Best Customer Experience Management Software Companies: Top 15 Solutions
There are a lot of names vying to be among the best customer experience management software companies on the market today. So how do you navigate between all these different software solutions?
In this article, we’ll pick out the best platforms to help you offer your customers a top-tier experience when engaging with your company. This will include all touch points in the customer lifecycle, from marketing, sales, support, to customer lifetime management including churn reduction and loyalty maximization.
Are you ready to pick the best toolkit to create superior customer journeys? Then keep reading on. Here we go.
Customer experience platform comparison chart (top 10 highest rated customer experience solutions)
This table lays out the top ten vendors making customer experience management technology. Down below, we’ll explore each of these digital customer experience platforms one by one, highlighting their pros and cons.
Wherever possible, we try to provide accurate and up-to-date pricing information, however, as you will see, many of these vendors require you to contact them directly. If you find pricing data on third-party sites, check with the vendors to make sure it is correct.
Product | Best for | Pricing | Website |
Zoho CRM Plus | Best customer experience management software 2023 | $57 per user per month billed annually | |
Birdeye | Top customer experience software for feedback management | Contact vendor | |
Qualtrics | Great customer experience management system if you need a contact center | Contact vendor | |
Adobe Experience Manager | Good customer experience tool for content management | Contact vendor | |
SAS Customer Intelligence 360 | Best customer experience management SaaS for marketing | Contact vendor | |
SurveyMonkey | Best CXM software if you want customer surveys | $25 per user per month billed annually | |
ChurnZero | Top CXP software to prevent customer churn | Contact vendor | |
HubSpot CRM Suite | Best free customer experience software | $20 per user per month billed annually | |
Medallia | Good enterprise customer experience management for analytics and reporting | Contact vendor | |
Zendesk Suite | Great customer experience provider if you use a help desk ticketing system | $55 per user per month billed annually |
What are the best customer experience management software companies? Here’s our top 15 list:
The following part will give you more details as to the tools for these various CEM or CXM software solutions. Because remember, good customer experience is all about the right tools, so we hope one of the below apps will be the best system to help you improve your CX.
1. Zoho CRM Plus (Best customer experience management software 2023)
Our number one name for the best customer experience management software in 2023 comes from Zoho. Zoho CRM Plus is the full package combining sales, marketing, and help desk features, along with customer visitor tracking, customer experience surveys, and analytics for reporting on factors like customer loyalty or churn.
Along with a robust sales force automation toolkit, Zoho CRM Plus offers lots of customization options. The system leverages AI for things like predictions, suggestions, and recommendations. For example, there are workflow suggestions by Zoho's signature AI called Zia.
Pros:
Lots of data storage space available, so you can collect customer information without worrying
Over 250 nice customer satisfaction survey templates
Some good social media CRM functionality with sites like Facebook and Twitter
Overall, it is one of the best CX management software solutions for 2023
Cons:
As the winning name, we are reluctant to look for drawbacks to this amazing customer relationship management software's set of features
There is only one price for this digital customer experience software which can feel limiting
Pricing:
Zoho CRM Plus costs $57 per user per month billed annually
2. Birdeye (Top customer experience software for feedback management)
The number two name on our list of the best customer experience management systems is Birdeye. Birdeye is a leading name for customer feedback features. They also have a set of tools to help attract new customers, like listings, reviews, referrals and even Google Seller Ratings.
As for help turning new leads into customers, Birdeye offers webchat tools, social media monitoring, an appointment scheduler, and mass texting abilities. When it comes to Birdeye's main strong points, there are excellent customer surveys, a ticketing system, and AI-based business insights.
