The 13 Solutions CSM Teams Use Most

CSM tools include a range of software and applications designed to support teams dedicated to customer success. Their goal is to simplify communication, problem-solving, customer retention, and increase client satisfaction.

This article provides an overview of the 13 most popular tools among CSM professionals, based on their specific needs and objectives.

We will explore how these tools can boost your customer success strategy, increase revenue, and reduce churn. Plus, we've included a breakdown of specific examples of customer success tools like IP telephony, CRMs, and ticketing, automation, and project management solutions.

What Is a CSM Tool?

A CSM (Customer Success Management) tool is a specialised software designed to help businesses manage and enhance their customer relationships throughout the entire customer lifecycle. These tools are crafted specifically for customer success and account management teams, enabling them to serve customers more effectively and drive business growth through expansion, upsells, and cross-sells.

List: 13 Most Popular CSM Tools

Customer Success Solutions

Customer success solutions, which integrate dedicated software and applications, play a key role in client success by helping teams manage and improve their relationships.

These tools are essential for enhancing communication, solving issues, retaining clients, and increasing their satisfaction, all of which contribute to optimising customer success strategies, increasing revenue, and reducing churn.

1. Skalin

Skalin, a next-generation Customer Success platform powered by artificial intelligence, is designed to boost client success strategies.

Specifically aimed at B2B SaaS companies, it facilitates client onboarding, engagement, and growth by providing a 360° view, AI-based health scores, and extensive automation features. Skalin is highly recognized, topping rankings on platforms like G2 and Capterra.

2. Planhat

Planhat presents itself as a customer-focused platform, serving as a single source of information and control for sales, service and success teams. It enables companies to master the customer journey, transform data into relevant insights, share dynamic dashboards and customise workflows. Planhat is used by hundreds of SaaS companies across the globe who want to put their customers at the heart of their business.

The Importance of Customer Success Solutions

Customer success solutions are crucial because they allow you to:

• Consolidate customer data from various sources, including the product, CRM, support, and email communications.
• Gain a complete view of clients, with key data such as the client's health score, product usage, revenue, and risk of churn.
• Identify and prioritise actions based on the needs and objectives of clients.
• Automate processes and communication campaigns to improve efficiency and save time.
• Strengthen collaboration with clients and encourage their involvement in the success of their journey through personalised portals.
• Evaluate the impact and return on investment (ROI) of Customer Success initiatives.

Telephony

Crucial to customer success, telephony ensures effective communication, builds customer loyalty and increases customer satisfaction. IP telephony plays a key role in building trust, solving problems, gathering feedback and personalising the product offering and outreach. Integrating VoIP software permits omnichannel communications, alongside text message, email, social networks, and messaging services such as WhatsApp–all essential tools for a successful customer success strategy.

3. Ringover

Ringover, an omnichannel contact centre platform dedicated to recruitment, increasing sales and customer success, centralises unlimited calls, text messages, WhatsApp, and videoconferences in a unified interface. Compatible with a wide range of tools, it promotes fluid, efficient communication.

Ringover optimises every call to maximise its impact. Recognized for its effectiveness on platforms like Capterra and G2, it offers:

• Unlimited calls to 110 countries, providing each user with a local or toll-free number.
• Automated call features, including power dialler, cold call scripts, voicemail, and more.
• Call notifications, click-to-call, number selection, and device switching during the call (call flipping).
• Call analytics with call recording, transcription, customizable dashboards, and comprehensive reports.
• Collaborative features such as call monitoring, call intervention, , and video conferencing.
• Direct integration with over 80 tools, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Zoho.

Ringover is an ideal solution to boost your customer success through a business phone system.

Telephony: a pillar of customer success

To make the most of telephony in customer success, it's important to select the right solution. A high-performance telephony solution must provide:

• Easy installation and configuration, with no need for special hardware or software.
• Compatibility with existing systems such as CRM, help desk or customer success platforms. Advanced call management, including transfer and forwarding,
• Compatibility with existing systems such as CRM, helpdesk or customer success platforms. Advanced call management, including transfer, forward, hold, auto-recall and local number. Detailed call tracking, with key performance indicators such as volume, duration, quality, response rate and satisfaction rate.
• Artificial intelligence capabilities dedicated to the transcription, analysis and optimization of customer interactions.

CRM Software

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is essential for businesses looking to optimise their interactions with clients and prospects.

These tools help track sales opportunities, manage contacts, segment customers, forecast sales, generate reports, and facilitate inter-team collaboration.

CRM software is indispensable for ensuring customer success as it consolidates all client information in one place, aligning the efforts of marketing, sales, and support teams.

