“Mind if I record this call?”
Those six words are music to the ears of anyone whose chicken-scratch renders notes useless 30 minutes after a Zoom call. But there are so many meeting recorders and note takers now, which will you choose?
In this guide, we rounded up the top note-taking software for CSMs, so browse through this brief list and try out your favorites to see how much time you can save – and how many headaches you can avoid.
Why CSMs Need Note-Taking Software
Why should sales get all the love when it comes to note-taking tools?
Gong, Fireflies, and more are all built and sold with sales teams in mind, giving BDRs, SDRs, and managers a log of each call and insights into how it went. That’s great… for sales, but Customer Success has different needs. CSMs need to gauge sentiment, access product usage data and subscription history, and feed call insights into health scores, which means you need a dedicated meeting recorder with CS in mind.
That means features like:
- Logging calls alongside your account information, like subscription data or usage history
- Being able to play back the call, read the transcript, or review high-level insights
- Being able to share the call and notes with your team
- AI-powered insights and sentiment analysis for each account
And bringing all these customer interactions under one roof, so you can get a temperature check for every account without pulling recordings and doing it all yourself manually.
The Best Meeting Recorders for CSMs
Meeting recorders are all the rage these days. Below are the top ones we found that meet the needs of Customer Success:
Unlike the other platforms on this list, Vitally isn’t just a note taker for CSMs; it is a fully featured Customer Success Platform (CSP).
Vitally’s AI-powered note taker is built right into the platform, logging each customer call to give you a complete history of every account. You can re-watch calls, read through transcripts, or breeze through AI-powered insights. You can even save summaries as Notes or Docs to share with your team, giving everyone in your org full visibility into your top accounts.
What’s more, Vitally’s AI Meeting recorder can automatically join any customer call, whether it’s happening on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or basically any virtual meeting recorder. Just connect your calendar to Vitally, and you’re set.
As a CSP, Vitally is packed with features like health score and NPS tracking, workflow automation, and reporting to cut hours from your workflow and turn data into insights in record time.
That just scratches the surface, though. Vitally’s AI features and Blueprints can streamline workflows and cut hours of busywork from your week, helping you serve customers at scale. And with one of the fastest implementation timelines in the industry (Vitally can be implemented in 2-4 weeks), that means you can get up and running in no time.
Top Features
- Call recording and AI-powered transcriptions
- AI summaries of calls
- AI-powered insights
- Risk and opportunity analysis
- Fully featured CSP with health scores, NPS tracking, automation, and reporting tools
Fathom is a simple AI meeting recorder that automatically joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls to generate real-time transcripts, highlight key moments, and produce instant summaries.
Like many meeting recording tools on this list, Fathom eliminates the need for manual note-taking during calls, but also provides timestamped highlights for quick follow-up, and syncs key insights directly into tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and other CRMs.
Top Features
- Call recording and AI-powered transcriptions
- Search
- Conversational search for calls and insights
Fireflies is an AI note-taker that captures meeting audio across most conferencing platforms, turning calls into searchable transcripts, speaker-labeled notes, action items, and automated follow-ups.
One handy feature that Fireflies offers is the ability to store all your calls in a centralized, searchable repository, making it easy to recall customer commitments, find past discussions, or surface themes across accounts. Fireflies also offers AI-powered suggestions for next steps and action items, which can be useful for CS teams.
Like Fathom, Fireflies integrates with CRM and project management systems to cut data entry, while features like conversation intelligence, sentiment analysis, and topic tracking can help you manage accounts and identify risks.
Top Features
- Call recording and AI-powered transcriptions
- Search
- Capture next steps and action items
If Vitally is the leading platform on this list for Customer Success, then consider Gong to be the leading platform for sales teams.
Gong is a popular choice for a note-taker, but among the platforms on this list, it is the best suited for sales teams, allowing them to analyze calls, gather insights, identify deal risks, and review AI-powered insights. Much like Vitally, Gong is so much more than a meeting recording tool and can be an incredibly valuable part of your toolkit.
Some of Gong’s more advanced features help sales teams and account managers spot things like:
- Deal risks
- Talk ratios
- Objection patterns
Again, many of these advanced features will be more specific to sales, so CSMs may not find them as valuable as BDRs and SDRs.
Top Features
- Call recording and AI-powered transcriptions
- Deal risks
- AI-powered insights
Fellow is another AI-powered note-taker with a productivity twist.
Like many note-takers, Fellow allows you to record and transcribe calls with customers. But unlike some basic meeting recorders, Fellow offers a few unique features for productivity, like collaborative agendas, shared notes, task tracking, and recurring meeting templates. Like Fireflies, Fellow also generates action items for each meeting, making it a suitable tool for CSMs looking to boost productivity in their workflow.
Top Features
- Call recording and AI-powered transcriptions
- 50+ integrations
- AI-powered insights
- AI-powered action items
Why CS Teams Choose Vitally to Record Meetings
Of the meeting recorders on this list, here are a few reasons we recommend considering Vitally to record calls and run your Customer Success org:
- Vitally is more than “just a note-taker”
- All your data in one place
- Purpose-built AI for CS
More Than “Just a Note-Taker”
Unlike the tools on this list, Vitally is the only platform designed for Customer Success organizations. Whether you work as a CSM, AM, or in Operations, Vitally can serve you beyond recording your calls.
Only Vitally brings your data under one roof and matches it with powerful features like:
- Custom Health Score tracking
- Custom surveys
- NPS and CSAT tracking
- Goal setting
And an AI Copilot that meets you where you are, removes busywork off your plate, and guides your every move. Add in the ability to log every customer interaction, and you have the entire history of every account at your fingertips.
All Your Data in One Place
When you’re managing 50 or 100+ accounts, it’s incredibly easy for customers to slip through the cracks and drop off – unless you have the data you need readily accessible.
Vitally integrates with your product and favorite tools to bring all your data together:
- Customer interactions
- Calls
- Product usage
- Engagement
- Revenue data
And you can collect that data and turn it into valuable insights, like finally tuned custom Health Scores without a line of code. With a platform like Vitally, you can rest assured that nothing will go unnoticed by your team.
Purpose-Built AI for CS
AI-powered summaries and action items are nice, but today’s CSMs need more than an AI note-taker. They need an AI assistant that can power their workflows and cut as much busywork from their plates as possible.
Only Vitally brings you purpose-built AI embedded directly into the platform, giving you powerful features like:
- AI-powered call summaries and insights
- AI-generated tasks, conversations, notes, and more
- Risk detection
- Custom Health Score tracking
With Vitally, you’re getting a centralized repository of every customer interaction and a powerful AI platform that allows you to turn your data into actionable insights and next steps in seconds.
Take a Product Tour to See Why 600+ CS Teams Love Vitally!
If you’re going to pick one tool from this list, we’d recommend selecting software purpose-built for CSMs' needs: a CSP like Vitally.
Yes, Vitally can record meetings, log transcripts, and generate summaries like the rest of the tools on this list, but it can also bring all of your data together and eliminate hours of busywork.
You don’t have to take our word for it – and you don’t even need to schedule a demo (though you can here, if you’d like). Click the button below to take a product tour of Vitally. You’ll see the best that Vitally has to offer, and how your CS team can serve customers at scale.
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