Whether you’re planning to start a new career in customer success or upgrade the skills and knowledge you already have on the subject, there are plenty of customer success courses out there that can help you achieve just that.
So many, in fact, that it might be difficult to choose just one. This is why we’ve put together a list of our favorite courses, grouped into trainings (for those who only want to learn more) and certifications (for those who need a formal document that will enable them to practice customer success).
So without further ado, here are the customer success courses that have made our list:
Training
1. Customer Experience Management Essentials
Since this course doesn’t require previous experience, it’s a great start for beginners who want to learn the basics of customer success.
This training will get you through plenty of practical exercises and quizzes, so by the end, you’ll be able to create, measure, and improve customers’ journeys.
Price: 30 EUR
Duration: 3.5 hours
Rating: 3.9/5
2. Customer Success Manager 101: Foundations To Your CSM Career
If you’re looking to start a new career in customer success, then this is a great course to take. You will learn more about what will be expected of you as a Customer Success Manager, how to write your resume, and how to prepare for your interview, so you get your dream job from the first try.
Price: 50 EUR
Duration: 1.5 hours
Rating: 4.5/5
3. Customer Success | How To Actively Engage Your Customers
Though anyone can enroll in this course, we think it is better suited for those of you who already have experience in this field and want to learn new engagement techniques that they might not have thought about before.
By the end of this training, you will be able to separate customers, customer insight, personas, propositions, and customer journey mapping. Also, you will try new tools that can help you improve your company’s customer engagement.
Price: 35 EUR
Duration: 1.5 hours
Rating: 4.4/5
4. Customer Success | How To Listen To Today’s Customers
This course is aimed specifically at those who want to leverage the power of social media to improve their customers’ experience.
Not only will you learn how to listen to your customers (by making sense of all the data you can gather), but, by the end of the course, you’ll also be able to create a winning social media strategy for your company.
Price: 35 EUR
Duration: 1 hour
Rating: 4.7/5
5. Customer | How To Manage Customer Feedback
Knowing how to ask for and gather feedback is one of the most important skills a Customer Success Manager should master.
Once you complete this training, you will be able to identify gaps in your service and come up with solutions to fill them and create a strategy to proactively manage complaints before they arrive.
And the best part? This course is completely free.
Price: FREE
Duration: 38 minutes
Rating: 4.2/5
6. Sales: Customer Success
If you already have previous customer success experience, this course will help you deepen your knowledge.
By the end of this training, you’ll be able to scale your company’s customer success strategy and align customer success with the other departments in your organization.
Price: Free if you have a LinkedIn Learning Subscription
Duration: 1 hour
7. Inbound Service Fundamentals, Hubspot Academy
If you’re not sure whether a career in customer success is the right choice for you, this program will help you find out.
The course is free and it only takes one hour to complete, so this is the perfect chance to get your feet wet with customer success before committing to an in-depth certification program.
Price: FREE
Duration: 1 hour
8. Cisco Customer Success Manager (DTCSM) V2.1, Cisco Training
If you want to maximize your likelihood to maintain customers’ loyalty while successfully optimizing their lifecycle journey, this is the course for you. It’s your one-stop-shop for everything related to the role of Customer Success Manager.
Using real-life use cases and case studies, this is the perfect crash-course if you want to gain more confidence in fulfilling your role’s core tasks to the max.
Associated Certification: Cisco Customer Success Manager
Price: $800.00
Duration: Equivalent of 3 days in the classroom
9. Transition To Customer Success
PracticalCSM.com offers a range of CS training courses including this unique and very practical offering that helps prepare students for finding their first (or their next) job in Customer Success Management.
This course is Ideal for anyone who is considering applying for a CSM job whether it’s their first or role in CS or whether they are moving upwards or sideways into a new CS role from their current one.
The Transition to Customer Success course includes sections on how to audit your personal qualities, how to prepare your résumé and cover letter, how to use Social Media to your advantage, how to find the best advertised positions, how to apply and what to do at interview. It also includes templates for your résumé and cover letter, video “insider interviews” with both a Hiring Manager and a Recruitment Consultant and practice interview questions.
Price: $379
Duration: Around 8 to 12 hours
Certifications
“CSM qualifications signal to a potential employer that a candidate has training in many of the analytics and dashboards that are now used to leverage user data and get to know customers and their needs better.
They also give employers confidence in your ability to handle every aspect of customer success and relationship-building. CSM certifications let employers know that you can manage a portfolio, onboard new prospects, audit and improve processes, work on and lead cross-functional teams, and make use of tried and tested dispute resolution and diplomacy tactics to address customer issues and ultimately serve as the face of the business.”
Rolf Bax – Chief HR Officer, Resume.io
10. Customer Success Manager (CSM) Certification, SuccessTRAINING
SuccessTRAINING is a training and certification program powered by SuccessHACKER. Unlike other certifications on the market where you pay a one-time fee, they offer access to training modules on a monthly or annual basis.
Also, you can choose whether you want to enroll in the course alone or as a team. This can be a major benefit for companies because everyone can grow together, instead of one person having all the knowledge.
Price: starting from $49/month
Duration: on going
11. Customer Success Manager (CSM) Certification Program, The Success League
This is a very thorough program. According to The Success League, by the end of the course, you will learn “everything there is to know about customer success”.
Unlike SuccessTRAINING’s course, which is updated on demand, The Success Leagues’ program resembles a college course and takes 4 months to complete.
Price: from $175
Duration: up to 16 classes
12. Graduate Certificate In Customer Success Management
Another program that follows the college course structure is the Graduate Certificate in Customer Success Management by RMIT Online. The course takes 12 months to complete (but you can also opt for an accelerated growth version of 6 months) and it covers the latest approaches in marketing, technology, leadership, analytics, sales, and business strategy
Price: $13,680
Duration: 1 year (6 months accelerated)
13. Managing Difficult Customers, International Customer Management Institute (ICMI)
Everyone has encountered a difficult customer at least once in their career. This program is different from others because it focuses on customers who are unhappy with your business.
Knowing how to deal with them so the situation doesn’t escalate is an invaluable skill, because, at the end of the day, the customer is not always right. By the end of this program, you will know how to handle three different types of unsatisfied customers by using five specific techniques for handling demanding or stressful customers without impeding the customer’s goals and risking potential churn.
Price: $800
Duration: 1 day
14. Customer Success Executives Coaching, CSM Bootcamp
This Bootcamp is not for those who are new to the field of customer success. Instead, it’s a coaching opportunity for those who already have a customer success program in place and want to either diagnose problems or take their departments to the next level in terms of best practices.
Price: custom
Duration: custom
15. CS Mastermind
This is another subscription-based ongoing professional development program. So if you’re looking for continuous development and not just a one-time training, this program is for you.
Price: starting from $75/month
Duration: ongoing
16. Customer Success Foundations, Aspireship
This course is designed to teach you, and have you practice and apply the foundational skills to land and succeed in a new role as a Customer Success Manager at a tech company. Upon graduating, there are jobs presented to you if you are on the market.
Total training time: 20 hours of on-demand customer success training course designed for the SaaS industry by customer success trainer and veteran CS leader, Brian Raboin! Plus elective live and on-demand content to keep your skills up to date. Complete two assessments that test your knowledge and customer success skills. Upon passing, receive an industry recognized certificate and access to the Aspireship Talent Network with direct to hire job matching!
The Customer Success Foundations curriculum covers topics such as: Customer lifecycle, onboarding, proactive engagement, running business reviews, how to become a top performer and more.
Price: $180
Duration: 20 hours, self-paced and on-demand
Associated Certification: Customer Success Foundations
17. Customer Success Training By TriTuns
This customer success training covers the operational and tactical practices and skills required to be effective in multiple customer success roles.
It’s a great option for those who prefer more flexibility, because the program can be custom-tailored to fit their needs.
Price: $75/month
Duration: ongoing
18. Salesforce Customer Success Strategies
This could very well be included in the list of training courses, yet the weight of the Salesforce brand carries a lot of leverage for potential employees. Even though the Salesforce Trailhead approach to training is very confusing since they focus 90% of their modules around their own products.
However, this module is packed with relevant concepts and by learning about customer success, you’re well-equipped for the job of a customer success manager. But still, the only real certification that you get is being able to add the “Salesforce Trailhead” to your resume.
Price: Free
Duration: 45 minutes/module, entire business growth course is about 7 hours long
19. Pragmatic Institute Courses & Certifications
The Pragmatic Institute offers a very limited but in-depth and exhaustive range of courses and certifications on product management, product marketing, and data science. Customer success has to do with all of the above and more.
However, since as we’ve seen above, there is yet to be a standard by which to measure customer success certifications. And, as such, most managers put more value on big names such as the Pragmatic Institute.
Price: $1195 per course
Duration: 7 hours per course
I appreciate customer-centric certifications such as Pragmatic Marketing or a Salesforce Trailhead course completion that shows me, as a potential employer, they have dedicated their time to developing professionally.
David Ciccarelli – CEO, Voices.com
20. Project Management Institute Courses & Certifications
By far the most prestigious of institutes on this list, the Project Management Institute literally wrote the book on business. Most of the business world today would be entirely different and maybe worse off without the concepts put forth by the Project Management Institute.
If you want to start at the very beginning of everything related to customer success, we’d recommend going and taking a look at the PMI website. Most of their courses and certifications focus exclusively on project management. However, these certifications are internationally recognized as the standard for project management and are a brilliant starting point for moving into the customer success field.
Price: varies greatly depending on the course
Duration: 5-7 modules per course (duration unspecified)
Summing Up
There are the best courses you can take to become better at customer success and improve your skills in project management overall, while also boosting your prospects for future interviews.
The range of customer success courses is impressive and any new CSM will gain a lot of value from most.
However, for certifications, it’s slightly more difficult to say what the most important one is. While most of the people we’ve surveyed mentioned “SuccessTRAINING”, they’re not actually certified by any standards body, and as such are only good because people say they’re good. So it’s up to everyone to decide exactly how important it is to be certified as a CSM.