Pros:
If you want to properly gauge customer behavior or customer sentiment, Birdeye is a great choice
Birdeye offers a decent amount of tools for your customer service teams to provide a more personalized experience
This software also really helps for online company reputation management
Cons:
While Birdeye is great for feedback and surveys, you may not want to make this your primary ticket management system
There are some key features missing when it comes to a seamless experience between marketing, sales and customer service software functionality
Pricing:
For Birdeye pricing, visit their website
3. Qualtrics (Great customer experience management system if you need a contact center)
The number three spot for the best customer experience system is Qualtrics, and this particular CXM platform is great for all things related to contact centers and offering your sales team and customer support department better frontline touchpoint tools.
This is divided into three modules: digital, for website and mobile feedback; care, for analytics, quality management and agent productivity; and locations, for omnichannel reputation management and frontline team AI-based assistance and recommendations. Qualtrics also offers other CEM tools for things like marketing strategy and industry research so that you can improve the customer experience with better products,
Pros:
Every customer journey begins with a form of contact and Qualtrics excels here
You can use these tools to collect customer feedback and analyze customer attitudes toward your products
Qualtrics software comes with exceptional customer service for its users
Cons:
This is not exactly the right software if your main goal is to attract new leads, get more conversions and for reducing customer churn
Pricing:
For pricing information, contact Qualtrics
4. Adobe Experience Manager (Good customer experience tool for content management)
Many of you have heard of Adobe, but did you know they are among the great customer experience management tools out there, especially if you are looking for a good management system for content and other digital assets? This platform is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, meaning all of your assets will be safely and securely stored on Adobe's servers, and you never need to worry.
To improve customer engagement, Adobe offers a learning manager toolkit with tools to engage leads, boost sales, train partners, and improve the skills of your team so they can respond to customer queries by offering a more knowledgeable and personalized experience.
Pros:
Many people are familiar with Adobe already and trust this brand name for a quality digital experience
AEM software helps with asset management, making it the best CXM if you need a CMS
There is a decent amount of automation at play in this set of experience management features
Cons:
AEM really specializes in content and asset management to improve customer interactions, but it is weak on customer insights
Adobe did not really make a package help desk software with this CXM system
Pricing:
Visit Adobe to get pricing info for AEM
5. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 (Best customer experience management SaaS for marketing)
Coming at the end of the top 5 options when selecting the right customer experience management software solution is SAS with their customer intelligence platform. SAS 360 is truly meant for marketing teams to provide great customer engagement when looking for new leads to hand over to the sales teams, along with rich customer profiles and other key market data.
Aside from many marketing strategy planning features, this CXM helps orchestrate delightful customer journeys through the entire lifecycle from the first touchpoint to providing your team with everything to meet customer needs and to manage customer problems.
Pros:
SAS Customer Intelligence 360 is a very robust customer experience SaaS for marketing teams
Great analytics on things like customer trends, customer issues and other insights into the different types of customer experience
Cons:
While much of the emphasis is on marketing, SAS will be insufficient as a total customer service help desk and ticketing SaaS
This one might not be it if you are looking for an enterprise feedback management tool
Pricing:
Visit SAS's website to request pricing data
6. SurveyMonkey (Best CXM software if you want customer surveys)
Moving forward into the latter half of our list of the leading CXM platforms on the market today, we have SurveyMonkey, made by Momentive.ai which also makes market research tools. SurveyMonkey is close to the best system for getting things like a customer effort score as well as for collecting feedback on satisfaction based on customer surveys.
Surveys are crucial to improve their customer experience and to understand customer pain points and reasons for churn. There are solid team features to help analyze survey results, add comments and notes, get notifications, and you get a shared asset library system.
Pros:
SurveyMonkey has many platforms, for individuals, teams, as well as for enterprise feedback management
You can improve the overall customer experience using SurveyMonkey with customer feedback from various sources
Unlike many competitors, there is clear pricing data on their website
Cons:
As an enterprise-level system, if you are seeking out features to help with marketing and sales, SurveyMonkey is not enough
You cannot create customer portals using this software solution
Pricing:
Team Advantage plan is $25 per user per month billed annually
Team Premiere is $75 per user per month billed annually
Enterprise plan pricing requires you to contact SurveyMonkey
7. ChurnZero (Top CXP software to prevent customer churn)
ChurnZero is a leading CXP platform for, you guessed it, reducing the amount of customer churn. For those that don't know, churn is when a regular customer decides to shop elsewhere, or when a promising lead drops out before committing to a purchase. This is a massive part of any exceptional customer experience software.
