Imagine your customers as plants in a garden, where nurturing and support are essential for their growth.
Your role as a customer success professional is like that of a skilled gardener. It involves tending to these plants to help them flourish, and as a gardener, you need to continually hone your skills and learn new techniques to keep your garden thriving.
In this fast-paced digital era, customer success has become a critical component of the growth strategy for businesses. By providing value to your customers and ensuring they have a great experience, you’ll not only increase customer retention but also drive product adoption, expansion, and – ultimately – revenue.
That’s why investing in the right customer success training courses is crucial.
In this article, we’ll take you on a journey through the 10 best customer success courses, both free and paid, that will empower you to cultivate stronger relationships with your customers and drive growth for your business.
You’ll find courses for every level, from beginners to seasoned professionals, to help you elevate your skills and become the master gardener of customer success.
- What is Customer Success?
- What Makes a Good Customer Success Course
- The Customer Education Blueprint
- Customer Success Management Fundamentals
- How to Get a Job in Customer Success Course
- CMS Customer Success Management
- Customer Success Training Bootcamp
- The Customer Success Manager Workshop
- Customer Success Management Pulse
- CS Mastermind for Early Career Professionals – Adopttec
- Customer Success Certification by The Success League
- Customer Success Training & Certification
- Get the customer success guide
What is Customer Success?
First things first, let’s make sure we know what customer success is.
Imagine embarking on a journey with your customers, where your destination is their success. Where your entire goal is for your customers to not only reach their goals but achieve long term success. This is what customer success is all about.
Customer success is a proactive, relationship-focused approach that helps your customers achieve their desired outcomes by using your products or services.
It’s an ongoing process that goes beyond merely solving problems and addressing issues. Customer success teams actively work to understand customer needs, help them derive maximum value from a business or company’s offerings, and drive customer satisfaction, retention, and growth.
At its core, the customer success journey is about creating win-win situations where your customers thrive and your business benefits from their loyalty and advocacy.
To paint a clearer picture of what customer success entails, let’s break it down into its key components:
- Proactivity: Unlike customer service, which is typically reactive, customer success teams anticipate customer needs, identify potential roadblocks, and take the initiative to address them before they become problems.
- Relationship-building: Customer success is founded on strong, long-term relationships with your customers.
- Customer-centricity: Customer success teams put the customer at the heart of everything they do, focusing on delivering value and creating exceptional customer experiences.
- Data-driven insights: Customer success professionals use data and analytics to monitor customer health, identify trends, and uncover opportunities for improvement.
- Cross-functional collaboration: Customer success is not the sole responsibility of a single department; it’s a company-wide effort that requires collaboration between sales, marketing, product development, and other teams.
Customer success is a holistic approach that focuses on understanding, supporting, and guiding your customers toward their desired outcomes.
What Makes a Good Customer Success Course
Navigating the ocean of customer success courses can be overwhelming. To help you sail through the waters with ease and identify the best courses, we’ve outlined the key elements that make a good customer success course.
By considering these factors, you’ll be able to select a course that not only informs and educates you, but also empowers you to drive success for your customers and your business.
- Comprehensive Curriculum: Look for courses that cover a wide range of topics related to customer success, ensuring that you gain a comprehensive understanding of the field. A well-rounded curriculum ensures that you develop a holistic understanding of customer success and its various components.
- Access to Resources and Support: Your customer success journey doesn’t end when the course is over. Opt for courses that offer ongoing access to resources and support, ensuring that you can continue learning and growing beyond the course.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: In today’s fast-paced world, it’s essential to find a course that fits your schedule and learning preferences. Although there are pros and cons to online learning, a good customer success course should offer flexibility in terms of delivery format.
This should include live sessions, recorded videos, and self-paced learning. This adaptability ensures that you can learn at your own pace and on your terms.
By keeping these three elements in mind, you can confidently identify the best customer success courses that will empower you to drive success for your customers and your business.
In no particular order, let’s look at the top 9 courses that can help you achieve mastery in customer success.
1. The Customer Education Blueprint
Course Creator: Simon Dunant
Duration: 50 minutes (5 daily 10-minute lessons)
Skill Level: Beginner or Intermediate
Looking to retain customers and keep them engaged with your product or service? This mini-course is an actionable and proven method to increase customer expertise, reduce churn, and optimize your customer success in 5 days.
