The definition of a customer successWhat is Customer Success? Customer Success refers to the approach that has your company in a position where it ensures that each customer is successfully connected to their desired outcome…. tool might be unclear to you.
Long story short, it is something that helps companies make sure the customers are satisfied and avoid customer churnWhat is churn? Churn refers to a customer cancelling their subscription to your products or services. It is a common metric among especially SaaS(service as a subscription) businesses. Churn exists…. Basically a lifesaver.
Long story long, a customer success tool is a software that is typically designed with built-in tools such as success metrics, service management, customer, and opportunity management that work with the assistance of third-party software such as emails and CRMs. Don’t let it intimidate you though, being easy-to-use is fundamental for a customer success tool.
Although there aren’t many different types of customer success tools, each tool has a different specialty. While some tools operate best for analytics, some others are better at customer support or satisfaction monitoring. Some tools cost a few bucks while some are absolutely free.
I’ve curated a list of top customer success tools that I hope will come in handy for companies that are just starting up or the ones that play it big, with various tools that offer various services.
Before we start, here’s our article explaining how churn can be reduced with customer success if the relation is blurred to you.
1- Gainsight
Gainsight is one of the top tier customer success tools that many companies use and recommend.
What makes it so popular could be that many big companies such as Cisco and General Electric prefer the tool, or it could be because of many features that not only offer an easy to use experience but also cover the whole life-cycle of the customers. One of the most anticipated features of the software is the Customer Health Scores. With regular customer data flowing, the software calculates the customers’ health score, which shows how satisfied each customer is.
Such a system is especially helpful to avoid customer churn, but that’s not the only strong point of the tool. Gainsight organizes, categorizes, and predicts customers and customer behavior. Using feedback, it quickly learns customer behavior and possible outcomes.
Best Features
- Customer Health Scores
- Scalability
- Data Security
- Customer Monitoring
- Customer Profiles
Pricing
- Quotations must be requested
2- UserGuiding
Although UserGuiding is a user onboardingWhat is user onboarding? User onboarding is the crucial process that starts from the first login of a new user and ends up in their aha moment, and usually beyond…. tool, it can and should be utilized by customer success teams to increase product engagement during and after initial onboarding process.
First of all, you can create custom user segments to personalize the experience for your audience; unlocking the possibility to interact with each group of user with different UXWhat is UX? UX is the abbreviation of User Experience and refers to an individual’s thoughts and feelings when using a specific product or a service. It aims to heal… elements such as interactive help centers, in-app messages, interactive guides, tooltips, hotspots, and more.
Second, you can utilize NPSWhat is NPS? NPS is the abbreviation of Net Promoter Score, which is a measurement of your customers’ satisfaction with your product on a scale of -100 to 100. It… surveys to calculate your NPS and measure the satisfaction of your users.
And last but not least, you can embark on a journey in the Analytics part of the tool to see how well you are engaging with your different segments of users throughout the onboarding process and beyond.
You can do all these without a single piece of coding knowledge, which makes UserGuiding perfect to adopt for customer success teams.
Also, the first experience and impression of a customer with your product should always be in the scope of your CS team, here’s my article on how User Onboarding boosts Customer Success.
Best Features
- In-product Engagement
- Custom User Segments
- In-depth Analytics
- NPS Surveys
Pricing
- 14-Day Free Trial
- Start-up: $199/month
- Growth: $399/month
- Enterprise: Quotations must be requested
- Bootstrap plan for early stage startups
3- SmartKarrot
If there is any platform that encapsulates the latest evolution in Customer Success, then it is none other than SmartKarrot.
SmartKarrot is one of the most comprehensive, intelligent, and actionable platforms that operationalize and scale customer success from onboarding to advocacy.
Best suited for the fast-growing, customer-centric B2B companies, SmartKarrot is an all-in-one, easy to use customer success platform. One thing that sets it apart is the elegant use of predictive insights to provide prescriptive guidance in the form of actionable steps to its users. It brings in the aspects of customer engagement, onboarding, customer success operations, customer experienceWhat is Customer Experience? Customer experience refers to the experience of customers with a business’s products and the overall brand. When offering products and services to a group of people,… and product adoptionWhat is product adoption? Product adoption is the process where an individual learns of a new product and becomes a user of it, learning what it does, how it does….
Best Features
- 360 View of Customer
- Configurable Health Score
- Customer Touchpoints
- Success Playbooks & Automation
- Account Intelligence
Pricing
- Free trial: 14 days
- Starter: $499/month up to 5 users
- Growth: $699/month up to 15 users
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for users > 15
4- PlanHat
With a minimalist interface that was designed to make customer success simple, PlanHat has many outstanding features.
Although many other customer success tools have the same features such as customer health scores, customer monitoring, and playbooks; how these features operate makes the difference. While other tools excel in one or two features, PlanHat gets an A+ from all of them.
With an all functional system that also lets teams have their shared space on the software, PlanHat is not only remarkable in functionality but also ease of use. Being designed to make it all simpler, it is known as one of the customer success tools with the easiest use in the industry.
Best Features
- Product Engagement
- Customer Health Scores
- Customer Monitoring
- Scalability
- Data Security
Pricing
- Startup: $500 per month (plus $1 per customer/ per month)
- Professional: $1250 per month (plus $1 per customer/ per month)
- Enterprise: Custom
5- HubSpot Service Hub
Having been founded in 2006, HubSpot has been a leading company in the industry for a long time.