ChurnZero offers insights into customer behavior before the churn in order to improve your process and enhance customer conversion and loyalty rates. Many cloud-based customer experience apps have tools for churn management, but this is one of the best.
Pros:
For those just getting started with customer experience management software that provides tools for reducing churn, ChurnZero has wonderful onboarding assistance
Great customer health scores, solid customer journey builders, and a good list of automations to work with too
Cons:
ChurnZero is not an option that offers customer service solutions for every aspect of CXM, mainly specializing in journeys and drop-off rates
It's been noted that customer service from ChurnZero could stand for some improvement
Pricing:
Visit ChurnZero's website for more information about prices
8. HubSpot CRM Suite (Best free customer experience software)
HubSpot is a very big name for all things business SaaS, including sales, marketing and customer service. If you are looking for customer experience software that provides a range of tools for all business teams, then HubSpot CRM Suite is a great platform to check out.
What's more, you also get some content management tools, as well as features that are part of HubSpot's operations toolkit. Overall, this is a popular option to deliver exceptional customer experience from the very first marketing contact all the way through to lifelong customer loyalty.
Pros:
HubSpot CRM Suite has a free option making it among the best free CXM systems on the market
The tools and features are very well-known by users for being incredibly user friendly
If you want tools to create engaging inbound marketing content to win over new contacts, then HubSpot is a leading choice
Cons:
While popular with small teams, startups and small businesses, some people find HubSpot to be a bit lightweight at the more enterprise level
The free platform is good enough for some, but for others, the best and most advanced tools are only in the paid plans
Pricing:
HubSpot offers a free version of their CRM Suite
Starter plan starts at $20 per user per month billed annually for 2 users
Professional plan starts at $1,600 per month for 5 users
9. Medallia (Good enterprise customer experience management for analytics and reporting)
Our next CEM system is Medallia, and this one is a leading name among enterprise-level organizations who take customer satisfaction very seriously. Among the many tools offered by Medallia, its analytics and reporting capabilities really stand out as exceptional.
Medallia also offers features for listening to the customer, using tools like surveys, social media monitoring, review site aggregating, digital behavior analysis, SMS and chat messaging and more. There are even employee feedback tools.
Pros:
The analytics and reporting module of Medallia is very robust and highly customizable too
They have a great speech-to-text converting feature which works in over 30 languages to capture data from real conversations
Digital behavior analytics includes things like responsiveness, focus time, and frustration to improve your website engagement
Cons:
While the pricing information is not listed on Medallia’s website, it is known to be among the more expensive CEM platforms out there
Medallia will require a bit of a learning curve on the part of your team who will be using it
Pricing:
For detailed pricing information, visit Medallia’s website
10. Zendesk Suite (Great customer experience provider if you use a help desk ticketing system)
Coming in at the tail end of our top ten list of the best CX provider platforms is Zendesk. Most people know Zendesk as a customer service system, and for this reason, it is among the leading choices for help desk and ticketing systems.
With Zendesk Suite, you get a combination of the best Zendesk Sell and Zendesk Service set of features. You can also get individual basic plans for a much cheaper price, although those are not fully geared for the customer experience.
Pros:
You get a world-class ticket management platform that is easy to use and well designed
Multi-channel communication with email, chat, social media, phone and text messaging
Great online customer support from the dedicated Zendesk team
Zendesk also has a nice app integration library for added functionality
Cons:
Some of the most useful tools are reserved for the expensive plans, like CSAT ratings, self-service customer portals, and Zendesk Sunshine conversations
Pricing:
Zendesk Suite Team plan is $55 per user per month billed annually
Zendesk Suite Growth plan is $89 per user per month billed annually
Zendesk Suite Professional plan is $115 per user per month billed annually
Zendesk Suite Enterprise plan is bespoke based on your needs
11. Qualaroo (Good product experience management software for your website)
If you are looking for software that can provide contextual customer insights to help boost customer satisfaction, then Qualaroo is a nice app to check out. It leverages user research in order to offer very advanced customer feedback tools.
