13 top customer success software 2024

What is customer success software?

At its core, customer success software is a tool designed to help you monitor, manage, and enhance the experience your customers have with your business. Think of it as your secret weapon for keeping customers happy and loyal.

It does this by centralizing key data about your customers, such as their usage patterns, health scores, and communication history. This gives your team the insights they need to take proactive steps, like identifying customers who might need extra help or upsell opportunities when the time is right.

In short, it helps you move from being reactive (responding only when something goes wrong) to being proactive–ensuring customers succeed before problems arise.

Key features in a customer success software

Let‘s get practical. What features should you look for in customer success software? More importantly, how do they address the challenges you face daily?

1. Lifecycle management

📍 Challenge: Your customers have different needs at different stages. Onboarding a new customer isn‘t the same as renewing an established one, and treating them the same way can hurt their experience.

💡 Solution: Lifecycle management tools help you define and automate the stages of your customer journey. From onboarding workflows to renewal reminders, these features keep customers moving forward and feeling supported at every step.

2. Workflow automation

📍 Challenge: Repetitive tasks, like sending follow-up emails or updating customer information, can bog down your team, leaving less time for meaningful interactions.

💡 Solution: Workflow automation streamlines these repetitive processes. From automating customer onboarding tasks to triggering personalized outreach based on specific customer actions, this feature ensures nothing falls through the cracks–and frees up your team to focus on building relationships.

3. Analytics and reporting

📍 Challenge: You‘re drowning in data but starving for insights. Without clear metrics, you can‘t tell whether your efforts are working–or where you‘re falling short.

💡 Solution: Advanced analytics consolidate your customer data into actionable reports and dashboards. These features not only track key metrics like churn rate and customer satisfaction but also help you forecast trends and refine your strategy.

4. Customer success team workload management

📍 Challenge: Your CS team is juggling multiple tasks–addressing customer issues, onboarding new users, and chasing up renewals. Without a clear view of their workload, things can fall through the cracks.

💡 Solution: Workload tracking and management features let you monitor team activity, allocate tasks effectively, and ensure everyone has a balanced workload. Whether it‘s tracking open tickets, assigning follow-ups, or monitoring team performance, this feature helps keep your team organized and efficient–leading to better service for your customers.

5. Cost and profitability tracking

📍 Challenge: Delivering excellent service is essential, but if you‘re not tracking costs, you risk losing sight of how much you‘re spending versus earning.

💡 Solution: Cost and profitability tracking features allow you to monitor expenses, measure revenue, and ensure your customer success efforts remain financially viable. These insights help you optimize resources, control budgets, and maintain profitability while keeping customers satisfied.

13 best customer success tools

Birdview PSA

Birdview PSA is designed to streamline operations for professional services organizations. It brings project management, resource planning, and financial tracking into a single platform, helping teams focus on delivering value to their clients.

Beyond its core capabilities, Birdview stands out in supporting Customer Success teams. It helps them manage product implementation projects on the client‘s side, ensuring smoother onboarding and adoption. Additionally, it provides tools to track the CS team‘s workload, allocate resources efficiently, and monitor the profitability of professional services–all while keeping client satisfaction at the center.

Key features: advanced resource capacity planning, project tracking, financial management, customizable dashboards, time and expense tracking

Trial: A free 14-day trial is available, possibly extending the trial period to 28 days. Sign up for a trial today to learn more about Birdview PSA.

👍 Pros:

• Robust resource planning and scheduling
• Clear and intuitive interface
• Strong BI reporting capabilities
• Responsive customer support
• Effective onboarding process

👎 Cons:

• Steep learning curve for new users

ChurnZero

ChurnZero focuses on customer retention by providing tools to analyze customer behavior and improve engagement. It‘s a powerful option for teams wanting to reduce churn and foster loyalty.

Key features: customer health scoring, behavior tracking, automated workflows, in-app messaging, reporting and analytics

Trial: No free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Proactive customer health insights
• Effective automation tools
• Strong in-app messaging feature

👎 Cons:

• Requires significant setup time
• Pricing may be high for smaller companies

Custify

Custify is tailored for SaaS businesses, enabling them to proactively manage customer success and reduce churn. It offers actionable insights and an easy-to-use interface.

Key features: customer segmentation, lifecycle management, task automation, health metrics, activity tracking

Trial: A free 14-day trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Simple and intuitive design
• Strong segmentation options
• Quick implementation

👎 Cons:

• Limited reporting features
• Integrations can be restrictive

Gainsight

Gainsight is a well-rounded platform for customer success management, offering robust tools to track customer health and enhance retention strategies, especially for larger enterprises.

