Customer intelligence platforms

Consumer data is everywhere. You can find it in the pages customers visit, the forms they fill out, their search history, their intent, and more. As a business, it’s up to you to turn that data into actionable insights.

According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024, 70 percent of organizations are actively investing in tools that capture and analyze customer intent signals. So, businesses that aren’t bolstering their customer data collection and analysis may fall behind in the marketplace.

Customer intelligence (CI)—and, by extension, customer intelligence software—helps businesses make sense of and use customer data to inform decisions. In this article, we detail the 10 best customer intelligence platforms, what software features you should look for, and how these solutions can contribute to a positive customer experience (CX).

More in this guide:

• What is a customer intelligence platform?
• Customer intelligence software comparison chart
• The 10 best customer intelligence software
• Features of customer intelligence platforms
• Benefits of customer intelligence software
• How to choose the right consumer insights tool
• Frequently asked questions
• Enhance your customer intelligence with Zendesk

A customer intelligence platform is a technology that collects, analyzes, and manages customer data. This data can come from various sources, including customer account information, purchase history, feedback, customer support interactions, and more. Organizations can use this information to better understand their customers and make more calculated business decisions.

Customer intelligence software can help businesses connect with their customers more effectively. With the right software, you can make sense of your customer behavior, optimize every consumer touchpoint, and launch more effective outreach campaigns—all while connecting with the right customers at the right time.

Below is a comparison chart of the top 10 customer intelligence options. It includes information on each software’s price, free trial length, and features.

Next, let’s jump into an extended overview of each software so you can select the best option for your organization.

1. Zendesk

Use case: customer service and customer experience

Zendesk offers award-winning customer service software that infuses customer intelligence into the entire customer experience. Our software boasts several features that help businesses of all sizes understand their customers better and use those insights to deliver faster, more personalized interactions.

Zendesk customer intelligence features include:

• 1,500+ apps and integrations: We offer plug-and-play apps and integrations to connect all your business systems so you can easily access and leverage data across your entire ecosystem.
• AI and automation: Our AI is built on billions of real customer interactions to help agents understand what customers want and how they feel before the interaction even starts.
• Omnichannel agent workspace: Your customers expect to connect with you over their chosen channels—whether that’s your website, social media, or email. Our omnichannel capabilities unify these conversations so agents have key customer context at their fingertips, regardless of where the interaction starts.
• Real-time insights: Zendesk ensures you have access to quality, up-to-date data. Our data insights can uncover valuable customer information in real time. You can also access your historical data to compare previous performance with present-day results.

Unlike other customer intelligence solutions, Zendesk is quick to set up and easy to use, so teams don’t need to rely on large developer teams or third parties to keep costs low.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• 1,500+ apps and integrations
• Agent workspace
• Routing and intelligence
• Chat and messaging

Pricing:

• Suite Team: $55 per agent/month
• Suite Growth: $89 per agent/month
• Suite Professional: $115 per agent/month
• Suite Enterprise: Talk to sales
• Suite Enterprise Plus: Talk to sales
  *Plans are billed annually.

Explore more Zendesk pricing plans.

Free trial:

Take 30 seconds to start a free Zendesk trial or request a Zendesk demo.

2. SAS Customer Intelligence 360

Use case: personalized marketing outreach

SAS Customer Intelligence 360 is a tool that specializes in multichannel marketing. The platform helps businesses sync their organizational and consumer data from sources like Google Cloud, Oracle, and Meta to establish a single view of how their customers behave.

SAS prioritizes three steps in its customer intelligence process. Its embedded customer data platform (CDP) helps organizations analyze real-time consumer information; journey creation assists with personalizing the customer journey; and data activation allows businesses to send relevant messages to consumers.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• Personalization capabilities

Pricing:

Contact SAS

Free trial:

Unavailable

3. Brandwatch

Use case: streamlining data analysis

Brandwatch is a consumer intelligence platform that helps companies gain insight into their customers’ social media activity. The product focuses on four main steps: search, segment, analyze, and act.

In addition to identifying insights, Brandwatch’s AI capabilities can automatically segment data from either search terms or images. Additionally, reporting features allow users to track, measure, and export their analysis.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• Analytics and reporting

Pricing:

Contact Brandwatch

Free trial:

Unavailable

4. Introhive

Use case: B2B client datasets

Introhive is a customer intelligence platform that focuses on helping businesses understand their client data. Specialized for businesses in the service industry, Introhive helps users uncover potential new prospects, companies, and relationships.

