15 Best Customer Success Courses and Certifications in 2024

15 Best Customer Success Courses and Certifications in 2024

Are you a customer success manager looking for courses to upskill and climb up the career ladder? We got you covered. Read on to discover some of the best training and certification programs in the industry.

1. CSM Practice – Customer Success Workshop

• Duration: 1 day
• Location: Online
• Price: Custom pricing

More than just a training program, the Customer Success Workshop is a full-service meant to help you revamp your current customer success processes to fit your business goals.

It fits as a training program because it includes multiple leadership sessions and coaching for your staff on implementing, using, and improving customer success systems.

Besides coaching, the workshop helps you implement:

• Risk and expansion playbooks.
• Customer health score.
• Customer journey map & success milestones.
• Value-based playbooks and success plans.
• Cross-functional communication with sales, marketing, operations, and product team members.
• Customer Success platforms and operations.

Who is this for?

This program is designed for more enterprise companies trying to get personalized training while enhancing their customer success systems.

2. Udemy – Customer Success Manager: Fundamentals to your CSM career

• Duration: 2 hours of video content
• Location: Online
• Price: $49.99

Gustavo Escobar has a short but practical Udemy course on customer success fundamentals and how to develop a career in this space.

The content on customer success is basic, mostly focused on the CSM’s responsibilities and finding a job.

Here’s what it covers:

• The basics of customer success and its terminologies.
• The day-to-day tasks of a CSM and the required skills.
• The “keys” to becoming a successful CSM.
• How to create an ideal customer profile and reduce the success gap.
• How to find CSM jobs on AngelList and LinkedIn.

Who is this for?

This course is not for CSMs with experience. It’s meant for beginners and people who want to start a career in customer success.

3. International Customer Management Institute (ICMI)- Managing difficult customers

• Duration: 1 day
• Location: Online
• Price: Varies

Although this course is not directly about customer success, we think every CSM should learn how to deal with difficult customers.

This ICMI training is a simple course on managing stubborn customers, offering multiple strategies and techniques to negotiate, proactively manage complaints, and take care of complicated issues. So the problem doesn’t escalate.

The course will teach you:

• What are the three difficult customer types, and how to handle them?
• How to listen, ask good questions, empathize, apologize, control the call, and provide effective solutions.
• Five techniques for negotiating, saying “no,” educating customers, and helping them.
• How to make customers less likely to escalate.
• How to handle stress on both you and your customers.

Who is this for?

This course is mostly for support agents and experienced CSMs who spend a lot of their time dealing with customers on the phone.

4. Practical CMS – How to Get a Job in Customer Success Course

• Duration: 2 hours
• Location: Online
• Price: $83

The Practical CMS course on how to get a job in customer success is exactly what it suggests. A course mainly focused on finding your first role as a CSM.

This course assumes that you already have some training in customer success, as its content is purely about preparing your resume, hunting for jobs, and nailing interviews. It specifically covers:

• How to prepare yourself with the required knowledge and skills, set up your social profiles, and proactive job hunting.
• How to apply for positions, create your resume and write cover letters.
• What to do in an expert interview with a recruiter or customer success leader.

Who is this for?

The page clarifies that this course is for “people who have the necessary expertise to be able to perform the role of Customer Success Manager” but “do not have previous experience they can add on their résumé as evidence.”

5. Cisco – Customer Success Manager Specialist

• Duration: Equivalent to 3 days in the classroom
• Platform: Either online or in-person
• Price: $800

Cisco’s customer success manager certification is a formal course you can take online, attend with an instructor, or even arrange private group training to take the course at your office.

According to their page, the goal of the course is to give you the competence to fulfill the CSM role with “experiential learning,” offering interactive exercises based on real-life scenarios, case studies, and so on.

However, this is what the course outline includes:

• Introduction to the subscription economy.
• Increasing the company’s customer engagement.
• Customer success management common tasks.

Who is this for?

Considering the length of the course, it simply covers the basics. And its price might only be a good investment for a beginner if your resume needs a certification.

It could also be a good option for a company that needs to train new CSMs for its team.

6. The Success League – Customer Success Certification

• Duration: 15 classes
• Location: Online
• Price: $1,795

The customer success certification by The Success League is not an online course you can binge-watch, gamble on the test, and get your certificate.

Here, you follow 15-hour-long classes that cover many areas of your role as a customer success manager. The classes are live webinars led by a CS expert where each student must have their camera on, interact, ask questions, and collaborate.

The 15 classes cover:

• Customer goals and outcomes.
• Strategy and success planning.
• Account planning.
• Executive business reviews.
• Renewals and churn.
• Customer advocacy.
• Time and portfolio management.
• And more.

Who is this for?

The extensive content of this course makes it appropriate for both beginners and experienced CSMs who are already in the trenches but are still feeling lost in their job.

It’s also a good investment for companies to train new CSMs for more specialized, strategic work.

7. SuccessCoaching – customer success manager certification

• Duration: from 570 to 3600+ minutes of video
• Location: Online
• Price: from $9 to $49 per month

SuccessCoaching’s certification gives you access to a huge course library, where you can learn in-demand skills for customer success.

It provides multiple resources such as templates, checklists, guides, real-world examples, and more. Plus, each certification level is tied to a specific pricing plan:

• Launch (Level 1). Which is the cheapest plan and covers the essential practices of customer success management.
• Growth (Level 2). To learn the advanced tactics used in the field.
• Strategic (Level 3). About how to take a strategic approach to Customer Success.
• All-access (Level 1-5). Includes all the previous content plus level 4 and 5 certifications.