Key features: customer health scoring, playbooks, customer surveys, revenue forecasting, analytics

Trial: No free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Highly customizable
• Advanced analytics and reporting
• Scales well for enterprise use

👎 Cons:

• Expensive for smaller businesses
• Steep learning curve

Planhat

Planhat is a flexible tool for managing customer success, allowing teams to customize workflows, track customer health, and improve engagement strategies.

Key features: customer health dashboards, automation workflows, NPS surveys, integrations, revenue tracking

Trial: A free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Customizable workflows
• Easy-to-use interface
• Strong focus on revenue tracking

👎 Cons:

• Limited features for smaller businesses
• Some users report performance issues

Totango

Totango is a modular customer success platform that allows businesses to adapt its features to their needs, focusing on driving customer engagement and retention.

Key features: journey orchestration, health scores, automated campaigns, task management, reporting

Trial: A free version is available (limited features)

👍 Pros:

• Flexible and scalable
• Pre-built templates for faster setup
• Good automation capabilities

👎 Cons:

• User interface can feel cluttered
• Advanced features may require additional costs

Catalyst

Catalyst is a customer success platform built to integrate seamlessly with your existing tools while providing insights to prevent churn and boost retention efforts.

Key features: health scoring, integration tools, task automation, data visualization, activity tracking

Trial: A free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Strong integration capabilities
• Easy to navigate interface
• Focused on reducing churn

👎 Cons:

• Limited reporting customization
• Requires significant setup effort

Zendesk

Zendesk provides a suite of tools for customer support and success, offering an all-in-one platform to manage customer interactions and satisfaction.

Key features: ticket management, live chat, knowledge base, customer feedback, analytics

Trial: A free 30-day trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Excellent for customer support and success
• Broad integration options
• Easy-to-use interface

👎 Cons:

• Limited advanced customer success features
• Can be expensive as you scale

Staircase AI

Staircase AI leverages artificial intelligence to provide deep insights into customer behavior, focusing on detecting churn risks and identifying growth opportunities.

Key features: AI-driven insights, churn prediction, sentiment analysis, customer segmentation, trend tracking

Trial: No free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Advanced AI capabilities
• Unique focus on sentiment and behavior analysis
• Provides actionable insights

👎 Cons:

• Limited features outside AI-driven insights
• High dependency on accurate data input

ZapScale

ZapScale is designed for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a simple, affordable customer success tool that tracks customer health and engagement.

Key features: health scores, customer feedback tools, task automation, integrations, team collaboration

Trial: A free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Affordable option for smaller teams
• User-friendly interface
• Good basic feature set

👎 Cons:

• Limited advanced features
• Not ideal for larger organizations

Akita

Akita helps businesses identify at-risk customers and boost engagement using health metrics and automated workflows tailored to customer needs.

Key features: health scoring, automated workflows, reporting, customer segmentation, integrations

Trial: A free 14-day trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Straightforward setup
• Affordable for small businesses
• Good automation tools

👎 Cons:

• Limited customization
• May lack depth for enterprise users

HubSpot

HubSpot‘s Service Hub extends its CRM functionality to include customer success tools, offering a centralized platform for managing customer support and success.

Key features: ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, NPS surveys, reporting and analytics

Trial: A free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Seamless integration with HubSpot CRM
• Comprehensive feature set
• Easy to scale

👎 Cons:

• Advanced features require higher-tier plans
• Limited standalone functionality for customer success

Intercom

Intercom offers tools for customer communication, focusing on engagement through live chat, bots, and proactive messaging to enhance customer success efforts.

Key features: live chat, proactive messaging, customer insights, integration options, task automation

Trial: A free trial is available

👍 Pros:

• Excellent for customer communication
• User-friendly interface
• Strong integration capabilities

👎 Cons:

• Limited focus on traditional customer success features
• Pricing can be high for small businesses

Drive business growth with the right customer success software

Choosing the right customer success software isn‘t just about checking off a list of features–it‘s about solving the real challenges you face every day. Maybe you‘re juggling too many tools that don‘t talk to each other. Or perhaps tracking profitability feels like guesswork, and your CS team is stretched thin trying to stay on top of client projects.

Birdview PSA was built with these challenges in mind. It‘s designed to simplify the complex, giving you clear insights into your team‘s workload, your client‘s needs, and your bottom line. Imagine having one platform where you can plan resources, track implementation projects, and measure profitability–all while ensuring your customers get the support they need to succeed.

If you‘re tired of patchwork solutions that only partially solve your problems, Birdview PSA offers a way forward. Sign up for a free trial to explore all the features Birdview PSA has to offer or schedule a demo with our team to get a personalized walkthrough.