In today’s competitive business landscape, customer education is key to success.
With The Customer Education Blueprint, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of how to create a customer education academy that empowers your customers, ensures their success, and drives brand loyalty.
Overview
- Curriculum: Say goodbye to high churn rates and hello to empowered, engaged, and loyal customers. This short and actionable mini-course offers 6 outcomes that provide a comprehensive understanding of what it takes to build a successful customer education program.
- Resources and Support: Each module is carefully crafted with short and engaging 7-minute video lessons, practical examples, and hands-on assignments to help you start making an immediate impact on your customers within 5 days.
- Flexibility and adaptability: This short and self-paced online course includes short video lessons and assignments designed to guide you through the process of creating an impactful customer education academy in a matter of just 5 days.
Key takeaways:
- Identify your customers’ pain points and optimize their journey.
- Streamline your onboarding process to enhance customer satisfaction.
- Design and structure effective on-demand courses that fit busy schedules.
- Create compelling course content from existing resources and fill the gaps.
- Measure the success of your customer education programs with confidence.
- Utilize key metrics to prove ROI and make data-driven decisions.
2. Customer Success Management Fundamentals
Course Creator: LinkedIn Learning
Price: Free with LinkedIn Learning subscription (1-month free trial)
Duration: 1 hour
Skill Level: Beginner
The first course on our list is a great guiding light for your customer success journey, illuminating the essential skills you need for your professional growth.
Customer Success Management Fundamentals, taught by Emilia D’Anzica, a renowned customer success strategist, introduces you to the fundamentals of customer success.
In just one hour, you’ll learn the foundations of customer management, its impact on your business, and strategies to improve it. The course also covers essential customer success metrics, how to create a customer success plan, and the importance of understanding your customer’s journey.
Overview
- Curriculum: This one-hour course offers a concise curriculum, focusing on the fundamentals of churn, customer success metrics, and the importance of understanding the customer journey.
- Resources and Support: The course provides downloadable templates, articles, and additional reading materials to support your learning and further your understanding of customer success.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: As a self-paced course with recorded video lectures, this course offers learners the flexibility to learn on their own schedule.
Key Takeaways:
- Learn the difference between customer support and customer success.
- Understand the role of customer success in reducing churn and driving growth.
- Discover key customer success metrics and how to track them.
- Develop a customer success plan and identify ways to improve it.
3. How to Get a Job in Customer Success Course
Course Creator: Practical CSM
Price: $83
Duration: 1 day
Skill Level: Intermediate
This is specifically designed for those who possess the required expertise to excel as a Customer Success Manager but lack direct experience in a dedicated Customer Success role to showcase on their résumé.
This one-day course is perfect for individuals seeking a career change, whether due to stagnation, concerns about redundancy, or simply recognizing the value of a career in the rapidly growing and maturing Customer Success profession. The course aims to guide you on the right path to transitioning into a Customer Success Management role.
Overview:
- Curriculum: The course is divided into three modules, each focusing on essential aspects of making a successful career transition.
- Resources and Support: Access to course materials, expert guidance, and support throughout the learning process.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: A one-day course format that accommodates busy schedules and allows for efficient learning.
Key Takeaways:
- Assess your current skills and expertise and identify how they translate into the Customer Success field.
- Develop a strong understanding of the Customer Success profession, its roles and responsibilities, and the required skill set for success.
- Gain practical guidance on job search strategies, craft a compelling résumé that highlights your transferable skills, and acing interviews for Customer Success positions.
4. CMS Customer Success Management
Course Creator: Udemy
Price: $69.99
Duration: 7 hours
Skill Level: Beginner-IntermediateThe Art of Customer Success is like the vital water that keeps your customer success gardenIn this seven-hour course, you’ll dive into advanced customer success strategies, including creating a customer-centric culture, developing customer success processes, and building a world-class customer success team. You’ll also learn about customer health scores, customer success metrics, and how to use technology to scale your customer success efforts.
