The Best Customer Success Software of 2023

Customer success software will help you reduce churn, build lasting long-term relationships, and delight customers from day 1. 

This kind of software is critical to ensuring your new customers have the best experience possible – and that is an essential part of your business. 

As customer expectations increase each year the importance of CS software will only continue to grow. 

An efficient customer success team will only drive long-term growth. But you’ll make a costly mistake if your CS only has the resources to deliver an unsatisfactory or inconsistent experience to your users.  

At Process Street, we understand our customers are the bloodline of our company. And if we don’t help them get the most out of our product, we might as well kiss these customers goodbye. 

That said, CS isn’t straightforward work. Our CS team runs like a well-oiled machine because they have: 

• The knowledge to support our customers
• A good understanding of the customer journey
• The customer segments and data to make informed decisions
• Efficient cross-departmental collaboration 
• Actionable insights

All this is housed within a customer success tool that’s connected to the rest of your organization’s apps and creates a transparent and centralized knowledge base. But it would be a completely different (and inefficient) story if we didn’t have this CS software. 

Here’s everything you need to know when picking a customer success software tool.  

• 5 best customer success software
• Signs you need customer success software
• Is CS software right for you?
• Questions to ask before you buy
• Key features to look for in customer success software
• 5 tips to get the most out of your CS software
• Benefits of customer success software
• Effective CS software helps boost retention

5 best customer success software

Here are the top 5 best tools for customer success to help you get the most out of your customer success initiatives:

Process Street

Process Street is known for its powerful process automation and management capabilities, making it a versatile choice for customer success teams. It allows you to create and automate workflows, checklists, and standard operating procedures (SOPs), which can be invaluable for streamlining customer onboarding and success processes.

This automation platform is also equipped with advanced analytics for better customer monitoring. You can create tasks within Process Street to gain detailed customer onboarding feedback to improve your client experience. Task automation then streamlines the customer feedback process. Not to mention, the central dashboard and minimalist interface help provide a more user-friendly experience. 

Gainsight

Gainsight is a dedicated customer success platform designed to help businesses improve customer satisfaction and retention rate through more streamlined client interactions. It offers features like customer health monitoring, automated workflows, and customer analytics to help you proactively manage and grow customer relationships.

Totango

Totango is another popular customer success platform that provides a range of tools for tracking customer engagement, usage, and satisfaction. It offers features such as customer health scores, journey orchestration, customer interactions, and communication automation.

ChurnZero

ChurnZero focuses on reducing customer churn and increasing customer satisfaction. It offers features like real-time alerts, customer health monitoring, and automated playbooks to help customer success teams identify and address customer issues quickly.

Zendesk

Zendesk is a widely used customer service and support platform that can also be customized to support customer success initiatives. It offers top-tier customer success tools for managing customer conversations, tracking support tickets, and gathering customer feedback.

Signs you need customer success software 

Here are some major indicators that your company is ready to invest in customer success software: 

You need CS software to scale your business

When your organization is still relatively small, it’s easy to manage your customer base and form stable relationships with them. However, developing these meaningful connections with your customers can become more challenging once your business begins to grow. 

Alongside nurturing your new customers, you also need to maintain existing relationships. That’s where a customer success tool would be incredibly helpful in managing both existing and new customer relationships. 

Are you over-reliant on your CRM?

It’s typical for SaaS companies to regularly use CRM platforms. And there’s no doubt these platforms can significantly help manage customer success work. But the problem is that CRM isn’t designed for customer success. 

You can use CRM tools for customer upselling, client onboarding, and other CS tasks but you’re not getting the most out of your customer success efforts if this is the tool you’re primarily using. 

Why? 

You aren’t supported by a tool that can offer all these functionalities of a customer success tool. 

Your team lacks important access to CS knowledge

Your team members might not have the right knowledge to provide adequate support to your customers. This can leave your entire team in the dark about their patterns and actions. 

Not only does this create inconsistent experiences for your customers, but it can also negatively affect your business. These inconsistent and inadequate experiences can cause customers to leave in search of a more personalized experience. 

Your CS team is stressed 

Your business can suffer if your customer-facing team is stressed by an overwhelming volume of customers (and the repetitive tasks that accompany each customer relationship). You set your team up for success when they’re given the right software. With an effective customer success tool, your team can easily manage tasks and streamline any recurring tasks. 

CS software also has the power to increase personalization with limited effort while repetitive work is eliminated. Employees can then spend more time building connections with customers without feeling overwhelmed. 

You have processes (without effective process management) 

Customer success processes are crucial if you want to deliver consistently good experiences to your customers. If you don’t use a CS software tool, you likely need to:

• Construct these processes yourself 
• Perform them without any automation capabilities
• Conduct data entry
• Manually make sure tasks are carried out (by the responsible employee)
• Report metrics 

You could do all this but you’ve got your own work you need to focus on. Plus, it wouldn’t be the most efficient way. Using customer success software would be.   

