP, and ecommerce platforms also extend this software’s value.
With LiveAgent, companies can streamline their customer support, resulting in improved response times and higher customer satisfaction rates at all levels of their organization.
Best features:
- Multi-channel communication
- Automated ticket distribution
- Proactive chat invitations
Pricing: From $9 to $69 per agent per month with different features and support levels based on business size, excluding the free plan.
13. Ringblaze
Ringblaze is a versatile business phone system designed to streamline business interactions through its intuitive features and efficient tools. With its user-friendly interface and comprehensive functionality, Ringblaze empowers teams to enhance customer engagement and internal communication seamlessly.
Best features:
- Collaboration dashboard
- Custom phone numbers
- Call recording
Pricing: $19 per user per month. This plan offers unlimited calling to the US & Canada (international numbers available), free local number, advanced features, and a desktop app.
14. FuseBase (formerly Nimbus)
FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) is a client collaboration platform encompassing all the best features for customer success solutions. Created for professional service businesses, it bridges a gap between internal team processes and client needs, thus keeping everyone on the same page and increasing customer success.
The platform offers an all-together solution for project management and client communication powered by AI. Teams and clients can track project progress and collaborate on each step, from gathering client information to discussing milestones and delivering final results.
With FuseBase chats, tasks, Super Docs, integration capabilities and built-in analytics, it’s easy to keep all project details in one place. At the same time, the ability to quickly create client surveys and forms helps to track customer satisfaction rates and react fast to the changes.
Best features:
- Client Portals.
- Task management;
- Data collection;
- Built-in portal analytics.
Pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $9 per month per user.
15. Survicate
Survicate is an effortless and intuitive survey tool that allows you to run targeted surveys across various channels, including email and link, on your website, in-product, or in mobile apps.
Its AI survey creator allows you to craft customized surveys in seconds. You can also analyze survey responses in depth and sort them into clear topics and categories using AI capabilities, making it easier to draw conclusions. The tool comes with dozens of ready-to-use survey templates.
Survicate connects with various third-party solutions, including HubSpot, Salesforce, and Mailchimp, through one-click, native integrations for a more holistic understanding of your customers.
Best features:
- Versatile AI survey builder and AI analytics dashboard for customer insights
- A wide range of native integrations with third-party tools
- Surveys can be run along the entire customer journey and through various channels
Pricing: Free Plan available. Business Plan starting at $99/month; Scale Plan starting at $299/month.
Also read:
- 7 Best Customer Engagement Platforms (Free & Paid) in 2023
- 10 Best Client & Customer Onboarding Software in 2024
Customer Success Software — Key Features
As you can probably tell from our roundup, there are quite a few options available to you when it comes to customer success software. Moreover, not all of them are “true” CS software platforms.
So, what makes a good CS software solution? To begin with, there are the following essential features that all proper customer success software features.
Onboarding
Customer onboarding is a fundamental part of customer success management, and a powerful customer success tool can help you make the onboarding process more effective and efficient.
More specifically, CS tools can help you achieve that with playbooks that outline the entire onboarding process, including goals and milestones, for your CS teams. As such, playbooks are an essential feature of any CS software when it comes to onboarding.
Dashboard/UI
What makes a truly powerful CS software stand out is its user interface and the information that is available to you at a glance within the system’s dashboard.
When it comes to customer data and dashboards, there should be a nice balance between quality and quantity. Ideally, you don’t want to be overwhelmed by the data, but you should also be able to view the most essential customer metrics without going too deep into the platform.
These metrics may include customer health scores, MRR, open and closed tasks for each client, and so on. Moreover, you want to be able to customize your dashboards to display only the information that is most relevant to you for a specific customer.
Data Analytics & Management
The customer metrics and data that you collect using your CS software platform are only useful if you’re able to analyze and interpret them. That’s where data analytics comes in — another key feature of any solid CS software tool.
Your customer success platform should enable you to create reports that will help you visualize, interpret, and share your customer performance data. These may include things like renewals, MRR, upsells, and so on.
Customer Health Scores
Customer health scores are essential metrics for any CS platform that allow you to identify how well your customers are doing at a glance.
Made up of customer-specific KPIs, customer health scores help you evaluate whether a customer is close to churning or, rather, ready for an upsell opportunity. With customer health scores, you can track customer satisfaction across your entire portfolio and prevent the issues that lead to churn.
How to Choose the Best Customer Success Software
Now that we’ve covered the best customer success software and the key features that CS software should have, let’s answer the most burning question — how do you choose the best customer success software for your needs?
Fortunately, the entire selection process essentially comes down to evaluating just four essential criteria.
Identify Your Must-Have Features
First and foremost, you should identify your must-have features. Not all CS software is created equal, and some are stronger when it comes to specific features and functionality.
With that in mind, ask yourself: what challenges are you looking to resolve by implementing a CS software platform? And what specific features will help you resolve those challenges?
For example, if you’re only looking to establish basic CS processes within your organization, you might be better off starting with Totango and its pre-built customer journey templates.
Alternatively, if your priority is customer support with some customer success management sprinkled on top, you should consider tools such as Zendesk.
Review Available Software Integrations
Software integration is a very important feature to consider when choosing a customer success platform.
You want to be able to successfully integrate your existing tech stack with the CS tool of your choice so that your customer data can seamlessly flow from your other tools into your CS platform and your CS team can effectively communicate with your customers through the CS platform.
The best customer success tools support integrating various other software, from CRM platforms such as Salesforce to messaging apps such as Slack.
CS platforms typically have the available software integrations listed on their websites, along with instructions on how to set up the integrations. Be sure to review those before pulling the trigger!
Check Reviews
What better place to look for meaningful CS tool recommendations than the experiences of other users like you? Yes, we’re talking about the good old reviews.
While it may sound cliche, checking the reviews for the CS software you’re interested in can help you better understand its strengths and limitations, especially within the context of an organization similar to yours.
The best places to look for reliable, authentic reviews are communities such as G2 and Capterra.
Compare Pricing
Let’s admit it — pricing is the ultimate factor when it comes to any investment in your organization. After all, you want to make sure you get a decent return on it.
As far as customer success software is concerned, comparing the pricing may be a bit tricky since many providers do not have pre-set rates, and you need to contact them for a custom quote.
The good thing about this approach is that you have a certain amount of freedom to negotiate your custom offer and make sure you’re getting the best value.
FAQs about Customer Success Software
Here are the main questions people ask when it comes to CS software.
Why Do I Need Customer Success Software?
With customer success software, you will be able to build stronger relationships with your customers by proactively engaging with them to ensure that they have the best experience with your product or service.
CS software tools allow you to automate many of your customer success practices, optimize your customer onboarding process, track the companies’ performance, and more.
How Much Does Customer Success Software Typically Cost?
Most customer success software providers do not disclose pricing and require you to contact them for a custom quote.
However, you should expect to pay an upfront fee that can range anywhere from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, as well as a monthly per-user fee that can range between $25 and $500.
Also read:
- What is a Repeat Customer? Definition, Formulas & Rates
- What is a Prospective Customer? Definition, Examples
Author Bio
Vasilii is the Senior Copywriter at Custify. His interests include conversion-driven long-form SEO content, B2B copywriting, and target audience research. Outside of business hours, he is an avid vinyl records collector and car enthusiast.
