It's easier than ever for customers to jump between companies to find the best deal or service. Known as customer churn, it began as a major problem in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry. However, it's increasingly common in numerous industries reliant on a subscription model. 

The solution is customer success (CS). Created as an antidote to churn, CS prioritises answering and solving customer problems, ensuring they see as much value from your product or service as possible. In contrast to the previous customer service model, CS teams take a proactive approach, creating resources to support client development and education.

So, how can companies support client success? Customer success tools present one possibility. Collecting and analysing customer feedback, managing communications, and establishing a self-service education hub requires a toolkit to help track, organise, and manage these divergent functions. Let’s explore how to choose the best CS tools for your business. 

Criteria for selecting tools

Choosing the right CS tools involves a comprehensive analysis of your company, product or service, and client base. Your CS platform should be able to educate your customers and act as a communication platform while being engaging. 

Here's a set of criteria to use when evaluating tools:

1. Integration: The tool should seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack, such as CRMs and communication platforms, facilitating a unified workflow and data consistency. A high degree of compatibility reduces the learning curve and your team's workload, as less manual input is required. 
2. Customisation: The ability to customise the tool to fit your specific business processes and customer engagement strategies is crucial for maximising its effectiveness. Such flexibility allows you to tailor its features and functionalities to specific customer success strategies and objectives. 
3. Scalability: Ensure that the tool can handle increasing volumes of customers and data as your business grows without a drop in performance. Some platforms connect their level of service to the price, allowing you to pay for what you need.
4. Analytical Capabilities: Opt for tools that offer detailed analytics and reporting to track customer interactions, feedback, and satisfaction, providing actionable insights for strategy optimisation.
5. Support and Training: Evaluate the level of support and training provided by the vendor, which should include responsive customer service and accessible learning resources.
6. Cost-Effectiveness: Analyse the tool's pricing structure, considering both upfront and ongoing costs, to ensure it provides a good return on investment without straining your budget.

Top customer success tools for businesses

Compare and contrast 10 of the most popular CS tools currently available. You'll find a brief overview of the price and features.

Variety of templates available

Customer success works best when clients receive customised, personal information and guidance. However, with hundreds (even thousands) of potential customers, it's impossible to provide such a tailored response without the use of templates. 

These customer success templates are invaluable resources for standardising practices and providing structured guidance to customers. Consider devising CS templates for the following activities and aspects of onboarding and ongoing education:

• Onboarding Templates: These templates guide your team through the process of welcoming and educating new customers about your product or service. They typically include checklists, step-by-step guides, and timelines to ensure a smooth and comprehensive onboarding experience.
• Customer Health Check Templates: These are designed to help you assess and monitor the health and satisfaction levels of your customers. They often include key performance indicators, satisfaction metrics, and risk identification features to proactively address potential issues.
• Customer Feedback and Survey Templates: To effectively collect and analyse customer feedback, these templates provide structured formats for surveys, questionnaires, and feedback forms, helping you gather valuable insights into customer satisfaction and expectations.
• Customer Success Story Templates: Showcase your customer successes with templates that help you structure and share case studies or success stories, highlighting the value and impact of your product or service.

trumpet allows you to create ready-to-go blocks that you can add to your digital sales room, building a comprehensive CS space. For example, you could develop a standardised mutual action plan to help clients track their progress or a frequently asked question section that answers the most pressing issues clients usually face.

Consider this example of DSR from Microsoft: It includes a ready-made mutual action plan and other standardised sections alongside more customised information, such as videos and educational materials.

Customisation options

According to Salesforce, 72% of B2B buyers expect companies to personalise their engagement. That covers everything from initial outreach to ongoing customer success. Unfortunately, traditional CS tools, like email and PDF attachments, fail to create a personalised customer experience.

Digital sales rooms excel in these aspects. Not only is the virtual space automatically branded and populated with your customer's information, but you can also select the content you want to include. The branding feature is particularly impressive – the DSR can look like an extension of the buyer's website, from the logo to the brand backgrounds.

Plus, as trumpet syncs seamlessly with top CRMs (think HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.), you can populate the room in seconds. Check out how you can personalise your Pod.

Efficiency and effectiveness

Customer success is critical to ensuring users see value in your product and service. It reduces customer churn and enhances brand loyalty. That being said, you still want to minimise the time spent, reducing manual tasks and streamlining processes. 

CS tools enhance the customer experience, but they can also slash onboarding times and eliminate the need for constant client questioning. So, a DSR filled with educational materials, how-to guides, video tutorials, and more reduces client reliance on your team; it's the secret to self-directed learning.

Together, this optimises resource use, enhancing the ROI while improving the customer experience. Perhaps the best example of this in action is eola, which slashed its onboarding time by 78% - from 2 weeks to 3 days. The secret? They packed their DSRs with relevant education materials and targeted multiple stakeholders within the same company.

Adopting efficient and effective customer success strategies goes beyond just reducing onboarding times; it transforms the entire customer journey into a more engaging and empowering experience. As a result, your CS team can spend more time answering questions and creating a personalised experience for clients.

Incorporating tools into daily operations

Updating your business practices is always a challenge. There's staff training, revised SOPs, and new client interactions to manage as the customer success tools become part of everyday life. Here are some best practices when incorporating new CS tools into your daily operations:

• Provide comprehensive training for your team to ensure effective tool usage and highlight the benefits and efficiencies.
• Ensure smooth integration of tools with current workflows to complement and streamline processes.
• Monitor tool usage regularly to guarantee full utilisation and address any gaps or resistance.
• Establish a feedback loop for team members to suggest tool improvements or report issues, fostering continuous enhancement.
• Align tool usage with customer success objectives, directly contributing to increased customer satisfaction and reduced churn.
• Utilise data and insights from the tools for informed decision-making, aligning actions with customer needs and behaviours.
• Continually assess and adjust tool effectiveness, adapting to evolving customer expectations and industry changes.
• Incorporate customer feedback into the daily use of tools, ensuring they consistently add value to the customer experience.