More About Top tools
The debate over the need for customer success software tools continues to this day: some claim you must have one, while others believe that you can manage without it. But even the most talented and experienced post-sales teams can’t cope with the complexity of managing customers. Keeping relationships strong and CSM productive is often the missing part of the puzzle. We believe that dedicated customer success tools are a must-have for B2B companies. Here are the top 8 ones you must consider.
What are customer success software tools?
Let’s keep it real – managing customers in the B2B space isn’t easy. But with the right integrations and features, these tools can help B2B businesses adopt a customer-first approach and help track their sentiment in real-time. This helps reduce churn, maximize engagement, and spot new growth opportunities. We believe B2B companies must acquire a tool to succeed in this mission.
But before diving into the list of customer success software tools you need to consider in 2023 and beyond, we would like to elaborate on the comparison criteria that has been used. With global markets becoming increasingly unstable and user preferences fluctuating more than ever before, B2B businesses need to have versatile and scalable CS platforms. We have taken this and more into consideration.
Top 10 Customer Success Tools for the Productive CSM
Customer success software tools: Comparison Criteria
The evaluation criteria is as as follows:
- Usability: Customer success platforms need to enable smooth onboarding and help customers get started as soon as possible with strong features.
- UI/UX: The SaaS world has evolved and customers need to have everything at their fingertips. Having an intuitive interface is now a true requirement.
- Integrations: Knowing everything about your customers starts with generating information from multiple sources. So this is a critical requirement for this category. The more integrations you have with applications that can shed light on customer activity – the better.
- Support: You don’t want a CS platform with poor CS right? This is a big factor you shouldn’t compromise on today.
- Pricing: Value for money is another essential, especially with the ongoing war in Ukraine and the intensifying financial global recession.
Top 8 Customer success software tools
Now let’s dive into the list:
1. Client Success
Client Success is a leading customer success software provider that helps centralize all customer communications for better CSM collaboration and productivity. Individual usage metrics and feedback scores are available at a glance, something that helps feel the Pulse (that’s what they call their account health feature). Adoption, engagement, and activity are tracked to create a proprietary Success Score.
Founded: 2014
Pros:
- Installation and onboarding is fast
- Intuitive user experience
- Integrations with a lot of third-party software
Cons:
- Lack of proper notifications and average customization capabilities
- Average customer support
- Multiple reports of bugs
Main Features:
- Success cycle planning and management
- Contact management and CRM sync
- Revenue management hub
Pricing: No Free Version, Paid Plans Not Shown on Website
2. Staircase AI
Staircase AI is disrupting the post-sales space with its next-gen customer intelligence platform. It’s truly customer-first by default – discovering the churn risks, growth opportunities, and learning about customer trends around sentiment and engagement, via AI-powered analysis of all customer signals – emails, tickets, product usage, calls, messages and more. Staircase AI as the ability to analyze millions of customer signals helps trigger the right actions.
Founded: 2021
Pros:
- Analyzes all communication sources as well as product signals
- Records all communication from all sources automatically
- Integrates data to popular CRMs
- Uses Both AI and Generative-AI capabilities
- Integration is fast, simple and independent , No training required
Cons:
- No mobile support
- Missing some integrations
Main Features:
- Ongoing AI-powered customer sentiment score, engagement score and relationship scores, to trigger playbooks.
- Executive dashboard with all relationship risks and opportunities
- Stakeholder relationship maps and relationship strength analysis
- Generative AI instructed by Staircase AI’s insights to generate responses automatically
Pricing: Free Version (Up to 10 Customers), Starter Plan $499/month (Up to 50 Customers), Enterprise Plan Based on the Use Case
3. Gainsight
Gainsight is a CS platform that allows B2B businesses to generate favorable customer journey outcomes. It helps CS executives and CSMs detect usage fluctuations, engagement changes, and highlights risks associated with in-app friction or poor service. Gainsight offers a health scoring framework that can be applied to each and every customer, with a centralized dashboard for enhanced visibility.
Founded: 2009
Pros:
- Long list of possible integrations
- Strong playbook and segmentation capabilities
- Helps very much with automation efforts
Cons:
- Cumbersome installation, setup, and configuration
- Emailing functionality is sub-par
- Multiple reports of buggy or slow software
Main Features:
- Holistic and centralized view of every customer
- In-depth analytics and actionable insights
- Customizable notifications and alerts
Pricing: No Free Version, Paid Plans Not Shown on Website
4. Totango
Totango is a globally recognized customer success software solution that can help post-sales teams plan, analyze, and monitor customer journeys. With over 5000 customers, Totango also boasts industry-leading integration capabilities. It is better suited for enterprise-scale businesses thanks to its user-friendly and modular architecture. Startups and SMBs can find Totango to be rather expensive.
