10 customer success software solutions that improve customer experiences

Customer success software plays a vital role in strategically guiding the customer experience from beginning to end. These solutions empower teams to shift from reactive problem-solving to a more proactive approach to service.

This transition, however, is easier said than done. According to Totango’s 2022 Customer Success Industry & Salary Report, 37% of customer success professionals recognize that moving from a reactive to a proactive approach with customers is a major struggle.¹

In these scenarios, where teams face challenges in taking a proactive approach to guiding users, customer success software can aid businesses in delivering superior experiences on a larger scale. But with such a wide-ranging myriad of options on the market, how do you know what software platform truly delivers?

In this article, we’ll examine customer success software’s core benefits, outline their essential features, and explore a curated list of solutions that can boost your company's customer success.

What is customer success software?

Customer success software, also known as customer success management software (CSM), is a powerful tool that businesses utilize to deliver exceptional and personalized support to their clients. Its goal is to increase retention and enhance the overall customer experience (CX).

Customer success solutions provide valuable data and insights that enable teams to anticipate and address potential issues before they escalate into more serious, resource-depleting problems.

Key benefits of customer success software

Churn reduction

Customer success software helps you reduce churn by identifying at-risk users and intervening before they permanently cut ties with your company. This can be done by tracking usage data, identifying red flags, and proactively reaching out to customers. 

More context for informed decision-making

A customer success platform equips managers and teams with crucial contextual information, including customer needs, preferences, and past interactions. Armed with a deep understanding of each customer's unique situation, you confidently steer customers toward their goals, make strategic recommendations, and resolve issues seamlessly.

Boost efficiency and productivity

Customer success tools can automate many of the repetitive tasks that teams do manually, such as onboarding new users and answering frequently asked questions. 

This is crucial, given that 47% of customer success managers have reported experiencing burnout at some point, according to Vitally’s The Secret Lives of CSMs.²

Higher customer satisfaction

By proactively preventing churn, providing personalized support, and boosting efficiency, customer success management software can help businesses achieve higher satisfaction levels.

Essential features of customer success software

The capabilities of customer success tools vary – sometimes dramatically –  from one option to the next. While their specific uses depend on individual business needs, the software we'll explore below are fundamental to driving success.

Workflow automation

Workflow automation uses programmable rules and triggers to seamlessly guide common activities like product walkthroughs, ticket handling, and back-office tasks through each required stage. By eliminating redundant steps and enforcing consistent best practices, workflow automation creates a unified, frictionless work environment  for team members.

With workflow automation, you can:

• Route customers to the relevant support team.

• Monitor interactions to follow up with inactive users.

• Collect customer data to better understand usage patterns.

• Onboard new users from sign-up to product adoption.

Product tours

Product tours are an outstanding onboarding tool when incorporated into automated workflows. These guided tours provide contextual assistance, empowering users to navigate the product independently.

With product tours, you can highlight relevant features at the right moments and boost adoption while bringing training and access to customers before issues ever arise. Tours proactively educate them so they don't get stuck – keeping your support inboxes at manageable levels and your customer experiences positive.

Product tour features should contemplate: 

• Code-free builder

• Audience targeting

• Templates

• Multipage tours

• Click-to-advance

• Reporting

Shared inbox

It’s hardly a groundbreaking insight to say that silos can stall progress. Collaboration across teams and departments is a key for customer success. According to Vitally's The Secret Lives of CSMs, a lack of company cross-collaboration creates major headaches for 29% of customer success managers.

A shared inbox remedies this by streamlining connections. Representatives from all teams see the same conversations in real time within the customer success software. As a result, there’s no chasing down professionals from different departments – just quick, unified support.

Help center articles

For customer success managers, keeping clients satisfied and reducing churn are key metrics of an effective strategy. Facilitating self-service through help center articles and guides is an excellent method for achieving both goals.

When customers can find answers on their own, it takes pressure off your team by lowering the number of support requests they receive. This allows success teams to spend more time on strategic account relationships and other types of conversations.

Find out the key components and how to build a solid knowledge base.

AI chatbot

Whatever the future of customer service is going to look like, one thing is clear: AI is going to be a part of it. According to our 2023 State of AI in Customer Service, a somewhat staggering 69% of support leaders plan to invest more in AI in the year ahead.³

Customer success teams know that great customer satisfaction primarily lies in providing fast and convenient support. That's why having a powerful AI chatbot is an absolute must for any customer success software.

The best AI chatbots are equipped with the ability to access content directly from your knowledge base, providing accurate and up-to-date information to clients in an instant.

If you’re not sure about how to choose the right chatbot for your needs, check our AI Chatbot Buyer’s Checklist.

Customer data and reporting

Customer success management software isn't complete without a powerful customer insights hub. After all, the job is to keep clients successful – a platform should aggregate data across all touchpoints into intuitive consumer profiles. 