You’ve noticed a decrease in upsells and cross-sells

Your team might not have an accurate of staying up-to-date with customer metrics. A CS platform can do this for CS teams. This means reports from the CS platform can be used to inform employees when it’s time to speak to customers about upgrading their subscriptions. 

Is CS software right for you? 

Customer success software is an amazing tool for any type of business. The real reason you might not see value in tools for customer success is that it’s the wrong time to invest in it. 

Here’s how to see if it’s the right time to look at a CS tool for your business: 

• Your business is developed and you understand what your customer needs from the get-go.
• Your business is growing and you’re at a point where you might need to hire new CS employees to manage the growing load of work. 
• Your customer success metrics aren’t accurate. 
• Your processes are documented or in place but aren’t actionable. 
• Most of your employees spend time completing recurring tasks. 
• Your customer churn has radically increased. 
• You’re missing upsell or cross-sell opportunities. 

Questions to ask yourself before you buy

Now that you’ve clearly outlined that customer success software is something your business needs, it’s time to look at the questions you should consider before you make your final purchase: 

How will you track the results of using new customer success software? 

You want to quantify the benefits of using customer success software. That means setting specific metric goals. The more specific you are, the easier it will be to decide what CS software would be right for you. 

Here are some metrics to consider: 

• Customer retention (churn rate): The rate at which customers stop purchasing or subscribing to your product/service. 
• Customer acquisition cost: How much you spend to gain new customers.
• Conversion rate: How well your sales calls, inquiries, and other lead conversion methods turn into paid customers.  

Do you have the resources to integrate the customer success software? 

You might find the perfect CS software but that means nothing if you don’t have the required resources to implement this new tool into your business. Some software solutions can take months for employees to get the hang off. 

During this time, your team wouldn’t receive all the benefits this software has to offer. Not to mention, this training period will have your employees working at somewhat of a reduced capacity. All these aspects need to be considered to ensure that your CS solution won’t bomb out before it is fully integrated into an organization. 

Key features to look for in customer success software 

You have a massive variety of customer success software tools to choose from. So, how can you be sure you’re picking the right one? 

Here are the must-have features to consider when picking software for customer success: 

Integrating customer success software with your tech stack 

You should have a list of wanted integrations before you choose a customer success management tool. You want to get the most out of your CS solution, and integration functionality is the deciding factor. 

By integrating your customer success tool with CRM solutions, marketing automation software, communication platforms, and digital training tools, you can boost the efficiency of all these different software. 

The greatest benefit of integrations is that different organizational tools become more connected. This leads to more visible data, which makes it easier to track customer churn, satisfaction, training, growth, renewals, and product adoption. 

Customer success software vendors should champion customer success! 

You want a CS tool with a dedicated support team. If you’re faced with an issue that’s stopping your team from working, you need that problem fixed ASAP. And that can only happen if your CS solution comes equipped with an effective support team. 

But it’s not just about issues you might have. You also want a CS solution that will provide you with a knowledge base of educational content. That could be blog posts, tutorials, or frequently asked questions. This content is a great way for you to better understand the product you’re investing in and how you can use it to maximize your return. 

No-code platform 

Your chosen tool for customer success will house tons of your process documentation and help you create effective workflows from these recurring tasks. You want to easily input this documentation into your chosen platform. That means creating personalized workflows specifically for your business needs without writing the code yourself. 

This might seem impossible but no-code platforms do just that for you. Creating a customized workflow can be done with a drag-and-drop interface that’s easy to use. For this reason, picking a no-code CS software platform would be an ideal choice. 

Strong user identification and analytics 

The goal of each customer success operations team is to have each user satisfied with their product and coming back for more. Your team will have difficulty satisfying your customers if they don’t know who exactly your customers are. 

That’s why an analytics suite should be included in the CS software you choose. You also want a tool with robust user-identification features. This could include linking phone numbers or emails with accounts or more advanced functions like segregation options. 

With these features, your team will have a clear understanding of what content your team should create for customers, who to target next, and how your team is performing.  

Data security 

You want to avoid leaking your customer’s confidential information at all costs. This can only happen if your customer success tool is designed with effective data security features. 

When you put this security measure in place, you ensure that your business and its customers are protected from any leaks. The customer success tools you want to look for are ones that use encryption techniques like two-factor authentication and SSL encryption. 

5 tips to get the most out of your CS software 

Now that you know what CS tools to look for, it’s time to dive into how you can get the most out of your investment: 

Automate any manual outreaches

Your team likely relies on email communications with your customers, as most customer-facing organizations do. But sending emails is tedious. Especially when you’re likely sending the same email to each customer (and having to spend time entering relevant data of that specific customer). 

