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9
Hours Researched
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Experts Consulted
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13
Vendors Reviewed
Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
- Product: We want to have a deep understanding of a vendor's product before recommending it. This usually means getting a demo by a senior executive (their CEO, head of product, etc), and/or using the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best in class offering.
- User feedback: We do our best to understand what users say when they experience this product. User input allows us to accomplish a more thorough due diligence of products, put new vendors on our radar, and generally make sure we are presenting the right products to our readers.
- Financial metrics: We are very much finance nerds and so use a product's retention rates, growth, profitability, and scale to understand whether or not it is truly best in class.
- Best for a use case: Sometimes the best solution is the cheapest, the best tool for international companies, or the best for startups. We try to include a diversity of solutions so that our readers can find the tool that is best for what they need.
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
In this guide you'll find
- Top Customer Success Software Vendors
- Common Use Cases of Customer Success Software
- Pitfalls: Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Customer Success Software
- Benefits and ROI of Customer Success Software
- Pricing Models and Estimated Cost of Customer Success Software
- Features of Customer Success Software
- Questions to Ask During Your Customer Success Software Demos
- Implementing Customer Success Software
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Customer Success Software
- Final Advice on Buying Customer Success Software
Customer success software is essential to build deep relationships with customers and ensure they are getting the most value from your product or service. There are many customer success software options available, so it can be hard to know which one is right for your business.
That’s why we’ve put together this list of the top 13 best customer success software products in 2022. We’ve based our ranking on a range of factors, including features offered, pricing, ease of use, and user reviews. So whether you’re looking for a comprehensive solution or a more affordable option that just does the basics, there’ll definitely be something here for you.
What is Customer Success Software and Why is It Important?
Customer success software helps companies manage and track customer interactions, communications, and engagements. It’s an important tool for businesses because it can help them improve customer retention rates, increase sales, and maximize profits.
Without customer success software, companies can lose track of their customers, which can lead to a decrease in sales and an increase in customer churn. Customer success software helps businesses keep tabs on all aspects of the customer relationship, from initial contact through post-sale support.
Featured in
Top Customer Success Software Vendors
Our team tracks thousands of business software solutions to streamline company workflows. These are the best customer success software service companies for all business sizes and types per our research and expert council as of 2022.
Why we love it
:
Totango offers a suite of feature-rich customer success products with both permanently free and customizable enterprise pricing plans for companies of any size.
Totango
Review:
Established in 2010, Totango quickly climbed the ranks to become one of the top-ranked companies in customer success. Spark, its customer success platform, is a goal-oriented software tool that has delivered for companies from startups to Fortune 100 enterprises.
With detailed reports and playbooks among other features, the platform has been shown to increase onboarding, product adoption, and revenue growth for thousands of businesses.
Totango
Customers:
- Zoom
- Trustpilot
- Monster
- Autodesk
- Nasdaq
Totango
Stats:
- Over 5,000 business customers
- 20-point increase in year-over-year retention (Monster)
- Over 130% increase in quarter over quarter net dollar expansion (Zoom)
- Over 50% new product adoption (NTT)
Totango
Pricing:
Totango offers two subscription plans:
- Community (for companies getting started with customer success): Free forever, for up to three users, one success team, and standard features
- Enterprise (for companies with larger customer bases): Custom (with free 30-day trial), for a custom number of users, unlimited success teams, implementation support, and designated success manager
Best For:
With its permanently free and customizable enterprise plans, Totango is perfect for both small businesses and large enterprises.
Why we love it
:
Gainsight gives you a clean, actionable, and customizable 360 view dashboard with prescriptive playbooks to help you deliver the best outcomes for your customers.
Gainsight
Review:
Today’s technologies allow businesses to automate workflows and scale, but these methods can cause a dent in company-client interactions. Gainsight’s mission is to fill this gap by helping you build and maintain relationships with your customers through insights from actionable dashboards and evidence-based practices on their platform.
Gainsight’s customer success software lets you see customer trends, assess risks, and make decisions based on these vital data.
Gainsight
Customers:
- Dropbox
- Athena Health
- Workday
- Box
Gainsight
Stats:
- Up to 169% reported net revenue retention (NRR) rates reported by customers
- 40% increase in revenue and 45% increased share price for Gainsight customers
Gainsight
Pricing:
Gainsight recommends customization of pricing to use their product suite. Just provide details including your company and job title to request pricing.
Best For:
According to its official website, Gainsight CS is best for enterprises with over 50 customers and multiple data sources.
Why we love it
:
ChurnZero is a feature-rich platform that lets you view and make decisions based on customer lifecycles that can easily be integrated with your systems.
ChurnZero
Review:
Aptly named, ChurnZero’s mission is for companies to avoid customer churn by helping them understand their relationships at every touchpoint. Its customer success platform is designed to seamlessly integrate with CRM systems and applications, increasing the productivity of customer success managers.
