Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM vs. Zoho CRM

Constant Contact is excellent for small businesses wanting a simple email to their customers and leads. We've found that it's not the most robust solution for more complex funnels involved in e-commerce or information publishing. For instance, setting up specific flows based on user behavior, VIP status, and other attributes is lacking.

Incentivized

Interfacing with our target clients at the correct minute is crucial in today's society. Another valuable include is its capacity to coordinated with other programs. It helps me in keeping track of the every day work emails I send to my colleagues or get. Zoho CRM makes it straightforward to consequence or send out information agreeing to our needs. Zoho makes a difference keep in mind individuals by means of e-mail and pop-ups, which dispenses with the issue of overlooking follow-ups and reminders. This not as it were helps within the organization of this incredible instrument but moreover within the execution of data.

Incentivized

• Their Emailers are very easy to construct and user-friendly. It takes your Newsletter and sales emails to the next level, especially with the action groups and trigger functionalities.
• The life of the lead functionality allows you to see when leads get warmer, so you know when to send them what. Helps improve conversions.

• Hooks into our website and can import data from forms.
• Has great automation tools built in.
• Reporting features are great.
• Easy to learn, makes it easy for us to onboard new users onto it.
• Fairly customizable. We have fine tuned it to work the way we need it to.

Incentivized

• The landing page builder is a bit hard to use. Doesn’t have much flexibility.
• Sometimes confusing between types of workflows to use. Opportunity versus visual.
• If you imported contacts that weren’t formatted correctly. It is hard to delete a bull amount. Need to type DELETE for each one manually. No bull options to make changes.

Incentivized

• Need some way to switch a field type without losing the pre-existing data.
• The settings controls should be broken out differently - I don't like that I can't keep some users from exporting all contact records (i.e., the entire Contacts module) because if the export function is turned off, the export function of Reports for those same modules is also blocked.
• Frustrating that only 3 custom lookup fields are allowed per module in our license.

Incentivized

We have been very impressed with all aspects of this software and the potential for it to radically change how we operate is huge! Support has been exceptional and we have discovered many extra uses for the software than originally thought. Not only will it give us benefits for our company's growth, but for our client's growth as well.

Incentivized

i have already renewed my subscription twice. I am in the 3rd Year now. I have been using it for a while and have been recommending to my friends as well.. have attended ZOHOLICs the annual program of zoho and it gave me new insights of managing the crm solutoin.

Incentivized

This rating is coming from an administrative perspective. With so many features, workflows, dashboards, and more, there is certainly a lot going on, and even the most savvy software user can get a little overwhelmed when trying to decide how to best implement and utilize the platform to its full potential. That being said, the SharpSpring platform is well-implemented and well-organized, with most solutions being fairly intuitive, once you have a grasp of the software. It is fairly easy to learn, but difficult to master. Just like any powerful platform, however, the complexity is worth it, and once you are comfortable navigating and problem solving within SharpSpring, it becomes a great marketing and sales tool which can do virtually anything you need it to.

Incentivized

The methodology of the 'out of the box' user interface is fairly easy to learn. In some cases however, the interface is not consistent throughout the software. Upgrades to the interface has certainly improved some of this--- but now we are seeing the same kinds of inconsistencies across Zoho apps, particularly those more recently added to their platform. This issue is not major in that everybody on staff seems able to learn how to work the programs--- it's just annoying and less than efficient when inconsistent user interfaces or inconsistent terms are used in the programs and/or the requisite documentation.

Incentivized

In my many years using Zoho, I think there were only 1 or 2 days when there was something happening and I was not able to log in. Sure, it wasn't fun and we all panicked a bit, but right after that, all was well and work-life continued. Being cloud based, I'm never worried about losing my iPhone, iPad or Laptop as I know I can log in anywhere on any device and workflow won't stop.

Incentivized

I don't recall every having any issues with a page not loading due to it being a Zoho issue. Anytime I've had any issues with something being wonky, I clear cache and that has always solved the problem. Or a simply computer reboot and we're back, hard at work. Look, I don't expect any product to delivery 100%, 100% of the time but if I had any consistent ongoing issues, I would have left many years ago. I still keep my eyes open to what is new but after a quick evaluation, I know Zoho will long be my home.

Incentivized

The support is great which really helps overcome challenges if you become stuck and the training videos are great too. Same-day replies are great and I even got some help with some CSS code on the chat. Not many organizations would do this or even respond.

Incentivized

We did the training and that was a huge waste of money. The information provided was basic and the instructor was sloppy (he even forgot to turn off his mic when he used the restroom - no one should ever hear what we heard). I offered up a 9 because we were able to find what we needed on your website.

Incentivized

I attended a Zoho-Holics event in Austin, TX, several years ago, and it blew my mind. So many industries were represented using Zoho in so many different ways. It was unbelievable all that I learned from that experience, as there were features that I wasn't aware of that I immediately started using. Best of all, the trainers were patient and knowledgeable

Incentivized

There is an endless supply of YouTube videos from Zoho and the many Zoho partners/consultants. Plus, Zoho has it's own library of training videos and webinars to learn from plus an entire community at the ready to answer any questions. While Zoho has been available for many years, there are constantly new training videos and webinars available for the novice and the experienced users.

Incentivized

Overall I would say to be patient and bring everyone who will be touching the platform to the onboarding sessions. The Virtual Classroom lets you onboard as quickly or slowly as you want. Sales, marketing, design, account management, get 'em all in on it. For the most part, they will be happy to use this platform. I recommend getting as many people as possible to see the SharpSpring demo.

Incentivized

When you switch CRMs, you can automatically assume everything isn’t going to match up correctly. We had used Salesforce for 10+ years and had a ton of data and customizations. It was not a clean transfer, but we were able to sort it all out. The only issue that really bothered me was Zoho support. Even simple questions couldn’t be answered over chat, and we would have some team members try for hours to find the right answer

Incentivized

Pros of SharpSpring:

• Design unlimited custom fields
• Can send content & templates to Sales to send in their reach-outs (Outlook extension)
• Ad retargeting
• Social listening tool
• Social media scheduling
• Email builder: dynamic content
• Landing pages: dynamic content, rebrandable domain name
• Chatbot Platform seems intuitive to use
• Forms auto-complete for known visitors
• Instant 2-way sync with Salesforce
• Trigger automated workflows from social media
• It was easy to receive demo, streamlined sales process

SharpSpring: approx. $13,000 USD per year + $2,000 USD one-time for onboarding Pardot: $32,400 USD per year + $3,000 to $5,000 USD one-time for onboarding HubSpot: $20,381 USD per year + $3,000 USD one-time for onboarding Marketo: $29,015 USD per year + $4,500 USD one-time for onboarding

Incentivized

Free user access was one reason to use it more than any other software. Also, for a mid-size organization, the Salesforce cost was a little higher, and Pipedrive was almost similar to Zoho. As we were already using Zoho, we found no urgency to switch.

Incentivized

I think Zoho CRM is priced at a reasonable amount. Simply put, you get what you pay for and Zoho does not disappoint. My organization is comfortable with what we pay and pleased with continually renewing the software. The billing frequency is just right. There are no complaints on our end

Incentivized

We're still in the early stages of scaling this across departments. We have high aspirations of doing this, but it takes time to migrate to the new system and to help people get acquainted of doing their work in a different way thru Zoho.

Incentivized

In addition to being a user of Zoho CRM, we are a reseller as well. Often, at times our Partners request for on-boarding the platform configuration for them. During such requirements, we have utilized the Professional services team directly from the Zoho CRM team. Our partner feedback was quite positive, throughout.

Incentivized

• Streamlined Processes - sales and marketing are now all in the same place.
• Reduced Number of Platforms/Tools - CRM/lead management, email, automation, landing pages, forms, etc are all in the same place rather than using multiple tools.
• Time-saving - sales pipeline is very easy to use for sales. For marketing, we have dozens of workflows that eliminate much of our manual processes from the past.
• Return on Investment - We're more focused on moving the building the business than ever before because SharpSpring has simplified so many of our business operations and we're seeing massive results!
• Lead generation - Up SIGNIFICANTLY (between 3x & 4x) since setting up SharpSpring.

• because we are new to the CRM world, we wanted a product that was reasonably priced, yet had the features we were looking for
• we have found a much higher customer engagement rate and ROI
• we used to "lose" customers in our makeshift process. Now, all customers are being attended to.

Incentivized