Qualaroo takes into account data like location and domain, duration on your web page, user exit intent, and scroll location. You also get stats on how often users visit your page, recurring questions about your products, and how long it takes to send a response. Overall, if your product depends on your webpage experience, Qualaroo can help.
Pros:
You can significantly improve the user experience on your website and with your products with this customer feedback application
Pricing options are pretty diverse and not too expensive
Cons:
The scope of Qualaroo’s tools is actually a bit limited, so make sure you know your needs before trying it out
Pricing:
Contextual and email surveys essential is $79 per month billed annually
Contextual and email surveys premium is $169 per month billed annually
Contextual and email surveys business starts at $299 per month billed annually
12. BigContacts (Top customer experience analytics software for CRM)
BigContacts is a great set of CX analytics tools to use alongside your contact list and improve your overall CRM capabilities. As a CRM, it combines basic marketing and sales features in an effective way so that you can keep CX in mind at every step.
There are tracking tools for contact engagement, agent tasks, and other calendar features. As for customer churn prevention and retention, BigContatcs helps keep users happy and from jumping ship. On top of everything, there is enough automation on this system, as well as sales reporting that can’t be beat.
Pros:
If you want to combine the power of CRM with the possibilities of CXM, then BigContacts is a fabulous option
The sales analytics and reporting data is very useful for improving your bottom line via better customer satisfaction
Cons:
Some of BigContacts tools and features might take some time getting used to
The look and feel of the interfaces and dashboards are not bad, but they are not great either
Pricing:
Big Contacts Big plan is $5 per user per month billed annually
Big Contacts Bigger plan is $15 per user per month billed annually
Big Contacts Biggest plan is $25 per user per month billed annually
For Enterprise pricing, contact BigContact
13. LiveAgent (Great CEM platform for small team customer support)
LiveAgent is a customer service platform and CEM tool that is particularly good for startups, small teams, and small businesses that want to offer great customer support. The many great sets of CEM tools here include an omnichannel help desk, an advanced ticketing system and even live chat.
There are also features like social media monitoring and messaging, a call center, and a knowledge base builder, which is handy for creating a portal whereby customers can help themselves, leading to a higher CSAT score.
Pros:
Great set of tools for agents, like agent collision detection, agent ranking and automated ticket distributions so that no rep gets overloaded
LiveAgent offers at minimum 3 email accounts even in the cheapest version
Lots of customization, including an open API for developers
Cons:
While this is not so hard to learn, you only get product training in the more premium packages
Pricing:
Small Business plan is $9 per user per month billed annually
Medium Business plan is $29 per user per month billed annually
Large Business plan is $49 per user per month billed annually
Enterprise Business plan is $69 per user per month billed annually
14. Freshdesk (Great customer experience tools for team collaboration)
Freshdesk is primarily a customer service platform with help desk and ticketing, and it can be an integral part of your customer experience management software stack. It has a lot of tools for team collaboration, including linked tickets, shared ticket ownership, parent-child ticketing and the ability to add collaborators to tickets after they were created.
You also get agent productivity features to make sure your team is optimizing the levels of satisfaction among your contacts. Help widgets and workflow automations are more examples of Freshdesk’s tools for CEM.