Churnzero lets companies save time with its comprehensive reports, personalize communication with customers, and measure analytics in its platform.
ChurnZero
Customers:
- Unane
- DonorSearch
- Bloomfire
- FiscalNote
- Untappd
ChurnZero
Stats:
- 100% increase in Account-to-CSM ratio (ConsumerAffairs)
- 50% reduction in onboarding time for customers (Inflow Communications)
- +21% retention rate in the first year of adoption (HomeActions)
ChurnZero
Pricing:
Pricing plans are not available on the ChurnZero website. Book a demo and request a quote to get the right price for your company.
Best For:
ChurnZero is perfect for established enterprises and fast-growing companies that aim to provide excellent customer service.
Why we love it
:
Planhat combines simple and elegant design with powerful customer success features for startup businesses, scaling companies, and established enterprises.
Planhat
Review:
Founded in Sweden, Planhat is a customer platform for services including customer success, sales, marketing, and finance. The company believes that putting customers at the center of businesses and maximizing their lifetime value are the keys to long-term sustainable growth.
Planhat offers an elegant, clean design with real-time data and automation tools to help companies achieve customer success.
Planhat
Customers:
- Teamleader
- Recruitee
- Vainu
- StoreHub
- Talentech
Planhat
Stats:
- Increased 10% customer retention over a year (Recruitee)
- Increased onboarding NPS from 74-78 in three months (Qulture Rocks)
- Increased response rate from 38% to 54% in three months (Qulture Rocks)
Planhat
Pricing:
Planhat offers three plans, all with capabilities for unlimited users:
- Basic plan (for companies beginning their customer success journey): With standard features, one dashboard, basic revenue management, and open API
- Professional (for companies that are scaling): With more customer management features, multi-step automation, 100 dashboards, advanced revenue management, and full API
- Enterprise (for companies and enterprises with established customer success teams): With unlimited dashboards and custom branding, custom roles and permissions, and SSO
Each plan has custom pricing. For more details, get a demo and get a quote for your company.
Best For:
Planhat is great for companies of any size looking for a beautiful, feature-rich customer success platform.
Why we love it
:
With many features including customizable and shareable dashboards, playbook creation, and predictive analytics, Custify is a great customer success software for companies of any size.
Custify
Review:
Custify believes that both visibility and outreach ability are crucial for customer success. Companies that can see their customers’ user experience and proactively reach out at any stage of the product lifecycle are sure to deliver great outcomes.
Custify combines these two essential elements in a simple and flexible platform that’s easy to integrate for companies of all sizes.
Custify
Customers:
- Quadient
- Referrizer
- Userpilot
- ChartMogul
- GloriaFood
Custify
Stats:
- 50% reduced customer churn on average
- 20% better onboarding
- 100% increased productivity
Custify
Pricing:
Custify offers different pricing plans depending on the size of your company:
- Starter (for startups on their first customer success program): $199 per month, for up to two users, with basic features and chat and email support
- Standard (for growing businesses expecting more customer demands): $499 per month, for up to five users, all Starter features plus more integrations, task management, lifecycles, playbooks, concierge onboarding, detailed product training, and more support options
- Enterprise (for large enterprises with big customer success teams): Custom pricing, number of users, and integrations, all Standard features plus a dedicated CSM, tracking for large customer volumes, and SLA with defined reply times
Best For:
Custify is perfect for both startups looking for their first customer success software and big enterprises with large customer demands.
Why we love it
:
With its comprehensive 360 view and automated workflows, Strikedeck helps companies prevent churn, expand accounts, foster a customer-centric culture, and more.
Strikedeck
Review:
Strikedeck is a recognized name in customer success founded by pioneers of marketing automation. Its platform uses innovations such as machine learning, workflow automation, and predictive analytics to increase customer engagement.
With its proprietary SaaS solution, Strikedeck enables companies to maximize retention, expansion, and advocacy for their customers.
Strikedeck
Customers:
- Chief
- Hitachi Vantara
- Agio
- HashiCorp
- Envoy
Strikedeck
Stats:
Strikedeck
Pricing:
Strikedeck does not provide pricing plans on its website. Schedule a demo and request a quote for your company.
Best For:
Strikedeck is a good starting point for companies that want to establish customer support teams.
Why we love it
:
Zendesk offers a feature-rich customer service platform complete with tools for customer support and team collaboration that can scale with businesses.
Zendesk
Review:
Zendesk empowers companies with software tools focused on customer service and sales. Its customer service product, Zendesk for Service, is an easy-to-use platform capable of scaling with businesses. The platform lets companies offer customer support in a variety of ways and boost team productivity with collaboration tools, workspaces, and more.
