customer retention : There isn’t one all-in-one customer retention tool that can instantly turn every buyer into a loyal, repeat customer. Retention depends on many factors—such as how enjoyable a customer’s website experience is or how effective your support team is—so it makes sense that improving it requires several different tools.

This guide walks you through six categories of tools, from experience analytics to loyalty programs, to help you choose the right customer retention solutions for your team.

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What is customer retention software?

Customer retention software refers to any tool designed to measure, track, and enhance your customer retention rate—that is, your ability to keep customers engaged with your store, product, or service over time.

Types of customer retention tools

Since boosting customer retention involves several steps, these tools come in a variety of forms. Each type addresses a different aspect of retention, including:

• Analytics and data tools to accurately track retention metrics and monitor them over time
• Automation platforms to integrate customer data from multiple sources and provide a unified view
• Customer experience (CX) insights to evaluate and improve website experience, and gather feedback through voice of customer (VoC) data
• Customer support tools to enhance service quality and measure its effect on retention
• Messaging platforms for sending emails, SMS, and push notifications to encourage customers to return
• CRM (customer relationship management) tools to manage multiple customer interactions in one place
• Loyalty programs that reward repeat purchases
• Personalization tools to customize content for individual customers

You don’t need to use every type of tool to see results. Begin by selecting two or three that best align with your company’s objectives and retention strategy.

1. TheSpinGage: track retention metrics and improve customer experience with feedback and user insight 

TheSpinGage helps businesses track retention metrics and gain actionable insights into customer behavior. By collecting feedback and analyzing user interactions, it enables companies to identify pain points, enhance the customer experience, and make data-driven decisions that foster loyalty and growth.

With TheSpinGage, understanding your customers becomes effortless. Its intuitive dashboards highlight trends, track engagement over time, and reveal opportunities to delight users. By turning feedback into actionable strategies, businesses can continuously refine their offerings and build stronger, long-lasting relationships.

How to leverage TheSpinGage for better customer retention

To leverage TheSpinGage for better customer retention, start by consistently tracking key retention metrics such as churn rate, repeat usage, and engagement frequency. Use the platform to collect and analyze customer feedback, identifying pain points and areas for improvement. Segment users based on behavior and satisfaction scores to deliver personalized experiences, targeted offers, or proactive support. Regularly review insights from TheSpinGage to refine your products, services, and communication strategies, ensuring customers feel heard, valued, and more likely to stay loyal.

2. Zendesk: deliver better customer service

What it is: Zendesk is customer service software and sales CRM to deliver and optimize live customer chat and help documentation.

A customer conversation in Zendesk’s admin dashboard (source)

Why you need it: customer service is a big part of customer experience; optimize it to ensure your customers can find helpful information on their own, get timely answers from support staff, and are satisfied with the help they receive.

How to use Zendesk to improve customer retention: 

• Deliver customer service via a pop-up chat window
• Set up a Zendesk Answer Bot to help customers self-service common issues (like how to initiate a refund or what shipping options are available)
• Enable satisfaction ratings and monitor if customers are happy with the support they received

3. ActiveCampaign: send personalized messages to entice customers back

What it is: ActiveCampaign is a customer experience automation platform with email and SMS messaging, a landing page builder, engagement tracking, and CRM.

Why you need it: messaging customers by email, SMS, or push notification is an effective (and affordable) way to increase customer retention by encouraging people to come back with coupons, offers, or recommendations for future purchases. 

How to use ActiveCampaign to improve customer retention: 

• Trigger personalized emails for different stages of the customer journey 
• Use pre-built automations to send discounts and win back disengaged customers
• Segment messages based on when customers last purchased from you
• Track message engagement to measure customer retention efforts
• Integrate with other apps, like Aimtell for sending push notifications

4. HubSpot: manage email, support, and customer data in one place

What it is: HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform for customer support, sales, and marketing teams. 

Managing customer service emails in HubSpot (source)

Why you need it: CRM software is designed to help you track, optimize, and personalize the customer experience, so you can create more satisfied customers and achieve more repeat purchases. 

How to use HubSpot to improve customer retention: 

• Target existing customers with personalized marketing campaigns
• Offer and monitor self-service, live chats, and email support to improve customer service
• Send customer feedback surveys to track satisfaction and customer loyalty

5. Yotpo (formerly Swell): incentivize customer loyalty with rewards

What it is: Yotpo is an ecommerce marketing platform that collects customer reviews, sends SMS messages, and builds customized rewards and loyalty programs. 

Yotpo’s loyalty performance dashboard (source)

Why you need it: customer loyalty programs can incentivize shoppers to stay with your brand, even if your competitors offer similar products. 

How to use Yotpo to improve customer retention: 

• Build and launch a customer loyalty program using drag-and-drop design tools
• Segment and target customers with tailored SMS, MMS, and email messages
• Track loyalty program success with performance dashboards
• Use machine learning to predict the likelihood of repeat purchases

6. Zapier: connect and automate your retention stack

What it is: Zapier is a workflow automation and app connection platform for linking tools together without coding.

An example of an automation—or Zap—created using Zapier (source)

Why you need it: since improving customer retention involves several different tools, connecting and automatically sending data between them will save you time, keep you organized, and avoid user error.

How to use Zapier to improve customer retention: 

• Connect any of your customer retention stack to automate actions, receive alerts, and compile data in your preferred tools, for example:
  • Send new Contentsquare Survey responses to Google Sheets to analyze them
  • Add customers to ActiveCampaign automations when they are charged on Stripe
  • Send Giftbit rewards for new contact property changes in HubSpot

Have you ever wondered why some of your customers come back — while others vanish forever?

In a world where acquiring new customers is increasingly expensive, the real secret to sustainable growth lies in retention — keeping your existing users engaged, loyal, and doing business with you over and over again. The research shows that retention is not governed by chance: it’s shaped by how deeply you understand your customers’ behavior, where friction exists in their journey, and how proactively you respond to their needs. Tools like session replays, heatmaps, journey analysis, and real-time feedback aren’t just “nice-to-haves” — they’re essential signals that reveal what’s pushing people away or drawing them in. By putting those signals to work — identifying moments of frustration, personalizing every interaction, reducing effort, and rewarding loyalty — you convert one-time buyers into brand advocates. If you can turn each touchpoint — from onboarding to renewal — into a moment of delight rather than a potential drop-off, you’ll see your customer lifetime value soar and your churn rates shrink.

Let us help you uncover the hidden behaviors on your site, eliminate roadblocks, and craft an experience that keeps customers coming back.

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Choosing the right customer retention tools for your tech stack

We’ve linked to 20+ customer retention tools in this guide, and there are hundreds more you could choose from. Instead of succumbing to decision fatigue, we recommend starting with a platform we know works: Contentsquare. 

Seeing how customers use your website and collecting real customer feedback gives you ideas to improve customer retention, with the added side-benefit of improving conversion rates while you’re at it.