Six broad categories have emerged over the last decade in response to specific needs.

• The broadest category in the customer technology stack is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). 
• Customer Communication solutions simplify conversations between vendors and customers, and make it easier to communicate. 
• Customer Satisfaction solutions enable companies to get answers to specific questions. 
• Customer Experience solutions are a more focused variant of the previous category. They take the pulse of customers and objectively capture their experience with a product or service. They are typically embedded within the product and emphasize simplicity and ease of use over detail.
• Customer Loyalty solutions make it easier for companies to reward their customers for specific actions that they perform. 
• The newest category on the block, Customer Success, has significant new investments and has been featured in Mary Meeker's 2015 Internet Trends Report as one of the disruptive new enterprise technologies to watch.