Zendesk
Customers:
- Baublebar
- 99Designs
- Adslot
- Modsy
- Uber
Zendesk
Stats:
- Over 160,000 customers in 160 countries and territories
- Over 1,200 apps for integration
- 4.75 billion interactions processed every year
Zendesk
Pricing:
Zendesk’s customer service platform has separate plans for smaller companies and enterprises:
- Suite Team: $49 per agent per month billed annually, with basic standard service features including a single help center, up to 50 AI-powered answers, standard data storage, and over 1,000 pre-built integrations
- Suite Growth: $79 per agent per month billed annually, with multiple help centers, up to 100 AI-powered answers, intermediate data storage, custom integrations, and SLA management
- Suite Professional: $99 per agent per month billed annually, with up to 500 AI-powered answers, integrated community forums, advanced voice capabilities, private conversation threads, and HIPAA compliance
- Suite Enterprise: $150 per agent per month billed annually, with custom roles and permissions, customizable workspaces and branding, real-time shareable analytics, and sandbox environment
- Additional enterprise-ready plans: Starts at $215 per agent per month billed annually, with advanced security and compliance, granular controls and improved flexibility, and advanced support and services
Best For:
Zendesk is great not only for big companies and enterprises – it also offers a program for startups to avail the software for free for six months.
Why we love it
:
Catalyst is a neat, intuitive platform created by customer success leaders for customer success teams with all the key features you need to build deep relationships with your customers.
Catalyst
Review:
Catalyst is a New York-based company founded in 2017 by customer success managers who wanted to solve problems in the field. With the help of designers and developers, Catalyst created a well-designed and comprehensive platform to boost teams’ efficiencies in customer success.
Catalyst integrates with plenty of systems and creates a centralized dashboard, enabling companies to take action against customer churn.
Catalyst
Customers:
- Spring Health
- Heap
- Frame.io
- Braze
- Gremlin
Catalyst
Stats:
Catalyst
Pricing:
Catalyst’s pricing model offers unlimited access to the platform to give you full support and enable customer-centric collaboration within your company. Get a quote by providing details including company name, number of employees in your company, and which CRM software you use.
Best For:
Catalyst is great for any company looking for a clean, intuitive customer success platform with all key features.
Why we love it
:
ClientSuccess offers customer success software that’s easy to implement and focuses on all customer touchpoints, with detailed and shareable customer health metrics.
ClientSuccess
Review:
ClientSuccess aims to build a culture of customer success across all departments in its clients’ companies. Its software consistently garners awards for leadership in customer success and is voted easiest to use and administer.
With core principles around customer onboarding, adoption, retention, and growth, ClientSuccess has found success in helping small startups and global enterprises.
ClientSuccess
Customers:
- Peek
- Symphony Talent
- Reward Gateway
- Syndigo
ClientSuccess
Stats:
- 70% decreased customer churn (Plum Voice)
- From 90% to 103% increase in revenue retention (AddShoppers)
- From 85% to 93% in logo retention (AddShoppers)
ClientSuccess
Pricing:
ClientSuccess’ pricing plans are not publicly available. Ask for a quote on your scheduled demo to get the right price for your company.
Best For:
ClientSuccess is perfect for companies of any size, from small startups to large enterprises.
Why we love it
:
CustomerSuccessBox is an AI-powered customer success software with a specific, measurable goal: to let your company achieve a 125% net revenue retention rate achieved by only 10% of all SaaS businesses.
CustomerSuccessBox
Review:
Founded in 2016, CustomerSuccessBox developed a platform that lets companies assess customer success at all stages of the customer lifecycle: from trial and conversion, all the way to upselling and renewal. The outcome-driven company aims for customer success managers to handle hundreds of customer accounts while growing and scaling their businesses.
CustomerSuccessBox guarantees even companies with lower average revenue per account (ARPA) or annual contract value (ACV) will achieve success with its software.
CustomerSuccessBox
Customers:
- Aislelabs
- Locus
- Parlevel
- XebiaLabs
- Enwoven
CustomerSuccessBox
Stats:
- Up to 130% monthly recurring revenue retention
- Billions of events logged
- Over 1 million users monitored per day
CustomerSuccessBox
Pricing:
The pricing of CustomerSuccessBox starts at $499 a month. CustomerSuccessBox offers subscription plans for different sizes of businesses:
- Grow (for businesses with small, starting customer success teams): With standard integrations, single product capabilities, and email support
- Businesses (for businesses with established success teams): With custom rules for integrations, single product capabilities, and live chat support
- Enterprise (for businesses seeking to improve customer success with multiple products and teams): With two-way sync and custom rules for integrations, multi-product capabilities, and phone support
Besides the subscription plans, CustomerSuccessBox also charges a one-time fee for onboarding and $49 per month per integration, though integration is free for G Suite and those via APIs.