Who is this for?

Given the massive content, SuccessCoaching certifications are a great option for beginners and advanced CSMs who want to stay up-to-date with customer success knowledge.

8. RMIT Online training programs – Graduate Certificate in Customer Success Management

• Duration: 12 months
• Location: Australia
• Price: $3,480 per course ($13,920 for all 4 courses)

RMIT’s graduate certificate in customer success management is a full formal education program for which you can only apply as an Australian or with an Australian student visa.

Although this course is fully in-person and expensive, it’s the only way to get customer success education in the traditional way. If that’s what you’re looking for.

As for its content, the course includes:

• Customer value strategies.
• How to leverage customer data.
• Track, predict, and optimize customer behavior.
• How to increase customer loyalty and longevity.
• Customer mapping techniques.
• Communication strategies and stakeholder management.
• Customer discovery and analysis tools.
• Customer experience design.

Who is this for?

If you’re looking for a great and fast learning experience, there are better options online.

On the other hand, taking this course can be a good idea if you can afford the cost, as it’s also a good opportunity for networking and getting a fully formal certification for your resume.

9.Monday.com University – Free Certification Program in Customer Success

• Duration: 7 weeks
• Location: Online
• Price: Free but limited to 40 students

Monday’s free certification program is a free but limited course designed for aspiring CSMs with the opportunity to get their first job at Monday.com.

You get two classes per week (on Tuesdays and Fridays) with a total of 55 hours across the seven weeks, after which you get a certification (given that you attend at least 80% of the sessions and complete the assignments).

The course covers:

• The principles of the customer journey.
• Analyze data and find customer insight.
• Prepare yourself to meet a customer and engage them.
• Onboard customers, handle objections and understand product features.
• Create quarterly reviews for clients to engage and make customers stick with you.
• Everything you need to know to get a job in the field.

Who is this for?

This course is perfect for beginners who want to get a chance to work at Monday.com while also learning the fundamentals of customer success.

10. Userpilot Product Adoption School

• Duration: 5 weeks
• Location: Your inbox
• Price: Free

Userpilot’s Product Adoption School is a simple course with five valuable lessons delivered to your work email every week.

You’ll learn our framework for creating an onboarding experience that leads users to adopt your product successfully.

We’ll teach you:

• The building blocks of a successful user onboarding process.
• Customer journey mapping, from “Aha!” to activation to complete adoption.
• Detecting dropouts in the user journey and hypothesizing effective solutions.
• Choosing & building the right product experiences for your onboarding.

Who is this for?

Any beginner and expert CSM can find value from this for free. So there’s really no wasted investment in the process.

11. Hubspot Academy Inbound Service Fundamentals

• Duration: 1 hour
• Location: Online
• Price: Free

Hubspot Academy has plenty of resources for a lot of areas, including customer service training.

This particular course is a one-hour course covering the fundamentals of engaging customers and proactively guiding them across the user journey. And it includes:

• How to develop a customer journey map for different industries.
• How to engage the modern customer.
• Using content to guide users to success.
• Getting promoters to grow your business.

Who is this for?

Since this course is free and lasts one hour, anyone relatively new to the field can find value in it.

12. SuccessHACKER – Customer Success Essentials

Duration: 4 weeks
Location: Online
Price: $1,595

SuccessHACKER’s Customer Success Essentials course is a live, instructor-led program that goes deep into key customer success concepts. It focuses on practical applications and is ideal for CSMs who want a structured program to enhance their skills. The course includes hands-on exercises, case studies, and a community forum for continued learning and networking.

Who is this for?

Ideal for new and mid-level CSMs looking to upskill in their roles and master customer success strategies.

13. Gainsight – Pulse Academy CSM

Duration: 8 hours
Location: Online
Price: $799

The Pulse Academy CSM course by Gainsight is a self-paced course that covers all the essential skills required for a customer success manager. The course includes modules on onboarding, driving adoption, and managing renewals. It’s designed to provide a solid foundation in customer success with real-world examples and scenarios.

Who is this for?

This course is ideal for beginner and intermediate CSMs who want to learn the foundational aspects of the role.

14. MIT Sloan Executive Education – Customer Success: Managing Customer Engagement

Duration: 6 weeks
Location: Online
Price: $2,800

This advanced course offered by MIT Sloan Executive Education is designed to help CSMs and senior executives understand how to create and manage a customer engagement strategy. It covers customer segmentation, data-driven decision-making, and how to create a culture of customer-centricity within an organization.

Who is this for?

Experienced customer success professionals and senior leaders looking to implement customer success at a strategic level.

These additions will provide a diverse range of options for different skill levels and professional needs within the customer success field.

15. Reforge – Customer Success Strategy

Duration: 6 weeks
Location: Online
Price: $3,500

Reforge’s Customer Success Strategy course is a high-level program aimed at senior CSMs and executives. The course emphasizes designing a scalable customer success strategy, leveraging data for decision-making, and managing large customer portfolios. It includes mentorship sessions, interactive workshops, and access to a peer community for networking.

Who is this for?
Senior CSMs and executives who are responsible for defining and scaling customer success strategies in their organizations.

This addition provides even more variety for different levels and focuses within the customer success field.

Conclusion

There are courses for almost anyone. Some are more formal, while others are focused on giving you content.

What’s important is that you can develop the skills needed to do a better job as a CSM.

However, you must complement those skills with the right tools. So why not try a Userpilot demo to apply your new skills without coding?