4. HubSpot

HubSpot is a recognized leader in the world of CRM software and online marketing, offering a free CRM solution packed with features. With over 216,000 customers, HubSpot provides:

• Sales Pipeline Management: Customizable views, automatic reminders, and instant notifications help manage sales pipelines efficiently.
• Enriched Customer Data: Integrates data from external sources like LinkedIn or Clearbit to enhance customer profiles.
• Automation of Repetitive Tasks: Workflow automation, email templates, and follow-up sequences streamline everyday tasks.
• CRM Integration: Seamlessly links HubSpot CRM with marketing, service, and content tools, plus over 500 third-party apps.
• Performance Measurement: Interactive dashboards, custom reports, and essential KPIs provide in-depth insights into performance metrics.

5. Salesforce

Since its establishment in California in 1999, Salesforce has become the global leader in CRM software, used by more than 150,000 businesses of all sizes. This comprehensive and adaptable platform offers:

• Complete Sales Cycle Management: Tools to prospect, negotiate, close deals, and ensure customer retention.
• Enriched Client Profiles: Combines internal data with external sources, including social media interactions, to create comprehensive client profiles.
• Automated Sales Processes: Uses AI-driven rules, actions, alerts, and recommendations to automate sales workflows.
• Performance Evaluation: Dynamic dashboards, detailed reports, and accurate forecasting tools help track and enhance sales performance.

Centralising All Information and Aligning Teams

To excel in customer success, centralising and making customer information accessible to all teams responsible for client relationships is crucial, enabling you to:

• Gain a 360° customer view, including history, profile, behaviours, satisfaction, and potential.
• Personalise communication by tailoring messages to specific customer needs and expectations.
• Ensure coordinated actions among marketing, sales, and support teams for better task and responsibility distribution.
• Refine strategy through in-depth data analysis, identification of opportunities, risk prevention, and continuous improvement.

Ticketing Solutions

Ticketing solutions are essential for customer success teams as they enable the efficient management of requests across various channels. These tools help streamline the creation, assignment, tracking, and resolution of tickets, ultimately improving response times, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

6. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is an integrated solution by Freshworks, designed to facilitate efficient customer ticket management and resolution. Its key benefits include:

• User-Friendly Interface: A customizable and intuitive UI that adapts to your workflow.
• Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with other Freshworks products for a more enhanced experience.
• Automation Features: Reduces repetitive tasks through workflow automation.
• Collaboration Tools: Facilitates collaboration through portals, forums, and discussions.
• Detailed Analytics: Offers in-depth performance reports and key metrics analysis.

7. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk, a part of the Zoho CRM suite, offers contextual and personalised ticket management.

Main Advantages:

• Ticket Creation: Tickets can be created from various sources, including the product, CRM, and support systems.
• Intelligent Ticket Assignment: Leveraging AI, it optimises ticket distribution and workload management.
• Ticket Prioritisation: Prioritisation is based on various criteria such as customer engagement or risk of churn.
• Workflow Automation: Automates workflows and communication campaigns for greater efficiency.
• Customer Engagement: Actively involves customers in the process through personalised portals.
• Accurate ROI Evaluation: Provides precise assessments of the ROI from customer success initiatives.

8. Zendesk

Zendesk facilitates omnichannel and intelligent ticket management and resolution, enhancing the customer experience.

Advantages of Zendesk:

• Advanced Ticket Management: Includes options for transferring, placing on hold, and automatic callbacks.
• Data Enrichment: Enhances customer data with external sources for better understanding of needs.
• Service Process Automation: Uses AI to automate service processes for efficient ticket resolution.
• Extensive Integration: Offers broad integration with tools and applications, improving operational fluidity.
• Detailed Performance Analysis: Provides in-depth analytics on the performance of services offered.
• AI Utilisation: Employs AI for transcription and optimization of customer interactions.

Optimising Customer Request Handling

Choosing the right ticketing solution is key to enhancing the efficiency of customer success teams. Ideally, such a tool should offer:

• Automatic Ticket Creation: Tickets are automatically generated from emails, chats, phone calls, social media, or web forms.
• Intelligent Ticket Assignment: Tickets are assigned to the appropriate agents or groups based on specific criteria.
• Prioritisation: Tickets are prioritised according to urgency, importance, or service level agreements (SLAs).
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Simplified collaboration between teams for faster and more effective ticket resolution.
• Customer Feedback: After resolution, the tool should confirm closure with the client and gather their feedback.

Automation Tools

Automation tools facilitate the completion of tasks automatically across various sectors such as marketing, accounting, and e-commerce. Designed to handle repetitive activities such as sending emails, making phone calls, and tracking customers, these tools optimise processes and increase efficiency. Let's take a look at the tools Make and Zapier.