Founded: 2010
Pros:
- Offer a free setup version, to help customer independently build their flows
- Modular approach makes onboarding easier
- Customer health tracking is one of the best in the industry
Cons:
- Can get expensive fast for startups and SMBs
- Customer support can be better
- Limited reporting and data sharing capabilities
Main Features:
- Customer health score with customer experience canvas
- Success playbooks with workflow automation
- Customer segmentation and outcome success planning
Pricing: Free Version (1 User Only), Starter Plan $249/month (2 Users), Growth Plan $1099/month (10 Users), Enterprise Plan Based on the Use Case
5. ChurnZero
ChurnZero is an established customer success software vendor that puts an emphasis on visibility and engagement monitoring to reduce churn. Its Command Center gives a 360-view of all accounts and allows the smooth management of daily tasks with email communications, task reminders, and customizable notifications. You also get detailed reporting and accurate predictive risk analysis capabilities.
Founded: 2015
Pros:
- Works exceptionally well in high-touch business models
- Good customer support and documentation
- Strong reporting capabilities
Cons:
- Comes with a steep learning curve
- Lack of granular control in some aspects (segmentations, setting up plays)
- Still not fully self-served on the admin front
Main Features:
- Customer command center view and segmentations
- Customer health scoring and account insights
- In-app communications and surveys
Pricing: No Free Version, Paid Plans Not Shown on Website
6. SmartKarrot
SmartKarrot is an AI-driven customer success solution that helps B2B businesses to optimize team operations and boost product adoption for improved NRR. It helps achieve these challenging goals by streamlining CS operations and allowing CSMs to adopt a data-driven approach – customer , product usage analytics, touchpoint management, and more.
Founded: 2018
Pros:
- Attractive and user-friendly interface
- User-friendly and gamified platform dashboard
- Customer onboarding journey optimization works really well
Cons:
- Lack of proper post-sales and support communication (updates, changes)
- Customer service can be iffy at times
- Occasional bugs and glitches
Main Features:
- Automated campaigns, surveys, and feedback collection
- Product usage analytics and real-time account monitoring
- Best practice playbooks (gamified templates) and task management
Pricing: Paid Plans (Starter, Growth, Pro, Enterprise) Not Shown on Website
7. Planhat
Planhat is another trusted customer success software solution that helps B2B businesses to grow faster and improve their customer success initiatives. The user-friendly interface helps with tier or health score segmentation and makes it easier to generate playbooks based on that data. Advanced customer success analytics help CS professionals adopt a more educated approach to things.
Founded: 2015
Pros:
- Good professional support and post-sales team
- Highly customizable and can address complex B2B use cases
- Strong reporting and collaboration capabilities
Cons:
- Help center is not adequate
- Dashboard can get cluttered while scaling up fast
- Comes with a learning curve
Main Features:
- CS analytics and reporting for improved visibility and collaboration
- CS activity automations and workflow templates
- Add-on service to create Product-Led Growth (PLG) journeys
Pricing: No Free Version, Paid Plans (Basic, Pro, Enterprise) Not Shown on Website
8. Catalyst
Catalyst is a relatively new company in the CS platform market, focusing on unifying customer data from all verticals and serving it as actionable insights for better retention performance. With logos like Fivetran, Heap, and Alcumus, this vendor is obviously doing something right. The company has a strong data accuracy mechanism and is one of the more capable customer journey tools out there today.
Founded: 2017
Pros:
- Easy to use with an intuitive interface
- Health scoring is accurate and helps optimize CS playbooks
- Strong integrations that are needed for enterprise setups
Cons:
- Email integration is limited, with no email logging as of now
- Average documentation and iffy support
- No in-built outbound or survey capabilities
Main Features:
- Dynamic customer journey builder
- Speedy integrations with dozens of leading solutions
- Customer churn prediction and analysis
Pricing: No Free Version, Paid Plans Not Shown on Website
Based on User Reviews from the G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra Platforms.
Related content: Read our guide to customer success team structure
The next big thing: AI boost to Customer Success Software Tools
Staircase AI leverages the power of Artificial Intelligence to uncover the relationship blind spots impacting customers’ true health score. Harvesting and breaking down data from the main channels is a positive step, but not really enough today. Staircase AI integrates with your communication channels and provides actionable insights that help CSMs build strong and sustainable relationships.
AI-driven Relationship Intelligence gives you the edge because it lets you know how your customers really feel about you, while also eliminating the friction between customer feedback and your company’s stakeholders. The unique understanding of customer sentiment is a game-changer that removes all the blind spots (learn more about eliminating bind spots from your customer success strategy here!) and helps your Customer Success teams cross another milestone in becoming more proactive than reactive.