Overview:
- Curriculum: You’ll explore customer success strategies, customer-centric culture, customer success processes, team building, customer health scores, and leveraging technology to scale your efforts.
- Resources and Support: Udemy offers additional resources, including downloadable materials, quizzes, and lifetime access to course updates, ensuring continued support in your customer success journey.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: The course is self-paced, with pre-recorded video lectures, allowing learners to progress at their own speed and fit learning around their personal schedules.
Key Takeaways:
- Cultivate a customer-centric culture within your organization.
- Design customer success processes that deliver results.
- Build and manage a high-performing customer success team.
- Understand and leverage customer health scores and other key metrics.
- Utilize technology to scale your customer success initiatives.
5. Customer Success Training Bootcamp
Course Creator: ClientSuccess
Price: Contact for pricing
Duration: Varies
Skill Level: Intermediate
Customer Success Training Bootcamps, offered by ClientSuccess, serves as the robust framework that supports your customer success journey, making sure that it grows in the right direction.
These well-executed programs are designed for customer success managers and professionals; they combine online training modules with workshops and personalized coaching sessions.
Overview:
- Curriculum: The courses cover a wide range of topics, such as customer onboarding, adoption, retention, and expansion, providing a thorough understanding of customer success best practices.
- Resources and Support: Participants benefit from a blend of online training modules, workshops, and personalized coaching sessions, offering multiple levels of support and interaction with customer success experts.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: The duration of the program varies depending on the individual learner, allowing for customization and flexibility in the learning experience.
Key Takeaways:
- Learn best practices for onboarding, adoption, retention, and expansion.
- Participate in live workshops and receive personalized coaching.
- Gain valuable insights from customer success experts.
- Earn a Customer Success Certification to showcase your skills.
6. The Customer Success Manager Workshop
Course Creator: CSM Practice
Price: $1,500
Duration: 1 day
Skill Level: Intermediate
The Customer Success Manager Bootcamp, offered by CSM Practice, is a great all-encompassing program that focuses on refining and perfecting your customer success skills.
This intensive one-day program is designed for customer success managers who want to elevate their skills and improve their organization’s customer success strategy.
Overview
- Curriculum: The customer success manager training course covers a range of topics, such as customer onboarding, risk management, customer health scoring, and customer success operations, providing a comprehensive and in-depth learning experience.
- Resources and Support: Participants get through a ton of material in a live, energetic, and highly effective workshop that offers an interactive and supportive learning environment.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: The one-day format makes it easy for learners to block out the time to attend.
Key Takeaways:
- Develop a deeper understanding of customer onboarding, risk management, and health scoring.
- Improve your organization’s customer success strategy and operations.
- Participate in live sessions and receive personalized coaching.
- Apply your learnings through practical assignments.
7. Customer Success Management Pulse
Course Creator: Gainsight
Price: $900/year
Duration: 6 months – 1 year
Skill Level: Beginner
Customer Success Management Fundamentals, offered by Gainsight, is another foundational customer success manager course that provides essential knowledge for beginners.
This fully comprehensive month-long course covers everything from the basics of customer success management to the most advanced techniques and is perfect for those new to the field or looking for a refresher.
Overview:
- Curriculum: The course delves into key concepts of customer success, such as customer journey mapping, customer segmentation, and churn prevention, providing a solid foundation for beginners.
- Resources and Support: It offers an accessible introduction to customer success and builds on this leaving no stones unturned. It includes an overview of Gainsight’s customer success platform, which can help you streamline your customer success efforts
- Flexibility and Adaptability: The duration allows learners to take their time to grasp the fundamentals of customer success, while the self-paced format enables learners to fit the course into their busy schedules.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand the core principles of customer success management.
- Learn how to map customer journeys and segment customers effectively.
- Discover strategies for churn prevention and customer satisfaction.
- Get an introduction to Gainsight’s customer success platform.
8. CS Mastermind for Early Career Professionals – Adopttec
Course Creator: Adopttec
Price: $75/month
Duration: Ongoing
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
One of our users, Adopttec, offers a CS Mastermind for Early Career Professionals. It’s a well-rounded learning experience that expertly combines the flexibility of online self-study with the in-depth expertise of live, virtual instructor-led training sessions.
This program is designed to help you excel in your Customer Success career with a comprehensive curriculum and recommended learning paths.
Upon completing the foundations course, you gain access to additional training courses and instructor-led sessions covering various topics. New courses are released approximately every 4-6 weeks.
Overview:
- Curriculum: A combination of online self-study courses and live instructor-led training sessions, covering diverse aspects of Customer Success Management.
- Resources and Support: Access to templates, checklists, and discounted private coaching calls for personalized guidance.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: Choose courses as needed or follow the recommended learning paths for a structured approach to skill development.
Key Takeaways:
- Master the foundations of Customer Success with a comprehensive curriculum covering essential topics.
- Develop expertise in areas such as adoption goals, success plans, onboarding, and conducting business reviews.
- Enhance your customer engagement skills with courses focused on effective communication, negotiations, and objection handling.
- Access templates, checklists, and discounted private coaching calls to support your ongoing growth and development.
9. Customer Success Certification by The Success League
Course Creator: The Success League
Price: $1,795
Duration: 15 classes
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
The Success League’s Customer Success Certification goes beyond traditional online courses, offering an interactive and engaging learning experience. This certification consists of 15 live one-hour webinars led by a Customer Success expert, where students must actively participate, ask questions, and collaborate with their cameras on.
The 15 classes cover essential topics for Customer Success Managers, including customer goals and outcomes, strategy and success planning, renewals and churn, and more.
Overview:
- Curriculum: A comprehensive program with 15 live classes focusing on various aspects of the Customer Success Manager role.
- Resources and Support: Interactive webinars led by a Customer Success expert, promoting collaboration and active learning.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: Live classes cater to both beginners and experienced Customer Success Managers, offering relevant content regardless of skill level.
Key Takeaways:
- Master the key concepts of Customer Success Management, including strategy, planning, account management, and advocacy.
- Gain practical skills in managing customer goals, outcomes, renewals, and churn.
- Develop proficiency in time and portfolio management, which are essential for any successful Customer Success Manager.
- Engage in interactive learning through live webinars, gaining insights from experienced Customer Success professionals.
10. Customer Success Training & Certification
Course Creator: SuccessCOACHING
Price: $99-$529/year
Duration: 8 weeks
Skill Level: Intermediate
Customer Success Training & Certification, offered by SuccessCOACHING, is an all-encompassing eight-week program designed for customer success professionals eager to elevate their skills. This course provides you with the tools and knowledge needed to enhance your expertise in the customer success field.
Upon completion, you’ll earn a Customer Success Certified Professional (CSCP) designation, demonstrating your expertise and dedication to customer success excellence.
Overview:
- Curriculum: The course covers a wide range of topics, including customer success strategy, onboarding, customer health scoring, and account management, providing a well-rounded learning experience for customer success professionals.
- Resources and Support: Participants benefit from live sessions, on-demand content, and practical assignments, offering a mix of interactive and self-paced learning opportunities.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: The eight-week duration allows for a structured learning experience while still providing flexibility for learners to progress at their own pace.
Key Takeaways:
- Develop a customer success strategy that drives growth and retention.
- Master the principles of onboarding, customer health scoring, and account management.
- Participate in live sessions and apply your learnings through practical assignments.
- Gain valuable insights from customer success experts and thought leaders.
- Earn a Customer Success Certified Professional (CSCP) designation.
Final Thoughts
Investing in your customer success education is like providing the essential nutrients, sunlight, and water that your garden needs to grow and thrive.
By understanding what customer success is and choosing the right customer success management courses, you can elevate your skills, cultivate stronger relationships with your customers, and drive growth for your business.
Whether you’re a beginner looking to learn the basics, an intermediate professional seeking to refine your skills, or an advanced leader aiming to hone your management and leadership abilities, there’s a course on this list for you.
So go ahead and plant the seeds of knowledge in your customer success garden.
As you nurture and grow your skills, you’ll witness the flourishing of your customer relationships and the thriving of your business. The investment you make today in your customer success education will yield a bountiful harvest of growth and success for years to come.
Transform your customer education in just 5 days with this actionable online course:
This article was originally published July 2023, and was updated August 2023 for user experience.