AI-powered research features help users organize and maintain data in their customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Businesses can then use that information to identify new outreach opportunities. Additionally, Introhive keeps track of customer relationship data to help businesses personalize their outreach and client communication.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Customer segmentation
• Data privacy and security
• Expanded client insights
• Automated performance reports

Pricing:

Contact Introhive

Free trial:

Unavailable

5. Suzy

Use case: AI-powered market research

Suzy is a consumer insights platform that uses artificial intelligence to track customer data. Its AI allows businesses to conduct and integrate research on qualitative and quantitative consumer information.

The Suzy Insights feature allows users to analyze data, create customer surveys, establish reporting and customer response templates, and more. Suzy Live takes the information gathered in Suzy Insights and expands on that data with one-on-one customer interviews, focus groups, and product testing capabilities.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• Customer meetings and focus groups
• A/B testing

Pricing:

Contact Suzy

Free trial:

Unavailable

6. Attest

Use case: conducting surveys and questionnaires

Attest focuses on the consumer research aspect of customer intelligence. Through surveys, questionnaires, and other forms of fact-finding, Attest utilizes a diverse range of consumers to help brands gain insights into customer preferences.

Survey capabilities allow users to ask single- or multiple-choice questions, formulate drafts, and translate them into different languages when needed. Analysis features assist with viewing, exporting, and gaining insights from the results.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• Survey creation
• Interactive results dashboard

Pricing:

Contact Attest

Free trial:

One free survey available

7. Intercom

Use case: cross-software integration

Intercom is a customer data platform that helps businesses gather consumer behavior insights from their website, social media, and more. The product offers integration capabilities so organizations can sync their customer data with the internal tools they use most.

To simplify, Intercom focuses on four areas of customer data: company, behavioral, conversation, and custom data. Additionally, the product can assist in targeting specific customer segments and sending them personalized messaging.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Data privacy and security
• Custom or pre-built reports
• Customer prioritization

Pricing:

• Essential: $39 per seat/month
• Advanced: $99 per seat/month
• Expert: $139 per seat/month

Free trial:

14 days

8. Audiense

Use case: social media data analysis

Audiense is an audience intelligence tool that gathers cultural insights and consumer segmentation information, mainly from social media. The solution gathers this data and automatically integrates it into your organization’s tech stack.

The platform focuses on three main data collections when conducting audience intelligence: social, digital, and demand. Social data is consumer behavior on social media, digital information is consumer behavior from digital sources beyond social channels, and demand turns data and social signals into insights on customer preferences.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Dedicated account manager

Pricing:

• Social Intelligence: £6,672 per year
• Digital Intelligence: Contact Audiense
• Demand Intelligence: Contact Audiense

Free trial:

Available

9. Qualtrics XM

Use case: identifying customer sentiment at scale

Qualtrics XM helps businesses collect customer experience data. The product identifies consumer conversations on Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and more through natural language understanding (NLU) models.

These models help identify the sentiment, intent, and emotions behind customer comments so businesses can get an idea of how their consumers feel about their business at scale. Additionally, automated workflow capabilities can help identify areas to improve the customer and employee experience.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• Customer feedback tracking
• Customer and employee experience management

Pricing:

Contact Qualtrics XM

Free trial:

Unavailable

10. Sprinklr

Use case: social media marketing

Sprinklr is a customer experience management platform that prioritizes eliminating internal data silos so employees can deliver a consistent customer experience. The platform features four main areas of focus: Sprinklr Insights, Sprinklr Service, Sprinklr Marketing, and Sprinklr Social.

Businesses can use these subcategories to monitor customer sentiment across social media pages and link that information to their internal software systems. From there, they can use that data to create outreach strategies.

Features:

• Omnichannel analytics
• AI and automation
• Open and flexible platform
• Real-time analytics and insights
• Customer segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Data privacy and security
• Ticketing and skill-based routing
• Knowledge base
• APIs and webhooks

Pricing:

• Advanced: $299 per seat/month
• Enterprise: Contact Sprinklr
  *Plans are billed annually

Free trial:

30 days

Customer intelligence platforms come with a wealth of features that can help your business. Here are some of the most important tools to look for in a new solution.