When you use customer success operations software, you can streamline this emailing process with an email widget. This functionality can help you construct an email template that inputs variable information specific to the customer. This information is automatically entered and you can send through directly to your customer within your CS tool.  

Watch for important customer milestones and news 

Things happen quickly in a business environment. That can make it difficult to keep track of your various customers’ news and milestones. You want to watch customer data that directly relates to your product. 

Your CS tool reports various metrics about your customer. You can highlight what metrics are “rewardable” or “problematic” and then send out consistent messages to share your congratulations. The same can be done if you notice inactivity. In sending a message to your customers, you’re showing that you notice and value them as users. 

Keep tabs on customer health scores 

Customer health scores are an excellent way to prioritize your customers. These metrics help identify which users need help, and which you can use to focus the right resources on these customers. Without these health scores to prioritize your users, you’re at risk of these customers churning. 

As a CS team, you’re given the responsibility of anticipating the support your users will need when using your product. Health scores provide an accurate analysis of what users need the most help, so you can prioritize your resources more efficiently.    

Integrated with other customer tools for more visible data 

Your company collects tons of useful data from your customers. This includes support, training, surveys, and usage/telemetry. But this information isn’t collected through a singular platform, but rather, multiple sources. Because of this lack of transparency, your CS team can suffer inefficiencies in decision-making. 

That’s where a CS tool can be useful. By integrating your CS software solution with your other work platforms, you can easily push valuable customer data into each application and create a single source of truth. This ensures your user data is accurate and easily accessible.    

Ask for feedback from your CS employees 

The best way to get the most out of your CS software is to see how it’s working from the people who use it daily: Your customer success team. 

Sending out a survey is a great way to assess how they find using your CS software. However, open discussions in meetings could also work as long as everyone gets to discuss their point of view. Pay close attention to what they like and what they think could be improved.  

Benefits of customer success software

Customer success software can provide numerous benefits to businesses across various industries. Here are some of the key advantages of using customer success software:

Improved customer retention

Customer success software helps you identify at-risk customers and take proactive measures to retain them. By monitoring customer health and engagement, you can address issues before they escalate, reducing churn rates.

Increased customer satisfaction

By tracking customer feedback and sentiment, you can gain insights into what your customers need and want. This allows you to tailor your interactions and services to meet their expectations, ultimately leading to higher customer satisfaction.

Efficient customer onboarding

Customer success platforms often include onboarding tools that help new customers get started with your product or service smoothly. This reduces the time it takes for customers to see value and increases their likelihood of long-term success.

Personalized customer interactions

Customer success software allows you to segment your customer base and create personalized communication and engagement strategies. This personalization can lead to stronger customer relationships and increased loyalty.

Data-driven decision-making

These tools provide valuable data and analytics on customer behavior, usage patterns, and satisfaction levels. This data can be used to make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and customer support improvements.

Streamlined workflow and automation

Customer success software often includes workflow automation capabilities. This helps customer success teams manage tasks, reminders, and follow-ups efficiently, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.

Scalability

As your customer base grows, managing customer success becomes more challenging. Customer success software can scale with your business, allowing you to continue delivering a high level of service even as your customer numbers increase.

Cross-selling and upselling opportunities

By analyzing customer data and behavior, you can identify opportunities to upsell or cross-sell additional products or services to existing customers, increasing revenue and customer lifetime value.

Customer advocacy and referrals

Satisfied customers are more likely to become advocates for your brand and refer others. Customer success software can help you identify and nurture advocates, potentially leading to organic growth through referrals.

Competitive advantage

Implementing customer success software can set you apart from competitors who may not be as proactive in ensuring customer satisfaction. It can be a significant differentiator in crowded markets.

Reduced support costs

By addressing issues before they become major problems, you can reduce the volume of customer support requests, which can lead to cost savings and more efficient use of support resources.

Measurable ROI

Many customer success software solutions offer metrics and KPI tracking, making it easier to measure the return on investment (ROI) of your customer success efforts and adjust strategies accordingly.

Effective CS software helps boost satisfaction

Customer success is invaluable because a business is nothing without its customers. That’s why a customer success manager and CS teams need to be well-equipped to deliver a stellar performance to ensure they keep happy customers satisfied. But this isn’t an easy task. 

A customer success solution and an effective customer success strategy can be what separate your team from being disorganized and overworked to being efficient and prepared for anything. This will help your CS team provide better customer experiences, which boosts retention. 

Picking the right software is crucial to its success. You can find risk customers and provide more consistent customer experiences. When picking your customer success management software, the biggest consideration to make is the specific needs of your team and its customers. Once you understand this, you’re on track to skyrocketing satisfaction for the entire customer lifecycle.