How Our Customer Success Team Uses a CRM

One of our go-to customer success tips? Don’t wait for the churn email—catch the early signs before things go sideways.

Sometimes it's obvious (missed meetings, unhappy feedback), but most of the time? It’s subtle. A slower reply. A vague tone. Less activity than usual. That’s why we added custom fields in Copper like Sentiment and Reason for Risk. They're simple, flexible, and let our team log those gut-check moments that might not show up in usage data.

We also lean on Status fields to see where every customer is in their journey—like onboarding, adoption, or renewal. It’s a small detail that makes a huge difference when it comes to showing up with the right message at the right time.

And because Copper lets you build your own filters, we can quickly surface who needs a check-in, who’s gone quiet, or who’s flying high and ready for more. It keeps our focus sharp and our follow-up meaningful.

These features may sound small, but trust us — they’re some of the most powerful customer success tools in our stack.

Most CS teams are familiar with Zendesk — it's a leading customer support ticketing solution that gives you immediate insight into both outstanding and resolved customer service issues.

The good news for us is that we don’t need to deploy and use Zendesk as an independent ticketing software. The dynamic two-way integration between Zendesk and Copper allows our CS team to access a complete view of interactions that a customer or lead has had with the business.

For example, Copper’s native Zendesk integration allows us to have conversations that are more meaningful, relevant, and productive. Any of us can view new, pending, on hold, solved, closed, and open tickets associated with a customer or lead in the “related” section of their CRM record.

This holistic view of support information gives us the power to prioritize customer feedback and collaborate with internal teams to fulfill customer expectations.

As a result, our Customer Success managers or support team can handle any issues directly with the customer, prioritize their concerns, and assure them of software upgrades, bug fixes, and issues solved.

Every strong customer success strategy relies on good communication behind the scenes. When your whole team is in sync, your customers feel it.

That’s why we lean on Copper’s built-in collaboration tools every single day. We use @-mentions to loop teammates into updates or decisions, we leave detailed activity notes so everyone has the full story, and we track interactions across email, meetings, and calls to keep everything in one place.

The @-mention feature is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to make sure that a team member is looped into the right conversations. That’s why we use them dozens of times a day.

You can @ any of your team members on an activity, which then sends them a notification however they choose to receive them: via the Copper app on desktop and on mobile.

For example, we look at up-to-the-minute insights that show the real-time status of a customer’s account, as well as what our team members have talked about with them in the past.

No one is guessing what was said, promised, or delivered. We all see the same picture — and that shared context makes a huge difference in delivering thoughtful, consistent customer care.

If you’re building a CS team, don’t underestimate the power of real-time collaboration. It’s one of the simplest, most effective customer success tips we can share.

Messy handoffs are the fastest way to lose momentum — and possibly your customer. You’ve got the tools, you’ve got the team… but somehow, things still fall through the cracks. Sound familiar?

That’s why one of our top customer success tips is to build structure that doesn’t slow you down. At Copper, we’ve made it ridiculously easy to pass the baton from Sales to Customer Success without dropping the ball — or scrambling for context.

As soon as a deal is marked “Closed Won,” CS gets the full backstory, neatly logged using custom fields and activity types. That means goals, blockers, must-haves, red flags — it’s all there, ready to go. No digging through Slack threads. No awkward “so what exactly did we promise them?” meetings.

And here’s where things get even better: Copper lets you build your own fields across everything: Leads, People, Companies, Opportunities, Projects, Tasks. We’re talking:

• Dropdowns (single + multi-select)

• Tags

• Text areas for notes or context

• Checkboxes

• Date fields

• Number fields

• Currency, URLs, percentages—you name it

With the right fields in place, our team knows exactly what stage a customer is in, what they care about, and what they need next. Pair that with custom filters and status updates, and you’ve got one of the most underrated customer success tools out there: clarity.

So if your current process feels more like a game of telephone than a customer journey, this is your sign. Structure the handoff, set your team up with the right info, and let your CRM do the heavy lifting. Your customers (and your sanity) will thank you.

Ask any CS team and they’ll tell you: onboarding can either set you up for long-term success—or send customers running before they’ve even hit their first milestone.

That’s why we treat onboarding like a VIP experience. At Copper, we’ve built a dedicated Onboarding Pipeline that walks every new customer through a consistent, high-touch process. From kickoff to setup to “You did it!”, every stage is tracked, assigned, and clear.

But here’s the best part — email automations do a lot of the heavy lifting for us. As customers move from one pipeline stage to the next, Copper automatically sends helpful, personalized messages based on where they are in their journey. No one falls through the cracks, and no one gets bombarded with irrelevant info.

New to the platform? You’ll get a welcome message and training resources. Halfway through onboarding? A check-in note pops in. Just wrapped setup? Here’s what to do next.

These smart automations paired with pipeline visibility are some of our favorite customer success tools. They free up our team’s time while making customers feel seen, supported, and in control.

If you’re looking for customer success tips that scale without sacrificing that human touch — automated onboarding emails are a game-changer. Trust us, your future self (and your customers) will thank you.

At the end of the day, the best customer success tools are the ones your team actually uses—and loves.

For us, Copper is more than a CRM. It’s the backbone of our customer success strategy. It helps us connect with customers in more meaningful ways, automate the things that slow us down, and stay ahead of issues before they happen.

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to level up your CS game, we hope these customer success tips give you some inspiration.

And if you’re ready to try a CRM built with real-life CS workflows in mind? Copper just might be your next best move. You can start your free 14-day trial today — and see what a more connected, streamlined customer success experience feels like.