The more contextual data that can be clustered into a single view, the better job teams can do in creating sophisticated, nuanced portraits of their customers and their unique needs. Success teams and managers can then quickly identify patterns to better personalize experiences.

10 examples of customer success software

Now that we've covered the core capabilities customer success software offers, it's time to explore some of the top options currently available. Evaluating real products is the next step to finding the right solution for your organization.

1. Intercom

As a customer service platform, Intercom works behind the scenes to resolve issues and ensure your customers get what they need to succeed. 

Whether users have questions, issues to resolve, or goals to achieve, Intercom's comprehensive platform is designed to guide them every step of the way.

Pricing: 

• Essential: $39 per seat/month

• Advanced: $99 per seat/month

• Expert: $139 per seat/month

Find out how we calculate price here.

2. Front

As a customer operations platform, Front empowers teams to deliver exceptional service at scale. It brings all your communication channels together into a single inbox that manages emails, SMS, tickets, and practically any other customer touchpoint. 

What does this mean for customer success? Your teams can collaborate seamlessly on complex queries, quickly address issues across domains, and ensure optimum experiences for every individual user.

Key features:

• Collaboration

• Omnichannel inbox

• Workflow automation

• Analytics

• Knowledge base

• Live chat

• Intercom and Front integration

Pricing:

• Growth: $59 per seat/month

• Scale: $99 per seat/month

• Premier: $229 per seat/month

3. Zendesk

As one of the top-of-mind platforms for supporting positive customer experiences, Zendesk's functionality brings teams and clients closer together through its unified perspective of all customer touchpoints.

Zendesk also seamlessly connects sales and service efforts for a holistic view that empowers professionals to exceed expectations at each stage of the customer journey.

Key features:

• Messaging

• AI and automation

• Help center

• Agent workspace

• Ticketing

• Reporting and analytics

• Intercom and Zendesk integration

Pricing:

• Suite Team: $55 per seat/month

• Suite Growth: $89 per seat/month

• Suite Professional: $115 per seat/month

While Zendesk boasts some great capabilities, it falls short in certain aspects essential to a truly exceptional customer service software tool. Take a look at our comparison guide between Intercom vs. Zendesk.

4. Gainsight

Gainsight stands out as a robust customer success software that gives teams the power to craft ultra-personalized journeys and build solid growth with empirical insights.

With enough rich data and features to satisfy even the most meticulous success program, Gainsight thrives under immense demand. Its expansive toolbox caters to every need – from sophisticated prediction to cross-team alignment.

Key features:

• Customer 360 health scores

• Success journey planning and playbooks

• Customer monitoring

• Customer profiles

• Intercom and Gainsight integration

Pricing:

• Contact Gainsight for pricing

5. Vitally

Whether your company is just starting out or ready to scale, Vitally is the customer success software for SaaS that elevates engagement and streamlines workflows to maximize efficiency. Because of these functionalities, teams that use Vitally can craft customer experiences that foster real, lasting loyalty.

Unmatched visibility into the customer journey comes with automated processes, detailed analytics, and unified tracking that’s fully optimized. Vitally ensures you never lose sight of what matters most.

Key features:

• Customer health score

• Project management

• NPS Surveys and analytics

• Intercom and Vitally integration

Pricing:

• Contact Vitally for pricing

6. UserIQ

In the realm of customer success software for SaaS companies, particularly those in expansion phases, UserIQ excels in simplifying customer understanding. 

By transforming behavioral data into easily digestible visualizations such as charts and graphs, UserIQ provides companies with a comprehensive perspective, offering a bird's-eye view of areas requiring immediate attention within their business operations.

Key features:

• Customer health scoring

• Product usage insights

• In-app onboard tours

• In-app messaging

• Tasks and plays

• Segmentation and filtering

Pricing:

• Contact UserIQ for pricing

7. Chameleon

Chameleon is another customer success tool for SaaS companies that aim to unlock the full potential of their product. Chameleon’s goal is to drive real adoption and loyal users by designing experiences that are genuinely helpful while simultaneously staying on-brand.

You can also seamlessly integrate Chameleon into your existing tech stack and enjoy extensive compatibility with various customer support platforms, analytics tools, and CRMs.

For instance, you can easily trigger the Intercom Messenger tool directly from a Chameleon experience. This allows you to gather feedback on specific features, inquire about user difficulties, and initiate upsell conversations.

Key features:

• Product tours

• In-line help

• Target surveys

• In-product widgets

• Search bar for SaaS

• Intercom and Chameleon integration

Pricing:

• Startup: $279 per month

• Growth: $1250 per month

• Enterprise: Contact Chameleon for pricing

8. Staircase AI

Staircase leverages artificial revenue intelligence to capture insights from raw customer data. The customer success management software analyzes emails, tickets, messages, calls, and more to predict churn risks, identify growth opportunities, and surface key metrics.