Pros:
For teams that want to work together, Freshdesk is an ideal system to aid in collaboration and communication
There is a very expansive range of analytics and reporting with Freshdesk so you have the best stats for planning customer journeys
Freshdesk has solid feedback and survey features as well
Cons:
It is great that Freshdesk offers a free plan, however, to get the most out of this platform, it is better to pay for a subscription
Pricing:
There is a free Freshdesk plan
Growth plan is $15 per user per month billed annually
Pro plan is $49 per user per month billed annually
Enterprise pan is $79 per user per month billed annually
15. SurveySparrow (Top enterprise-level CXM software solution)
The number 15 name on our list is SurveySparow, not to be confused with SurveyMonkey. SurveySparrow is great for running your CXM on all businesses but is especially effective at the enterprise level. You get an executive dashboard, a customer journey map builder, and you can create nice-looking and personalized customer surveys.
Other tools include audience management, conversational forms and even mobile surveys. Finally, you can use some of the SurveySparrow features for things like ticket management and reputation management to keep your brand name in high regard among all your users.
Pros:
So many great survey options here, like white-label surveys, embedded surveys, smart surveys, video surveys, and there is even a survey theme library
SurveySparow provides webhooks and their API for more development, and there is a big integrations library as well
Cons:
While SurveySparrow does offer a range of pricing options, they do not provide specific pricing information on their website, sp you can’t be too sure of the final cost while doing your price comparison shopping
Pricing:
Visit SurveySparrow’s website to plug in your details and get a pricing quote
What is experience management software?
So, what is customer experience management? Experience management software is a collection of digital tools and features to make sure that your customers have maximum satisfaction with your products and when engaging with your company overall.
Many customer experience apps encompass every single touch point in the customer journey. It often begins with initial marketing strategies that create new leads, and from there, those leads are nurtured through the sales pipeline by sales staff who also use these digital tools. The department that will be most directly concerned with the customer experience is the customer support team, because here is where many users figure out for themselves how satisfied they are in dealing with a certain company.
Some of the more common features to be found in a customer experience management system include marketing campaigns that have targeted audiences with personalized content, sales funnel management which nudges contacts through the system and helps prevent drop outs, customer service help desk and ticketing systems, and customer portals.
Other key tools include customer feedback survey tools, analytics and reporting, workflows and automations, and omnichannel communication which is email, live chat, text messaging, phone and voice, social media, and more. On top of these, communication tools could be listening features that can analyze customer sentiment and, from there, use AI to offer intelligent predictions and suggestions.
Ultimately, the success of your product, company, or brand depends on how happy your customers are and how fulfilling their experience is. If you want to listen to what they are saying, understand what they are thinking, and get ahead of any problems or issues they may experience down the line, then taking advantage of customer experience management and insights platforms is the way to go.
What is CX software, CXM, CXP and CEM software, is it all the same?
For the most part, both CXM and CEM mean the same thing: customer experience management. The difference in acronyms is because some people use an ‘x’ to stand for experience, even though it actually begins with the letter ‘e.’
Some might argue that CXM is meant to denote a very specific set of tools like listening, feedback, and analytics, whereas CEM is a broader set of features that includes CXM tools as well as other sales, marketing, and support tools. But this is not a strict distinction.
CXP stands for customer experience platform. Again, many of these terms will be used interchangeably. A platform is another word for a software solution or set of digital tools.
Which customer experience management platform is best for me? Our conclusion
So, now you have a very good idea of the plethora of CXM systems out there for you to choose from. If you are familiar with this site or the world of business SaaS in general, it is likely you have heard of some of these vendors, like Zendesk, Zoho, and HubSpot. Other names will probably sound brand new to you, like ChurnZero, Birdeye, Qualtrics, and Medallia.
After reading about all of these CXM and similar customer retention software options, and you still have not decided which one best suits your needs, don’t fret because there will always be new players in the game with different customer satisfaction abilities.
However, we truly hope that one of the fine names on our list will have piqued your curiosity enough to do a demo, run a free trial, or just sign up and get started right away with not a second to lose.
And that brings us to our conclusion. We hope you feel pumped about discovering customer experience systems and for optimizing your customer satisfaction levels by providing an amazing customer journey and a superb customer experience with these CX applications and CEM software solutions.