Best For:
CustomerSuccessBox is great for companies of any size, including startup businesses generating small revenues.
Why we love it
:
Akita offers features including 360-degree views, segmentation, health scoring, automated alerts, task management, and more to drive customer success in your company.
Akita
Review:
Founded in 2014, Akita’s mission is for companies to maintain and nurture relationships with their customers. The company is dedicated to contributing to a customer-centric movement to drive growth in SaaS.
The Akita platform breaks down data into powerful insights and alerts to empower customer success teams.
Akita
Customers:
Akita
Stats:
Akita
Pricing:
Akita offers three pricing plans:
- Start (for companies starting their success teams): $200 per month billed monthly or $160 per month billed annually, for three users, with essential features for customer success
- Connect (for companies looking for scalable success strategies): $600 per month billed monthly or $480 per month billed annually, for five users, white-glove onboarding, and over 80 app integrations
- Customize (for teams with non-standard requirements): Custom pricing, with advanced integrations and a dedicated success engineer
Best For:
Akita is great for companies of any size, including startups and large companies.
Why we love it
:
Service Hub combines all your customer service data and channels on a single platform, so companies can efficiently maintain customer relationships from onboarding, support, retention, and growth.
Hubspot
Review:
HubSpot is a leader in the CRM field with a suite of products that start free and can scale with growing companies.
Its Service Hub is a customer service-focused platform for delivering customer support, improving team collaboration, and enriching customer relationships. By bringing customer service systems together in one platform, companies can provide excellent service and satisfy their customers.
Hubspot
Customers:
- Frontify
- Gofundme Charity
- Newcastle University
- Ocean Spray
- LegalZoom
Hubspot
Stats:
- 875 custom integrations
- 50% improved NPS (Unific)
- €10 million growth in revenue (Stella)
Hubspot
Pricing:
HubSpot offers three pricing plans along with a free subscription. All paid plans include 1:1 technical support and storage for up to 15 million contacts:
- Free: No charge permanently, with basic tools including ticketing, live chat, shared inbox, and basic bots
- Starter: Starts at $45 per month for two users or $540 per year, with increased limits on free tools plus features for streamlining customer communication and improved KPI-retention
- Professional: Starts at $800 per month for five users or $9,600 per year, with features for automation, self-service, seamless onboarding, and customer relationship expansion
- Enterprise: Starts at $3,200 per month for ten users or $38,400 per year, with features for scaling, customization, and optimization
Best For:
HubSpot Service Hub is great for all sizes of companies that want to strengthen customer service.
Why we love it
:
Freshdesk Customer Success takes a data-driven approach to make your company proactive with automation, churn reports, customer health monitoring, and more.
Freshdesk
Review:
Freshworks, the company behind Freshdesk Customer Success, offers a suite of products dedicated to making employees and customers happy. With a focus on customer support and a “customer-for-life” vision, it acquired Natero, a customer success service with artificial intelligence and machine learning in 2019.
Formerly called Freshsuccess, Freshdesk Customer Success offers features to reduce churn and achieve customer goals with a data-driven approach.
Freshdesk
Customers:
- Fiverr
- Klarna
- Springer Nature
- Trainline
- Exabytes
Freshdesk
Stats:
- Over 50,000 customers
- 96% customer satisfaction (Clarity)
- 94% customer effort score (Clarity)
Freshdesk
Pricing:
Freshdesk Customer Success has an Estate plan for companies with dedicated success teams and a Forest plan for enterprises. The Estate plan has capabilities for 10,000 accounts, 100,000 emails per month, and three maintained integrations, while the Forest plan can be used with 200,000 accounts, 250,000 emails per month, and eight maintained integrations:
- Estate: $79 per user per month billed annually or $95 per user per month billed monthly, plus the platform for $499 per month billed annually or $625 per month billed monthly
- Forest: $129 per user per month billed annually or $150 per user per month billed monthly, plus the platform for $749 per month billed annually or $950 per month billed monthly
Best For:
Freshdesk Customer Success is best for growing companies and large enterprises with established customer success teams.
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Final Advice on Buying Customer Success Software
Here are some final tips on what to look for when buying customer success software:
- Make sure the software is easy to use and navigate. You don’t want something that will be confusing or difficult to learn how to use.
- Check out the pricing plans and see if they fit into your budget. Some software can be expensive, so make sure you are aware of all costs involved (including hidden ones!) before making a decision.
- Read reviews from other customers who have used the software to get an idea of what it is like to work with it day-to-day.
- Try to get demos from at least two to three software companies to get a feel for the features you need.
The top 13 products that we have listed can be a great starting point, but make sure to ask the right questions and do your research to find the best solution for you.
Want to take the next step in strengthening customer relationships? Check out our review of the top 10 customer loyalty software today!
Top Customer Success Software
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