By automating the analysis of customer signal data, Staircase eliminates the need for human feedback. The platform turns data into meaningful insights, including churn risk scores, sentiment ratings, and hidden opportunities for increased revenue.

Key features:

• AI-powered health scores

• Customer analytics

• Relationship heatmaps

• Communication hub

• Intercom and Staircase AI integration

Pricing:

• Contact Staircase for pricing

9. Startdeliver

Specifically designed to guide outreach and build stronger connections, Startdeliver aids customer success managers and executives in identifying precisely when and how to engage users to prevent churn.

The customer success software also facilitates collaboration with users to enhance the way you engage with them. It enables you to establish a closer and more productive relationship with your customers by sharing updates, managing tasks, and achieving impactful outcomes.

Key features:

• Usage health

• Task management

• Product tours

• Marketing automation

• Reports, dashboards, and performance alerts

Pricing:

• Giga: €695 per month

• Tera: €1195 per month

• Peta: €1795 per month

10. Churn360

Churn360 uses artificial intelligence to help B2B SaaS companies interpret, analyze, and generally make sense of their customer data. Specifically, the platform identifies churn risks and hidden retention opportunities within an existing user base.

By gaining visibility into your end-to-end customer journey, Churn360 paints a clear picture of whether customers are progressing through onboarding, adoption, and renewal as expected or if they’re showing signs of slowing down, losing interest, or abandoning the product altogether.

Key features:

• 360° view of customers

• Customer segmentation

• Customer success templates

• Health score

• Surveys

Pricing:

• Startup: $239 per month

• Professional: $479 per month

• Enterprise: Contact Churn360 for pricing

Which customer success software is right for you?

In today's retention-focused landscape, having the right customer success solution is crucial. An effective platform seamlessly guides users while providing support every step of the way.

Look for an all-in-one system integrating reactive support with proactive success guidance. Intercom excels here through AI-driven automation, messaging capabilities, and dedicated journey insights.

Your support representatives can swiftly address issues and proactively share timely tips using integrated channels while powerful analytics deliver a full view of progress.

Furthermore, it's crucial to acknowledge that the integration of humans and AI is not just the future anymore – it’s increasingly becoming the present reality for customer success teams all over the world. 

Because of this, It's essential to have customer success software that knows how to seamlessly combine these two critical elements of your operations. That's where Intercom comes in as the ultimate solution, one that’s currently unrivaled in this rapidly expanding market.

Start a free trial today or request a demo – and take the first step towards ensuring your customers achieve success at every stage of their interaction with your product.

Use cases of Intercom for customer success

trumpet sets their customers up for success

trumpet is a platform designed to empower sales teams in accelerating deal closures. It enables sales professionals to effortlessly create personalized and interactive microsites tailored to their clients. 

By leveraging Intercom, the trumpet team engages with customers, delivering proactive support and comprehensive product education. This strategic approach ensures customers are equipped for success when utilizing the platform, resulting in enhanced product adoption and exceptional user experiences.

Spendesk drives better user experiences

Spendesk’s mission is to provide finance teams with full visibility and control over company spending through their all-in-one expense management platform.

Supporting customers for long-term success is a top priority, and their customer success team has taken meaningful steps to better serve both reps and clients.

By partnering with Intercom, Spendesk gained valuable insight into common customer experiences. The team collects feedback and categorizes it to more proactively address issues. This data also helps internally, as Spendesk was able to build an even smoother, more effortless user experience.

Armed with these real-world perspectives, Spendesk’s customer success team could provide meaningful guidance to the product team. Together, they're constantly working to enhance the platform and overall experience at each stage of the customer journey.

Amplitude boosts the bottom line through data-driven experiences

Amplitude provides companies with a product intelligence platform to optimize digital business operations and growth.

As the leader in customer behavior data and digital experiences, Amplitude has insight into individual users. However, acting on these insights requires the ability to engage with customers effectively – and a customer success software for SaaS is of great importance in such cases.

This is where Intercom provided crucial functionality. Our omnichannel messaging platform enables personalized, cross-channel conversations at an expansive level. When integrated with Amplitude's robust customer data, the company was able to  develop tailored journeys to meet each user's unique needs while driving impressive bottom-line results.

Sources

1. Totango, Customer Success Industry & Salary Report 2022. Totango surveyed customer success professionals from over 49 different industries. Survey responses came from professionals in 41 countries, with 66% of responses coming from North America and 16% from Europe.

2. Vitally, The Secret Lives of CSMs. Vitally surveyed 679 B2B Customer Success Managers in a variety of industries to hear their candid opinions on the topics that all CSMs are thinking about right now.

3. Intercom, The State of AI in Customer Service 2023. We commissioned an independent market research firm to survey a random sample of 1,013 global support leaders and practitioners. The margin of error for this study is +/- 3.7% at the 95% confidence level.