With other successful tools such as Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and HubSpot CRM (which is free) HubSpot proves its prevalent success in the SaaSWhat is SaaS? SaaS is the abbreviation of Software as a Service, and refers to a software licensing model based on user subscription with monthly or annually payments. The model… field. As its name suggests, HubSpot Service Hub is focused on service and not necessarily 100% customer success.
Although for now, it lacks some features that would be needed for big companies, it has great potential and a lot of workspace for smaller businesses. Its top feature is the live chat tool, which lets you customize a chat tool for your customers. Another advantage is that HubSpot Service Hub integrates with HubSpot CRM, a necessary tool for customer success.
Best Features
- Feedback Collection
- Security
- System Monitoring
- Device Responsiveness
- Ticket Creation User Experience
Pricing
- Free Version
- Starter: $50 a month
- Professional: $400 a month
- Enterprise: $1200 a month
Bonus: HubSpot goes off up to 90% for startups.
6- Totango
With customers like Google and Zoom, Totango is a promising software that’s ought to help you keep all your customers happy. If they can keep Google and Zoom happy, so can you.
Totango’s customer success tool Spark has a clean and easy look right from the start. It’s easy to use and fluid interface is one of the best sides of the software.
Although most of its features such as customer segmentationWhat is User Segmentation User segmentation refers to the practice of dividing users based on common characteristics. This can help businesses in creating more optimized and personalized user experiences. To… and the ability to integrate with third-party tools are highly praised, most clients of the product dislike the lack of automation of certain features. However, Totango is still a high-rated tool that has a free version, as well as a 30-days free trial for the enterprise version, making it an extremely functional and preferable tool for small businesses and startups.
Best Features
- Customer Segments
- Data Security
- Customer Monitoring
- Scalability
- User Access & Permissions
Pricing
- Free version
- Enterprise version (30-days free trial)
- Quotations must be requested
7- ChurnZero
ChurnZero is the 11th fastest growing product in 2020.
Out of every other product.
If you are familiar with customer success tools at all, you would know that Gainsight is the top of the game. However, ChurnZero is the closest runner-up, with a high potential to catch up with Gainsight really soon.
ChurnZero’s best quality is probably how easy it is to use the tool even with the highly detailed features that function just right. Task automation is among the clients’ favorites, with that feature companies can easily achieve perfect customer monitoring and teamwork.
ChurnZero offers a free demo that lets users explore the tool and decide whether it is suitable for their business (and most of the time, it is) and also live support that helps you adjust to the tool and its details easily and quickly. Being a tool that rose to the top during Coronavirus Pandemic, ChurnZero is aware of the power of technological communication; they frequently hold webinars and send helpful material to clients.
Best Features
- Customer Monitoring
- Data Security
- Customer Segments
- Performance & Reliability
Pricing
- Quotation must be requested.
8- ClientSuccess
ClientSuccess is beyond everything, loved. Most customers can’t easily come up with something they dislike about the tool.
ClientSuccess has all the basic features you would look for in a customer success tool; customer profiles and segments, product engagement, and churn risk notifications. However, there are some points that make these features special. Most users of the tool think that each feature is easily customizable and they feel like the people at ClientSuccess understand how to achieve client success.
ClientSuccess creates a difference thanks to the people behind the product. Apart from designing the software just how it should be, they keep working on perfecting the product and they include their own clients to the process so that you make sure your opinion matters and shapes the product you use.
Best Features
- User Access & Permissions
- Customer Monitoring
- Data Security
- Performance & Reliability
- Customer Segments
Pricing
- Quotation must be requested.
9- ProfitWell
ProfitWell is a small-business’ delight.
They also work with bigger companies like Siemens and HubSpot, but there is a reason small businesses prefer ProfitWell more, and that is metrics.
ProfitWell’s best quality is probably how they are deeply engaged in metrics and how accurate they are. Metrics can be a serious step forward to avoid and overcome churn, so it is clear to see that ProfitWell dives deep in the origin of the problem.
This could be a curse and a blessing. When you work with a team of financers the interface is easy to understand, but from the eyes of someone who does not like graphs and numbers as much, the interface can be confusing. Though at the end of the day, ProfitWell is a customer success tool that offers perfect numbers and graphs regardless of the tier you are on, even the same for the free tier.
Best Features
- Data Import & Export Tools
- Reporting & Dashboards
- Performance & Reliability
- Data Security
- Workflow Capability
Pricing
- Paid products aligned with customer outcome.
- ProfitWell Metrics: Free Tier
- Retain: Quotations must be requested
- Recognized: Quotations must be requested
Conclusion
No matter how good your product, your advertisements, and your marketing is, without a proper customer success team that utilizes the best CS tools, you lose customers.
A customer success tool helps you regain your customers while keeping the existing ones happy. Such a crucial tool cannot be chosen recklessly, you need to consider the size, the field, and the goal of your business.
This list was made to help you pick the perfect software that will benefit you the best and cover all your needs. Choose wisely and conquer the hearts and minds of customers.
Frequently Asked Questions
🔧 What is a customer success tool?
A customer success tool is a tool that is utilized to minimize churn and increase customer satisfaction.
❓ What qualities should a customer success tool have?
A customer success tool should always be simple to use, has to have in-depth analytics, and should be secure.
💡 What solutions should I expect from a customer success tool?
Customer success tools can differ in use: product engagement, customer experience, customer health scores, customer monitoring, gathering and analyzing data are the most essential solutions.
