Best AI Tools for Customer Success & CX for 2024

Your customers’ success directly relates to your business success, so providing best-in-class customer service and support is imperative. The development of AI-enhanced customer success platforms is opening the doors to a new era in customer success. It’s an era in which businesses and customer success professionals can automate and streamline the tedious but necessary parts of their jobs to create more space to focus on customer retention, positive experiences, and customer loyalty.

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Customer success experts seem excited about AI's ability to improve the CS space. On a recent episode of the CHURN.FM podcast, Andrew Michael interviewed Kristi Faltorusso, the Chief Customer Officer at ClientSuccess. They discussed AI, efficiencies, innovation, and how AI transforms customer success strategies. 

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Faltorusso said, “Well, listen, I think anybody who's not mentioning AI right now is probably not in the pulse of what's happening. I feel like this is going to be very transformative for Customer Success because I don't know that there is a platform out there that isn't trying to embrace AI to some extent, which means all of the tools that we have in our tech stack, I think are going to be more efficient. They're going to bring more value, more insights.”

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Exciting, isn’t it? If you’re intrigued by the power of AI in customer success, you’re in the right place! Keep reading to learn:

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• 4 specific ways AI can help your customer success strategy
• 5 AI tools for customer success professionals
• How Clockwise can support CSMs

How can AI help your customer success strategy?

AI can’t fully replicate the human aspects of every good customer relationship, but there are some ways that AI tools can help improve your customer success strategy and daily workflows. AI tools shine when it comes to automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks and getting a jump start on a complex task you could use assistance starting. 

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Below are some of the ways customer success professionals can take advantage of AI tools and what they have to offer without letting them replace the human parts of solid customer relationships:

Create personalized experiences seamlessly 

Personalization isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a must-have. McKinsey’s Next in Personalization 2021 Report revealed that companies that excel at personalization generate 40% more revenue from those activities, and on top of that, 71% of consumers expect personalization. But personalization requires a deep understanding of customer data, history, needs, and more. As businesses scale, it becomes more time-consuming and challenging for customer success managers to drive personalization and growth without the tools to support it. 

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With generative AI tools, customer success teams can take customer data and gather insights quickly. They can then use these insights to provide a personalized experience for customers via email, phone, or any other touchpoint. Targeted communications and offers can enhance the overall experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Use predictive analytics to analyze customer data

AI algorithms can analyze customer behavior and historical data to predict potential churn. Tamara Miceli for HubSpot noted that businesses can predict customer churn by analyzing various behaviors such as account activity, social media engagement, purchase history, and more to determine which customers are at risk. This allows CSMs to swoop in and strengthen the relationship by proactively reaching out before it's too late.

Implement chatbots for customer support 

Providing customer service via chatbot support isn’t necessarily a new concept, but AI chatbots with enhanced features are improving the customer experience through proactive support, rapid messaging, and data-based predictions. 

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More than rule-based chatbots that perform pre-programmed functions, newer AI-powered chatbots use machine learning and natural language processing to help answer customers’ questions based on the data it has. AI chatbots can provide 24/7 service, answer common questions so your CSMs don’t have to, gather customer information and preferences that a CSM can later use to personalize their experience, present products and services relevant to customers, and so much more. 

Enhance customer onboarding 

Scribe’s client onboarding checklist infographic outlines the steps to onboard customers efficiently for long-term success. These steps are necessary but can also be time-consuming and inefficient without the right tools and processes to support them. That’s where AI can help. CSMs can leverage AI-powered tools to draft emails (just be sure to add your personal touch!), schedule meetings, automate setup processes, and more to improve the onboarding experience for everyone involved. 

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We’ll dive into more specific AI tools for customer success next, but Jeff Chase wrote and shared some great examples on the Vitally blog of how to use ChatGPT and effective prompts to complete tasks like recording notes about a customer after a call, responding to emails, and building presentations outlines, all of which can be part of the onboarding process.

What are the AI tools to improve customer success?

From automating content creation to running quick analyses on customer data, AI tools can help improve the end-to-end customer success process. Below are five highly-rated (4+/5 on G2) tools worth exploring in the customer success space.

ChurnZero’s Customer Success AI

ChurnZero’s customer success software gives CSMs a holistic view of the customer lifecycle by centralizing customer data, providing customer health scores, forecasting revenues and renewals, and automating various workflows within the customer journey. ChurnZero incorporated generative AI technology from OpenAI into its platform to help address two significant challenges: content creation and strategy ideation.

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ChurnZero’s Customer Success AI possesses tons of helpful features, including: 

• Existing prompt options for content generation and strategy development (e.g., How do I successfully save a customer struggling to adopt our product?) 
• Content refinement and editing for more effective communications
• The ability to generate account summaries in a single click so you can get a feel for an account’s health, engagement, and history

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Reviews: 

• 4.7 out of 5 stars on G2 (1,000+ reviews)
• Recognized by G2 as a Momentum Leader Winter 2023

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Pros: 

• Customer Success AI comes with prompts (which is often one of the most challenging parts of getting the most out of an AI tool) 
• Well-rounded tool for CS teams; jam-packed with customer data, and it’s easy to share data across your org
• Native integrations with many popular CRM tools like HubSpot, NetSuite, Salesforce, ZoHo CRM, and more 
• G2 reviewer David C. and many others report excellent customer service from the team at ChurnZero

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Cons:

• Pricing information isn’t available online
• G2 reviewer Mike L. shared, “The UI can be a little clunky,” and Greg W. echoed that the product is complex, which may cause challenges for some users

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Pricing:

• Request a demo for more information

ClientSuccess 

ClientSuccess leverages AI and automation to streamline and eliminate repetitive tasks for customer success managers, creating more space for them to focus on strengthening customer interactions. With ClientSuccess, CSMs can automate communications through SmartCS. This AI-powered feature supports AI-generated emails (write an email based on any prompt or question) and the ability to respond to multiple emails at once automatically. 

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In addition to email assistance, SmartCS can:

• Quickly analyze client information and provide real-time feedback on customer health
• Assess and analyze NPS campaigns for thorough business insights reviews
• Summarize customer meetings and calls automatically (while discerning customer sentiment)

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Reviews: 

• 4.4 out of 5 stars on G2 (400+ reviews)

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Pros:

• In addition to the AI features, ClientSuccess offers customer journey management, robust analytics and reporting capabilities, customer onboarding, customer portals, and more
• Playbooks streamline and standardize customer success and workflows to boost productivity 
• Users like this one report that ClientSuccess is intuitive and easy to use

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Cons:

• Fewer integrations compared to some of the other tools on this list
• Not a lot of ways to visualize the AI features in action on the website 

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Pricing:

• ClientSuccess offers various packages and pricing, but you have to reach out for specifics

Custify 

Custify is a comprehensive customer success platform that helps SaaS companies manage and automate customer relationships. Custify brings relevant customer data from various platforms into one place so CSMs can monitor customer engagement and interactions using one central source of truth. The tool helps the team automate their workflows by creating playbooks that might include automatically sending emails, assigning accounts, and re-engaging low-engagement customers.

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Other key features Custify offers include:

• Custom KPI dashboards for tracking health scores and identifying churn risk
• Customer 360 views provide a unified look at customer details and help suggest upselling opportunities for growth
• Self-service customer portals for a better customer experience and increased visibility 
• Advanced analytics for understanding customer acquisition costs, CSM activity, and more

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Reviews:

• 4.7 out of 5 stars on G2 (300+ reviews)

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Pros:

• Strong at reporting on customer health and providing real-time updates 
• Playbooks automate tedious work and provide consistency by replicating processes
• Calculated metrics dynamically update based on the data provided; then, Custify uses these insights in dashboards, health scores, and segments 

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Cons:

• Multiple users (here and here) report a steep learning curve and complex setup
• Primarily for SaaS companies, so it may not be a fit for you depending on your industry

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Pricing:

• Available upon request 

Totango 

Totango is a flexible, scalable platform that allows users to tailor each stage of the customer journey to their business and needs. Totango uses SuccessBLOCs, which are prebuilt custom success program templates packed with best practices and expert knowledge. Users can start with a SuccessBLOC and customize it from there. Totango offers a content generator (powered by Jasper.ai) for crafting email campaigns and touchpoints, overviews of customer data using AI summaries, and a natural language AI assistant for quickly locating customer information (coming soon). 