AI and automation

According to our CX Trends Report 2024, 70 percent of CX leaders believe that automation (like AI chatbots) is becoming a skilled architect of highly personalized customer journeys. AI-driven features can revolutionize—and speed up—the customer intelligence process by automatically sifting through customer data and interactions to identify patterns and trends and predict future behaviors.

Analytics and reporting

Analytics and reporting features allow businesses to generate detailed reports, track performance metrics, and identify the most effective outreach and customer communication strategies. These insights propel informed decision-making, helping businesses to optimize their customer experience and stay ahead of marketplace trends and consumer expectations.

Comprehensive customer view

Quality CI platforms can connect seamlessly with your business systems to compile customer data and form a 360-degree customer view. This view gives you valuable insights that allow you to create proactive and personalized customer interactions at every turn. It also enables you to perfect your customer journey map and outreach strategies to deliver a fantastic CX.

Feedback capabilities

Successful businesses regularly gather consumer feedback to help identify any product or process inefficiencies. This means the more intelligence-gathering capabilities a CI software has, the better. Feedback tools and resources like customer surveys, customer reviews, and more help businesses perfect their customer experience.

Customer intelligence platforms offer businesses numerous benefits. Below are some of the most impactful ones.

Improved customer retention and loyalty

CI platforms are key in establishing lasting consumer relationships. By analyzing data on past consumer interactions, preferences, and behaviors, businesses can tailor their offerings to meet customer needs—this is a major component of what it means to be customer first. When businesses execute a customer-first approach, increased customer retention and customer loyalty are soon to follow.

Enhanced personalization

Today’s consumer expects some level of personalization in all of their interactions, and CI software can help you deliver it. Customer intelligence platforms can help businesses provide highly personalized content, product recommendations, and other communication that is sure to resonate with consumers.

For example, say a consumer reaches out to customer support regarding an issue with their order. If the customer service agent has data on the customer’s past support conversations, account type, loyalty status, and more, they can tailor their response to their needs.

Increased revenue-driving opportunities

Customer intelligence platforms aren’t just for understanding customer behavior, they can also play a significant role in revenue growth. By uncovering patterns and trends in customer data, businesses can identify new revenue opportunities. These can include introducing new product features based on customer preferences or identifying cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

Effective, data-driven decision-making

CI software can help businesses make strategic decisions based on real data rather than intuition or guesswork. These platforms provide a wealth of consumer insights that can help inform where to focus your outreach efforts and guide product or process improvements.

Stronger competitive advantage

With customer intelligence platforms, organizations can deliver more effective outreach, understand changing consumer preferences at scale, and continuously improve their operations to stay ahead of the competition. Doing so can help businesses gain a stronger competitive advantage in the marketplace.

While there are several customer insight tools to choose from, not every solution is right for every business. Here are some things to consider when selecting a provider.

Define business needs and goals

Start your analysis by clearly defining your business needs. Think about the specific insights you’re seeking: Maybe you want a tool that can help you capture customer data from your social media pages or perhaps you want to focus on your website visitors' behavior patterns. Select a software option that specializes in the information you value most.

Prioritize trust and data security

According to our CX Trends Report 2024, 83 percent of CX leaders say data privacy and cybersecurity are top priorities in their customer service strategies. Indeed, it’s crucial to prioritize data security when evaluating a CI platform so you maintain customer trust. At Zendesk, for example, we proudly obtain several compliance certifications and memberships to ensure customers’ private information stays private.

Consider scalability

As your business grows, so will your data needs, so it’s important to choose a tool that can scale with you. Consider the software’s ability to handle larger datasets, accommodate additional users, and adapt to the changing demands of your business. For instance, Zendesk offers businesses significant agility at scale due to our quick and simple setup, numerous integrations, and minimal admin needs—which help keep costs low.

Factor in the quality of support

Customer intelligence software can be difficult to learn. Make sure you select a provider that offers comprehensive support if you face any difficulties with initial setup or ongoing use. Take special care to assess vendor responsiveness and expertise, as well as any available training resources. A tool may have impressive features, but without reliable support, you may not be able to take advantage of those features.

Evaluate ease of use

Finally, look for a tool that doesn’t require an extensive amount of technical knowledge to operate. A user-friendly and intuitive tool can minimize the learning curve for your team, allowing them to get up to speed quickly and see the value of the product sooner. An overly complex platform may lead to frustration and underutilization of the tool, which results in reduced productivity and effectiveness.