Best customer success courses and certifications

Essential courses and certification programs for customer success professionals

The best customer success courses range from free one-hour introductions (HubSpot’s Inbound Service Fundamentals) to full certification programs (SuccessCOACHING’s CCSM, Cisco’s DTCSM) and a university graduate certificate from RMIT. This list covers eight options across that range, whether you are starting a customer success career or sharpening existing skills.

There are so many options that it may be difficult to decide on just one. Therefore, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite customer success courses, divided into essential courses for those who just want to learn more and certifications for those who need a formal document to practice customer success.

Here are the customer success courses that have made our list:

Essential courses

1. Inbound Service Fundamentals – HubSpot Academy

If you’re doubtful about whether a career in customer success is right for you, this program can help you figure it out.

The course is free and only takes an hour to complete, so this is an excellent opportunity to enter customer success management before committing to a more comprehensive certification program.

2. Customer Experience Management Essentials – Udemy

This course is ideal for beginners who want to learn the fundamentals of customer success since it does not require any significant experience.

This 3.5-hour training course will take you through various practical exercises and quizzes, allowing you to create, measure, and improve customers’ journeys by the end.

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

If you intend to start a new career with customer success, this is an excellent course to take. You will learn more about what is expected of you as a Customer Success Manager, how to write a resume, and how to prepare for an interview so that you can get your dream job on the first try.

4. Sales: Customer Success – LinkedIn Learning

If you’ve previously taken customer success courses, this one will help you expand your knowledge.

You will be able to scale your company’s customer success strategy and align customer success with the other departments in your company at the end of this training. If you have a LinkedIn Learning Subscription, you can take this course for free.

5. Cisco Customer Success Manager (DTCSM) – Cisco Training

This is the course for you if you want to increase your chances of retaining customers while successfully optimizing their lifecycle journey. Everything directly relating to the position of Customer Success Manager can be found here in one convenient location.

This is the ideal course if you want to increase your confidence in performing the primary responsibilities of your role to the fullest using real-life use cases and case studies.

This is one of the most comprehensive customer success courses out there. Pricing depends on the format and training partner, and the DTCSM certification exam is billed separately by Cisco.

Certifications

CSM credentials indicate to a potential employer that a candidate has experience with many of the analytics and dashboards that are now used to utilize user data and truly comprehend customers and their needs.

Certifications, whether in the form of digital badges or a paper document, give employers assurance that a candidate can handle the core work of customer success and relationship-building. No certification is required to work in customer success, but a recognized credential helps candidates stand out. We’ve listed the top CSM certification programs below; for a deeper look at dedicated programs, see our guide to the best customer success certifications:

6. Certified Customer Success Manager (CCSM) – SuccessCOACHING

SuccessCOACHING runs the Certified Customer Success Manager (CCSM) program, a multi-level certification you can take level by level or as a bundle. It is a self-paced program built specifically around the CSM role.

You can also enroll in the course as an individual or as a group. This can be a significant benefit for businesses since everyone can grow together rather than one person having all the knowledge.

7. Graduate Certificate In Customer Success Management – RMIT

RMIT Online’s Graduate Certificate in Customer Success Management is a program with a college course structure. The 12-month program (6 months accelerated) covers marketing, technology, leadership, analytics, sales, and business strategy across four courses. RMIT’s published 2026 fee schedule puts the full program at AU$16,320.

8. Certified CSM Professional (CCSMP) – Practical CSM

Practical CSM’s CCSMP is a fully online, self-paced certification built on the Practical CSM Framework. The program runs through ten modules across four certification levels, from foundations to advanced strategic planning.

Sum up

These are the finest classes you can enroll in to build your customer success skills and improve your chances of getting hired.

The variety of customer success courses is outstanding, and the majority will be very beneficial to new CSMs.

It is harder to say which qualification matters most. No single standards body accredits CSM certifications, so their value rests on the reputation of the provider and the reviews of the people who have taken them. Weigh the cost against where you are in your career. The full video overview is here: