Zoho CRM empowers more than 151,953 businesses in 179+ countries, helping them grow and nurturing leads and customers with ease.
Zoho provides extensive value to customers-that’s why businesses from all over the world trust them. Zoho provides a robust CRM that comes with tons of superb features at an affordable cost.
What’s more, they offer a free plan that allows you to deploy their CRM without spending a dime.
The question is, how it is going to help your business? As we all know, every business is different, so its needs and requirements are also different.
Before getting started with any CRM, make sure exactly how it will help your customer relationships improve.
This Zoho CRM review gives you an in-depth look at this platform, covering:
- An Overview of Features & Benefits
- Who is Zoho CRM for?
- How Zoho CRM compares to others
- A step-by-step setup walkthrough of Zoho CRM.
Once you have read through this complete review, you’ll know whether Zoho is the perfect solution for your business or if you should look elsewhere.
Quick Navigation
- In a Nutshell
- Features & Benefits
- Zoho CRM Pricing
- Who Is Zoho CRM for
- Why Choose Zoho CRM
- How to Get Started With Zoho CRM
- Pros & Cons of Zoho CRM
- Conclusion
Let’s dive in.
Zoho CRM Review: in a Nutshell
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) that suits businesses of all sizes. It empowers thousands of businesses by helping them convert more leads, engage with customers, and generate more revenue.
This powerful CRM platform enables you to manage and automate many aspects of your business by providing sales and marketing automation tools along with helpdesk, analytics, and customer support functions.
The core functionality of Zoho CRM leads and contact management; however, it also helps with sales and pipeline management. It enables customers to support across channels in real-time – via email, live chat, or even social media.
What’s more, Zoho CRM comes with Zia – an AI-powered sales assistant that can provide advanced leads and deals predictions.
It will also send intelligent alerts and task reminders and suggest the best time to contact your leads based on your past successful interactions.
Zoho CRM is flexible and seamlessly integrates with third-party applications such as G Suite, Unbounce, MailChimp, WordPress, Evernotes, Microsoft Outlook, and others.
It works like a charm for any size and any kind of business. Zoho CRM helps you automate daily business activities, track sales, engage customers, and more with ease. If you’re looking for a well-established CRM that is easy to use and reliable, Zoho CRM is worth the ty.
If you want detailed insights on Zoho CRM features, functionality, pricing, setup, and more, keep reading this in-depth Zoho CRM Review.
Zoho CRM Features & Benefits
Zoho CRM provides an extensive list of features that are easy to use and deploy. Zoho CRM stacks up against the competition features-wise, especially in certain areas. It boasts an AI-powered sales assistant, a builder, an optimization app, and more.
Here are some of the most notable features:
SalesForce Automation
Often, sales teams deal with time-consuming tasks such as scheduling sales appointments, follow-up emails, tracking contacts, and more.
Luckily, Zoho CRM automates the sales process and empowers you to focus more on creating and nurturing leads, closing deals, and growing your customer relationships.
Automated Lead Generation
Zoho CRM enables you to automate lead generation from multiple sources such as chats, social media, websites, and trade shows. With lead scoring, you can distribute leads to the right reps and easily ensure you don’t miss any quality leads.
Key features:
- Identify quality leads from multiple sources
- Nurture promising leads into conversions
- Analyze and track key information about leads
Deal Management
Sales management is all about prioritizing, tracking, and monitoring the deals in your pipeline. Zoho’s CRM deal management software provides everything you need to manage deals and sales structures.
Key features:
- Analyzes past deal activities and opportunities
- Increases up-selling and cross-selling opportunities
- Provides detailed insights on your deals anytime, anywhere
Contact Management
The contact management module helps you communicate across channels. You can manage and engage visitors and prospects through live chat, call prospects, and emails. It tracks every interaction and communication and provides detailed campaign insights by analyzing open rates and more.
Key features:
- Real-time notifications from customers
- Supports customer tickets and inquiries instantly
- Provides insights on your previous interactions and communication
Workflow Automation
With the Zoho CRM, you can automate routine tasks and save time. Workflow automation enables you to automate all your operational and data entry tasks such as sending email notifications, creating tasks, updating files, and more.
Key features:
- Automates sales routine instantly
- Allows you to create multiple rules in a single workflow.
- Analyzes the performance of your workflow automation with Zia-an AI-powered sales assistant.
Multichannel Sales CRM
Zoho CRM provides a robust omnichannel solution that enables you to manage everything in one place. The multichannel features let you connect with your customers through multiple channels.
It supports almost every kind of channels, such as email, phone, social media, live chat, web forms, web conferencing, real-time notifications, and more.
Zoho CRM allows you to connect with your client and send emails within the Zoho CRM. You can get detailed reports on emails and email templates to easily track bounce rates and click rates and get real-time notifications.
Key features:
- Instant notifications when someone interacts with your email
- Email analytics and AI insights to improve email results.
- Allows you to schedule and emails with follow-ups and email templates.
Phone
The phone features allow you to integrate your calls and sales. Zoho integrates with more than 50+ phone partners so one can make calls, log calls, and easily view customer information in one place.
Key features:
- Autolog calls under each record
- Updates call status and saves notes for calls
- Automated scheduling of calls and post-call activities
Social Media
Zoho CRM allows you to connect all your social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can respond in real-time to posts and easily set up an automatic lead generation to save new contacts to your CRM database.
Key features:
- Adds leads from social media to your CRM
- Keeps track of customers’ social media interactions inside CRM
- Manage and post to your social media accounts from the CRM
LiveChat
Zoho CRM allows you to embed a live chat on your website or connect your chat tools to it. The support team provides immediate and personal assistance to help you increase conversions.
Key features:
- Segments visitors based on your sales pipeline
- Sends real-time notifications for missed chats
- Provides detailed reports that compare website visitors, sales, and chats.
Marketing Automation
This enables you to run campaigns easily to get the best ROI on every campaign you create using the marketing automation. Let’s have a look at the marketing automation features.
Customer Segmentation
With Zoho CRM, you can segment customers based on their regions, requirements, lead source, and preference. With the segmentation, you can easily send campaigns that are tailor-made to fit your audience.
Key features:
- Prioritize your next follow-ups
- Personalize your campaigns
- Group records easily around various criteria
Lead Nurturing
This helps you manage everything about leads and allows you to convert leads to deals. It also ensures you are updated with every lead you generate.
Key features:
- Shortens the sales cycle
- Helps you build a relationship with your customers
- Easily personalize and contextualize your sales pitch
Event Management
This gives you the power to easily manage your events and translate events into sales. You can contact attendees with invitations and follow-ups and organize meetings all within the CRM.
All your interactions will be automatically saved so you have a clear timeline of your communications.
Key features:
- Collects leads directly back into CRM
- Invite contacts from your CRM database to events
- Measures events against the deals in your pipeline.
Email Campaigns
Zoho helps you keep leads engaged from your first contact with emails. It offers fully customizable templates to invite prospects. You can schedule reminder emails before the event and take follow-ups based on that. You can also keep track of email open rates, clicks,and more.
Key features:
- Integrates with popular email marketing services.
- Bridge the gap between marketing and sales.
- Helps you manage your customers effectively
Analytics & Reports
Zoho CRM provides in-depth CRM analytics for deal insights, activity stats, and email analytics. You can manage and monitor every aspect of your sales cycle.
This also allows you to create customized dashboard features in analytical widgets for sales such as KPIs, target meters, and funnels.
Based on the data, you can make smart decisions with fully customizable reports and easily boost your sales process with actionable data intelligence.
Key features:
- View every sales trend at a glance
- Provides actionable and multi-dimensional reports
- Lets you import your analytics and reports anywhere
- Allows you to filter reports using the criteria based on modules
- Customize reports and brings data in multiple modules
- Tracks your KPIs and provides details on them
- Enables you to customize your funnel to match your sales process
Mobile App
The best part about Zoho CRM is it offers a fully-fledged mobile app both for android and iOS. Using the mobile app, you can access important information, connect with clients, and manage everything on the go.
Key features:
- Log calls and schedule follow-up activities
- Stay up-to-date and gain insights on key metrics and sales trends.
- Accesses and modifies all your information, even when you’re offline.
- Records customer visits and adds voice notes and files hassle-free.
These are some of the best features offered by Zoho CRM, but not all. To view the complete features list, visit the official website here.
Zoho CRM Pricing
The pricing plans offered by Zoho CRM are flexible and affordable-they even offer free options for 10 users.
The free version comes with all the essential features where you can integrate social media accounts, manage sales tasks and events, call log, save 10 email templates, and much more.
What’s more, each paid plan comes with a 15-day trial period, so you get to try all the features for free. Let’s check out the paid plans offered by Zoho CRM. The pricing plans listed below are on a yearly basis; you’ll pay for a year upfront.
1. Starter ($8/month)
The standard plan costs $8/month per user.This plan includes all the features offered in the free plan.
This plan is loaded with advanced features, such as social CRM, workflow integration, workflow conversion, customized reports, and pipeline management.
This plan includes:
- All Free plan features
- 10,000 records
- Basic custom fields
- Basic web forms
- Social CRM
- Basic Workflows
- Reports and Dashboard
- Roles and Profiles
You can try this plan for free with a 15-day free trial.
2. Standard ($12/Month)
This plan costs $12/month per user. The features include everything in the starter plan and free plan. In addition, it comes with the features listed below.
This plan includes:
- Scoring rules
- Email insights
- Workflow Conversions
- Web Coupons
- Tags and Groups
- Custom, Unique Fields
- 100,000 Records
- Custom Reports and dashboard
This plan comes with a 15-day free trial. Claim your free trial here.
3. Professional ($20/Month)
This plan costs $20/month per user and includes all the standard plan features.The professional plan also comes with advanced features such as real-time sales notifications, process management,Google Ads Integration, and much more.
This plan includes:
- Macros
- Webhooks
- Web-to-case forms
- Validation rules
- Inventory management
- Automatic field updates
- Supports 2,500,000 records
- SalesSignals- Real-Time notifications
- BluePrints- Process Management
Like the other plans, this one also comes with a 15-day free trial. You can start your free trial here.
4. Enterprise ($35/month)
This plan costs $35/month per user. This plan consists of all the regular and standard plan features. It also includes basic and advanced features such as conversational AI, visual CRM, and more.
This plan includes:
- 5,000,000 records
- Data Encryption
- Conditional Fields
- Auto Responders
- SubFroms
- Custom Modules and Buttons
- SalesInbox- Email for SalesPeople
- Zia Voice- Conversational AI
- Canvas- Visual CRM View
- Mobile SDK and app distribution
You can try this plan for free! Start your 15-day free trial here.
5. The Ultimate Plan ($60/month)
This plan costs $60/month per user. It includes all other plan features and is also loaded with easy-to-use advanced features such as data enrichment, email sentiment, free access to Zoho reports,and more.
This plan includes:
- All other plan features
- Email sentiment
- Enhanced storage
- Data enrichment
- Automation Suggestion
- Advanced customization
The ultimate plan is not available on monthly billing, it is only on a yearly basis.
Now you have an overview of the plans Zoho has to offer. What’s more, Zoho offers a free plan that includes tons of features for up to 10 users. If you’re just getting started with a CRM, the free plan is worth your try.
| STARTER | $8/user/month | |
| STANDARD | $12/user/month | |
| PROFESSIONAL | $20/user/month | |
| ENTERPRISE | $35/user/month |
Who is Zoho CRM for?
Zoho CRM is a great option for business of all kinds and sizes. The features it offers at such an affordable pricing plan– as low as $8/month-stands them apart from competitors.
If you have a small or mid-size business, Zoho is the best option available. Zoho CRM comes with plenty of advanced features and automation options for large enterprises as well.
When we gave it a try, we found many useful features; however, lead and contact management features were its best primary use.
The dashboard is easy to use and intuitive, enabling you to manage everything in one place. In addition to these features, it comes with Zia-an AI-powered sales assistant that can help with advanced leads, deals prediction,and more.
Zoho comes with four flexible pricing plans,each fully loaded with tons of easy-to-use features. What’s more, it offers a free plan of more than just essential features that enables you to use it free for 10 users.
The best part is, if you work with third-party applications and services, Zoho CRM seamlessly integrates with almost every add-on such as G Suite, MailChimp, WordPress, Microsoft Outlook, and tons others.
Why Choose Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM is backed by more than 15 years in the CRM industry. The Zoho CRM comes with a heap of superb features that cater to the needs of every business from large enterprises with complex sales processes to a small startups.
There are numerous reasons to get started with Zoho CRM, some of the most notable reason are:
- Simple, intuitive interface with a minimal learning curve
- 24/7 enterprise support system, ready to assist you at all times
- Flexible, month-to-month contracts supported by clear pricing plans
- Seamlessly integrates with third-party applications and external systems.
- Migrations wizard to easily import data from spreadsheets or other CRM platforms
- Fully secure and reliable platform with two-factor authentication and IP restrictions.
- Provides consultations, deployment, onboarding, and training programs to get you started smoothly
- Provides fully-functional, award-winning CRM apps for both iOS and Android.
How to Get Started with Zoho CRM?
Getting started with Zoho CRM is easy and straightforward. To get started, you need to purchase a plan or choose the free plan. The main thing is having an active plan.
To configure Zoho CRM hassle-free, carefully follow these steps:
Step #1: Basic Configuration Zoho
Once you’re on the CRM dashboard, your first step is to configure it to meet your sales teams’ needs. Here, you will set up custom fields, deals, pipeline, scoring rules, and reporting.
To get started, navigate to Analytics and click on the icons to access the setup tools.
Setup Contact Fields
To start, click on “Modules and Fields” under the Customization dropdown menu. Here, you can set up your contacts records and create custom fields for tracking information.
Now select ‘Contacts’, where you’ll get a huge number of data fields. Just fill in the fields you think are necessary and relevant for your business. Also if you find unnecessary fields, you can drag and drop them to the trash icon to permanently remove them.
Once you click on any field to set up, you can customize the field’s properties, input the field names, and make basic changes as per your needs.
Setup Deals & Sales Pipeline
In the deals module, you can track your sales opportunities in Zoho. It allows you to easily customize the information you capture about each deal that includes the deals stages as well as the probability of closing deals.
The basic setup comes with a generic list of sales stages. To customize the sales stage, click on the “Stage” field, where you can adjust the Stage Name and Probability. Once you setup the sales stage, you can start tracking your sales and generate reports based on that.
Lead Scoring
The Lead Scoring functionality allows you to assign value based on your lead’s characteristics and preferences.
To set it up, choose Scoring Rules under the “Automation” menu. Once you click, it will give you the option to add scoring rules to Leads & Deals.
Let’s say you want to add scoring rules on email activity, click on +Add under the email insights section where you can assign a point value for email opens and clicks.
You can follow the same process to add scoring rules on any contact fields variable.
Setting up Reporting Options
In this last section, we’ll set up reporting.First, select “Reports” from the navigation at the top, where you can get access to all available reports.
You can filter the reports and create new reports by clicking on the “Create Reports” button in the top right.
While creating the reports, walk through the process of selecting the report time, apply filters, and set other parameters as per your needs. To add the filter, use the drop-down menu fields and select “Run” to automatically update the report info.
Step #2: Import You Data into Zoho CRM
As of now, we have configured all the important settings. Now it’s time to transfer your existing contact data into Zoho.
You can import your data from a spreadsheet or using an existing CRM.However, if you haven’t used a CRM before, you can create and add each contact manually.
Migrate Data from Another CRM
If you previously used any CRM and want to import data from the old system, click on the “Getting Started” tab on the right side of your screen and then click on “Migrate Data From Other CRM”. From there onwards, you can follow the simple guide steps to easily migrate the data.
Import Data from a Spreadsheet
If you have contacts and leads info in a spreadsheet, you can easily import your information from a CSV file. To start, click on the “Other CRM” option and then drag the CSV file into that area. You can also select the file manually from your computer and upload it hassle-free.
Step #3: Integrating Third-Part Add-ons & Services
In this step, you’ll learn how to integrate Zoho CRM with third-party add-ons and services such as email, social media, marketing tools, etc.
Zoho CRM integrates with almost every major tool and service out there. To find the app you need, they offer filtering tools and options to easily locate any integration add-ons.
Connect You Email
Zoho CRM allows you to connect your business emails by providing the ability to access your emails from within the CRM. To easily set up your emails, select the “Email” link under “Channels” in the setup panel, then click on the “Get Started” button and follow the simple instructions to complete the setup.
Adding Social Media Networks
To add social media networks, navigate to Channel Settings and look for “Social”. It will allow you to create brands and connect your social media accounts such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Once you connect your social media accounts, you can automatically generate leads from social media interactions such as “Mentions” & “Likes”.
Connecting Marketing Automation Tools
From the Zoho marketplace, you can install the extensions for marketing automation tools such as MailChimp, Unbounce, and others. To connect the tools, search for the name, select the file, and then click on the “Install” button.
After installing, it will ask you to use your login credentials to sync the account with Zoho. For example, if you integrate MailChimp with Zoho CRM, you can sync your leads, contacts, email campaigns, and more.
Step #4: Creating & Automating Workflows
Zoho CRM enables you to create automated workflows that save you time and effort by automating tedious, time-consuming tasks.
For example, you can create a workflow that sends a notification and a follow-up email every time a deal reaches a certain stage.You can create different workflows such as leads, deals, and tasks.
To create workflow rules, navigate to “Automation” in the Setup panel where you’ll see a list of rules you created earlier. You’ll also find options to create new rules from scratch.
Now click on the “Create Rules” buttons and select the lead module from the drop-down menu, then enter a name for your rule.
Next, give a little description of that rule and select when the workflow should run. After you choose the workflow run conditions, it will ask you to select the actions you want the workflow to take.
Once you have set the actions for which the workflow will run, click the “Save” button.
Step #5: Add Users to Zoho CRM
Now that we’re done configuring and setting up our Zoho CRM, it’s time to add the rest of the sales team. Navigate to the setup panel and select “User” under “User and Control” in order to add other team members.
To create new users, click on “New User” and then enter the user’s name, company email, and other info.
You can also set permissions for your team members and restrict access and level of control as per their roles and positions. Moreover, you can also create and define your own criteria.
Finally, you need to specify the role and choose between the Administrator and Standard. Once done, click on Save.
Congratulations! You have successfully set up your Zoho CRM account. If you found any issues in setting it up, make sure you’re following the above-listed steps carefully.
Pros & Cons of Zoho CRM
Pros
- Flexible pricing options
- A dedicated free plan
- Easy to use and intuitive dashboard
- Comprehensive list of targets and reports
- 24/7 premium customer support
- Comes with ZIA-an AI-powered sales assistant
- Analyze and track key information about leads
- Get real-time notifications from customers
- Solid email marketing and automation features
- Automates sales routines instantly or later as per your choice
Cons
- The starter plan comes with certain restrictions
- Needs a lot of customization options to get started
- Offers a lot of features; a beginner might feel overwhelmed
Zoho CRM Review Conclusion
There’s no doubt, Zoho is a one-stop solution for all small- and medium-sized businesses. However, it comes with plenty of advanced features and automation tools for growing and enterprise business.
If you need an easy-to-use yet powerful CRM at an affordable cost, Zoho is worth the try. Zoho is a cloud-based platform that works across multiple platforms that include iOS, Android, and Windows devices
With the help of mobile CRM access, you can take notes, update contacts, and more.
The dashboard is intuitive and enables you to manage everything in one place without putting in extra effort. Also, Zoho comes with marketing automation tools that let you run various marketing tasks on autopilot.
In summation, Zoho CRM comes with tons of easy-to-use advanced features all under one hood at an affordable cost. These features make Zoho the best CRM option available on the market.
To give Zoho CRM a shot, sign up for a 15-day free trial here – no credit card required, no feature limitations.
What’s your experience with Zoho CRM? Feel free to comment below and share your experience with us.
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