9. Make

Make is a comprehensive automation platform that allows you to visually design, develop, and automate workflows without limits. It offers an intuitive and powerful solution suitable for businesses across all sectors, enabling:

• Intuitive Visualization: Easy visualisation and modification of workflows.
• Total Control: Full control over execution and data formatting with no-code tools.
• Wide Connectivity: Connect to over 1,800 applications and online services for various task automation.
• Custom Solutions: Create tailored solutions using interfaces, tables, and chatbots.
• Performance Analysis: Analyse performance and impact with detailed dashboards and reports.

10. Zapier

Zapier is an automation platform that facilitates easy connections between your favourite applications to create automated workflows in just a few clicks. Ideal for automating various tasks, from email management to data handling, Zapier offers:

• Zap Creation: Set up "Zaps," sequences of actions triggered by events in an application.
• Extensive App Selection: Choose from over 7,000 applications and services to create custom Zaps.
• Predefined Templates: Use predefined Zap templates for quick and inspiring setup.
• Effective CRM Integration: Integrate your CRM with marketing, service, commerce tools, and other applications, totaling over 4,000 options.
• Performance Analytics: Analyse performance with dynamic dashboards, advanced reporting, and reliable forecasting.

Project Management Solutions

Project management solutions are essential for teams looking to effectively organise, execute, and oversee their initiatives.

These tools help clearly define objectives, task assignments, necessary resources, timelines, and associated risks for projects.

In addition to facilitating collaboration, communication, reporting, and problem-solving, these solutions play a crucial role in customer success by enabling efficient daily organisation and ensuring alignment with the company's visions and strategies.

11. Asana

Asana is a powerful solution that simplifies the management and tracking of customer relationships by customising workflows suitable for various types of projects, from marketing campaign management to event organisation.

Its main features include:

• An intuitive, customizable user interface that adapts to each specific workflow.
• The same capabilities for creating and assigning tasks mentioned previously.
• Equivalent opportunities for integration and automation of workflows.
• Similar collaboration and performance tracking opportunities.

12. Trello

Trello offers a unique visual approach to project management, enabling teams to effectively track various projects through boards, lists, and cards.

Highlights of Trello:

• Visual organisation of projects using customizable boards.
• Tools for creating and assigning tasks, such as labels, due dates, and checklists.
• Advanced integration and automation features, including AI-based recommendations.
• Collaboration options and performance tracking through interactive practices and advanced analytics.

13. Monday.com

Monday.com provides a versatile platform that facilitates workflow customization for a wide range of projects, particularly enhancing customer relationships.

Benefits of Monday.com:

• Multiple project presentation formats for optimised tracking.
• Comprehensive tools for creating and managing tasks for seamless organisation.
• Seamless integration with existing systems and process automation for significant time savings.
• Enhanced collaboration features and performance analytics for precise result tracking.

Organising Daily and Aligning

Choosing a project management solution that meets the specific needs and goals of Customer Success Management (CSM) teams is fundamental. An effective solution should offer:

• Various project visualisation formats (lists, boards, calendars, Gantt charts, or mind maps).
• The ability to create, assign, and prioritise tasks with deadlines, dependencies, subtasks, and comment spaces.
• Easy integration with other tools used in the company, such as CRM or support and telephony solutions.
• Automated workflows including rules, actions, notifications, and reminders.
• Extensive collaboration with clients and stakeholders through sharing, polling, and approvals.
• Performance tracking through key indicators, dashboards, detailed reports, and analytics.

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Reasons Why You Need CSM Software

Data-based Insights

CSM software enables you to unify all your customer data into a single dashboard, providing a comprehensive view of each customer's interactions and behaviours. This centralised data helps in understanding how customers use your product and in sending automated, personalised messages based on their in-product behaviour. Such proactive engagement increases customer loyalty and long-term value, ultimately reducing turnover costs.

Deploy Automation

Automation is a key feature of CSM tools, driving efficiency and consistency in customer interactions. These tools allow you to automate tasks such as assigning accounts to team members, sending messages to customers with low engagement, and creating tasks for CSMs to proactively reach out. Automation also helps in identifying upsell and cross-sell opportunities and filtering healthy customers for referrals or testimonials.

Reduce Churn

The onboarding period is critical for SaaS businesses, as most churn occurs within the first 90 days. CSM software helps in providing early value to customers by setting up lifecycle workflows, health scores, and custom alerts. These features ensure that customers realise the value of your product quickly, reducing the likelihood of churn. By monitoring users' paths through your app and intervening when necessary, you can adapt automated tasks to address bottlenecks and ensure a smooth onboarding process.

