Run customer success software competitor research as a checklist

What to take away

Decide at the start whether the file compares products, market positioning, or both, because each choice needs different evidence.
Build the comparison from public documents, pricing pages and recruitment adverts rather than demos nobody booked.
Score rivals against the questions buyers raise in the first call, not against a feature matrix.
Review the file every quarter and delete anything you cannot still source.

Nine-point checklist

Set the decisioncompare products, market positioning or both, and state what action the research will inform.
Define the buyer, use case and buying trigger before choosing vendors.
Build a direct-rival shortlist from buyer shortlists and win-loss notes; validate candidates against the vendors buyers actually name.
Record adjacent tools sharing the same budget and manual workarounds separately from direct rivals.
Gather current public evidenceCompanies House filings, product documentation and changelogs, pricing pages, case studies, relevant recruitment adverts, and the latest ONS business population estimates for market context.
Compare customer-success capabilities such as health scoring, success plans, playbooks, renewal forecasting, churn prediction, onboarding and CRM or customer-success integrations. Record the documented claim and the buyer need it addresses.
For pricing-page changes, record the date, previous and new structure, listed entry price or feature changes, billing basis, term, minimum seats and included features.
Check claims about customer data, retention and automated decisions against ICO guidance, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Apply the weighted scoring rubric, save evidence for each score, assign a reviewer and review the file quarterly or when buyer conversations name a new rival.

Set the comparison's purpose before you collect anything

Competitor research stalls when it begins with a feature spreadsheet. Decide first what your team will do differently once the file is finished, such as repricing, repositioning a demo, or arming sales with a rebuttal.

Three-Part Starting Scope

Shortlist rivals

What they are: Met on shortlists
Examples: Direct vendors
Keep it: Yes

Adjacent tools

What they are: Share budget line
Examples: Other categories
Keep it: Short

Manual workarounds

What they are: Buyers mention them
Examples: Spreadsheets, scripts
Keep it: Short

A useful starting scope has three parts: rivals you meet on shortlists, adjacent tools sharing the same budget line, and manual workarounds buyers mention. That third group includes spreadsheets and in-house scripts.

For dedicated customer success software, validate a shortlist such as Gainsight, ChurnZero, Totango, Planhat, Vitally, ClientSuccess and Custify against the vendors buyers name in calls. Include Intercom as an adjacent option only when it appears in the same buying process; keep Dotdigital and Ometria in adjacent budget comparisons, not as substitutes for a dedicated customer success platform.

Write down the buyer roles, use case and buying trigger before comparing vendors. This keeps the shortlist tied to the audience you serve rather than the other way round.

Collect evidence sales can quote

Public records beat sales gossip. Companies House filings show how a rival's revenue base is changing, while product documentation and changelogs show what they have actually shipped.

For a sector-specific evidence row, take Gainsight and check its product documentation for a claim about customer health scoring. Record the exact wording, page title, URL and date captured, then score only what that evidence demonstrates.

For market context, use the latest ONS business population estimates rather than the business population estimates for 2015, which is a dated baseline for how many UK businesses existed then. That helps when a claim about the market turns out to cover a much smaller segment.

Some rivals sell automated retention or scoring. Test those claims against ICO guidance on data protection principles, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. For retention claims, check the storage limitation principle; for automated-decision claims, check the relevant UK GDPR requirements.

Budget lines also overlap. HubSpot positions its AI prospecting agent for sales teams in sales, not customer success. Record that overlap when your own buyer already pays for a sales suite.

Score every rival against real buying questions

Work through these checks in order and record a source for each answer. Score each check from 1 to 5, where 1 means no evidence, 3 means partial evidence, and 5 means documented and current. Apply the weights below.

Score every rival

Check	Weight	Score 1 to 5	Worked example
Which two questions does this rival answer better than us, and in which call do they come up?	25%	1 = no evidence, 5 = documented in call notes	Dotdigital: compare its public product pages to the questions buyers ask.
What does their pricing page oblige a buyer to commit to, and at what term?	20%	1 = no public term, 5 = clear term on pricing page	Ometria: check its pricing page for minimum term and tier limits.
Which customer segments do their case studies name, and are those segments our segments?	20%	1 = no segment, 5 = segment matches ours	Dotdigital: check whether its case studies name your segment.
What do their job adverts say about roadmap priorities over the next year?	15%	1 = no adverts, 5 = repeated priority across adverts	Ometria: check its job adverts for repeated priorities.
Which claims would not survive a compliance review?	20%	1 = no risk, 5 = clear risk	Dotdigital: flag claims about automated decisions or retention periods.

The customer success software buyer personas help you weight those answers, because a claim that persuades a support director may carry no weight with a finance approver.

What to record when a rival changes their pricing page

Capture the date, the previous structure and the new one, including whether the change moved entry pricing up or a feature down. Record the billing basis, term, minimum seats, included features and exclusions exactly as stated, and distinguish list prices from quote-only pricing without inferring a total cost. A move like that usually signals where the vendor wants to grow, and it is the detail sales most often needs.

Which claims need a compliance check

Flag claims about automated decisions, retention periods or data sharing. Record the exact claim and check it against the ICO guidance, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Public guidance can help test a claim without contacting the vendor, and a flagged claim is useful even when it turns out to be accurate.

Set the quarterly review cadence

Trigger	Owner	Action
Quarter end	Named reviewer	Check pricing pages and case studies, then update scores.
Recorded call names a rival	Product marketer or customer success lead	Add the claim, source and date to the file.
Row unused for two quarters	Named reviewer	Delete the row.

Glossary

Shortlist rivala vendor your buyers actually evaluate against you.
Adjacent toolsoftware from another category that competes for the same budget.
Evidence rowone documented claim with its source and the date you found it. Example: claim "12 month minimum term", source "public pricing page", captured "14 January 2026".
Rebuttal linea sentence sales can use when a rival claim comes up. Example: "Their 12 month term locks your budget, while our monthly plan lets you review at each renewal."

Common questions

How many rivals should the file cover?

Five to eight is workable for most teams. Beyond that, evidence quality falls and the file stops being read before renewals.

Who should own competitor research?

Assign it to whoever already reads win-loss notes, usually a product marketer or a customer success lead, and give them a named reviewer.

How often should pricing pages be checked?

Quarterly at minimum, and immediately after any change to your own packaging. Pricing pages move without announcement.