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Totango also provides the following features:

• Extensive integrations with (almost) any data source through native connectors, a variety of APIs, and data imports
• SuccessBLOCs programs for driving product adoption, monitoring customer health, engaging customers, maximizing upsell and cross-sell opportunities, digital onboarding, voice of the customer feedback programs, and more
• Customer engagement through email campaigns, low-code in-app experiences, automated surveys, and more

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Reviews:

• 4.4 out of 5 stars (800+ reviews)

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Pros:

• SuccessBLOCs include best practices and industry expertise, giving you a leg up 
• It is easy to share information across your team from one centralized location

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Cons:

• 80+ reviews on G2 say Totango is not user-friendly or mention a steep learning curve
• Some users report integration challenges, so be sure to ask questions and dig into these before you consider committing

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Pricing:

• Contact the sales team for more information

Vitally

Vitally, a customer success platform emphasizes productivity, visibility, and team collaboration so customer success teams can focus on providing a best-in-class experience. In 2023, Vitally released a ChatGPT-powered First Call Success Generator, which helps users understand what new customers care about before their first call. Check it out here.

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Key features Vitally offers include:

• Customer data hubs allow users to view customer data in tables, projects, dashboards, docs, and boards for easy viewability
• Dynamic, data-driven customer health scores and alerts when customer health changes
• Accelerate collaboration through team-focused hubs or dedicated workspaces powered by customer data

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Reviews:

• 4.6 out of 5 stars on G2 (390+ reviews)
• Won a handful of badges and awards from G2 in Winter 2024, including Momentum Leader, High Performer, Highest User Adoption Mid-Market, and more

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Pros:

• Based on G2 reviews, Vitally seems relatively easy to use, quick to set up, and highly customizable 
• Integrations with core tech stack tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Segment, Amplitude, Sendgrid, Hightouch, Clearbit, and more
• According to their website, the average time to estimated ROI is less than a year (just over eight months)

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Cons:

• Reviewer Laurène W. reports that the open API is limited, so keep that in mind if you need API connections
• Since there are so many customization options available, it can feel overwhelming at times

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Pricing:

• Different pricing tiers are available, so reach out to request pricing information

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Clockwise can help CSMs 

Although it’s not a customer success platform specifically, Clockwise includes features that can help customer success professionals improve their workday. Customer success often involves frequent interactions with clients. Coordinating meetings through back-and-forth emails can be daunting, but with Clockwise Links, you can seamlessly provide your availability for calls while simultaneously protecting enough time for reviewing client accounts, updating customer profiles, and more.

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In addition, our conversational calendar assistant is an excellent tool for busy customer success managers who need to find time to meet with their team members quickly. Use it to find time for a customer success team meeting across a sea of busy schedules. Or maybe an urgent customer meeting popped up, and now you're double-booked. Don't worry—ask Clockwise to reschedule your meetings and clear your afternoon so you can focus on your customers and what they need.

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We’ll also help you preserve Focus Time for deep work and strategizing, lunch breaks, buffer time between meetings, and more so you can give your customers the best, most prepared version of you day after day. Get started with Clockwise today!

Going forward 

Artificial intelligence is making a significant impact in the customer success space. Businesses can create more personalized experiences, use predictive analytics to monitor customer churn, support customers with 24/7 chatbots, and more. AI tools can provide valuable insights but can’t fully replicate the human-to-human experience. Consider using AI to boost your workday productivity so you can spend more time building quality customer relationships.