Improved Productivity

Implementing CSM software can significantly boost productivity within your team. By automating routine tasks, employees can focus on more human-centred activities like developing client relationships. Dashboards and workflow tools provided by CSM solutions help in identifying areas for improvement in business processes, ensuring that tasks are completed efficiently and without being overlooked.

Visibility into Issues

CSM tools offer real-time visibility into customer issues, allowing your team to identify and resolve problems quickly. Analytics and monitoring systems help in detecting issues early, keeping both internal teams and customers informed from identification to resolution. This proactive approach ensures that customer problems are addressed swiftly, enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing the risk of churn.

Create Customer-Centric Culture

Using CSM software ensures that all team members are aligned with the same customer success goals. It promotes a holistic approach to customer success, where everyone has access to the same data and insights. This alignment fosters a customer-centric culture across the organisation, ensuring that customer needs are prioritised and addressed consistently.

CSM solutions help in identifying profitable customers and managing them in the most cost-effective way. By focusing on high-value customers, you can cut costs and enhance profitability. Additionally, CSM tools help in streamlining internal processes, reducing the burden on employees, and increasing overall productivity.

Better Serve Customers

A dedicated CSM, supported by CSM software, can advocate for customers by connecting their needs to the business's larger customer experience strategy. This includes identifying trends and forecasting potential issues, which can inform product updates and improvements. By exciting customers about upcoming product launches and updates, CSMs can drive business growth through upsells, cross-sells, and customer loyalty.

How to Choose the Right CSM Tool

1. Before embarking on the journey to select a CSM tool, it is essential to define what success looks like for your company. Your business goals should drive your decisions, including factors such as customer time to value (CTTV), product adoption and usage, churn prevention, upselling and revenue growth, and metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction). Identify the current weaknesses in your customer success processes and how a CSM tool can address these gaps. This baseline understanding will help you evaluate potential tools more effectively.
2. Ensuring that the CSM tool integrates seamlessly with your existing software is vital. This includes integrations with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and customer service management tools. Without these integrations, your team may have to toggle between different interfaces, leading to inefficiencies and data silos.
3. A good CSM tool should function as the command centre for your customer success team. Look for tools that allow you to manage projects at a glance, create templates for repetitive projects (such as onboarding and QBRs), and automate workflows based on customer activity. This ensures that your team stays on track and that tasks are executed efficiently.
4. The ability to slice and dice data is essential for gaining a 360-degree view of your customers. The right CSM tool should provide pre-configured reports and the ability to create custom reports. It should also enable you to automate and share these reports easily. Integrated reporting that consolidates data from multiple sources can save time and provide a more comprehensive view of customer interactions.
5. Choose a CSM tool that offers customization options to fit your organisation's unique requirements. This includes branding, workflow customization, and the ability to track specific metrics that are important to your business. Customizable templates and triggers can help tailor the software to your specific needs, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.
6. The ease of use of the CSM tool is critical for widespread adoption within your team. Opt for software with an intuitive interface, organised layout, and user-friendly navigation. Additionally, ensure that the vendor provides comprehensive training, support, and resources such as help centres or forums to assist users with any challenges they might encounter.
7. While the initial price of the software is important, it is equally essential to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO). This includes costs such as maintenance, training, customization, and full-scale adoption. Evaluate the ROI of the CSM tool to ensure it aligns with your business's financial goals and provides a significant return on investment.
8. Given that CSM tools handle sensitive customer data, it is essential to evaluate the vendor's security measures. Look for features such as data encryption and compliance with industry standards to ensure your business's and customers' data are protected.
9. Most CSM tools offer free trials or demos. Use these opportunities to test the software with hypothetical scenarios, assess its integration with your existing tech stack, and identify any areas where the software may fall short. This hands-on experience will help you make a more informed decision. By carefully considering these factors, you can select a CSM tool that not only meets but exceeds your customer success needs, driving better customer relationships, reducing churn, and boosting business growth.

Conclusion

This article presented the 13 essential CSM tools, including customer success solutions, telephony, CRMs, ticketing systems, automation tools, and project management software.

These resources are crucial for effectively managing customer relationships, strengthening loyalty, and increasing satisfaction. They contribute to refining your customer success strategy, boosting revenue, and reducing churn.

To implement these tools within your company, we recommend starting by exploring free trials of the suggested solutions, such as Skalin, Ringover, HubSpot, Freshdesk, Make, and Asana. You will quickly discover the positive impact of these tools on your operational side and strategy. Don't wait any longer; get started now!