Likelihood to Recommend It makes creating queries very easy for end users so not only research or technicians can do it. The availability for creating Live reports that are accessible via Excel on the network has given many of our users the ability to get the information they need in a format they can use without needing someone to translate the raw data
Read full review For customizing a CRM without needing specialist support, Zoho CRM is great. The admin UI is pretty intuitive and easy to use. Zoho CRM also works great for tracking contact records and relationships to other records. For instance, we run 10+ different programs, and we need to track every contact's relationship to any and all of our programs. Besides the program relationship, we also track organization/employer relationships, host site relationships for interns, team relationships for several of our programs, and we are starting to track grant disbursement as well. Zoho CRM's "joiner modules" handle all of these different connection points fairly well, though the data import process can be a pain.
Read full review Pros Simple user-interface: Informer is relatively easy to learn and end users can begin running reports and creating new reports quickly. Email "burst" functionality: This feature allows emails to be sent out based on data in the report. So for example, a report could be scheduled that would email all student employment managers listing out the specific employees that report to them that haven't submitted their time sheets. Each manager would only see the rows that correspond to their email address. Analytics and grouping: Users can quickly drag columns to group and sub-total, and can use the analytics tab to get deeper insights into the data. Read full review Zoho CRM has so much space to capture lots of information. Zoho CRM can be customized for your organization's needs. Zoho CRM is great for running reports to help make business decisions. We love all the different dashboards we can create. Read full review Cons There are a lot of reports that we have in Informer that say they have never been run, even though I know they have been run. So that makes it really difficult to determine which reports can be deleted to keep a tidy report list. The only other complaint I have about Informer is that there doesn't seem to be a properly detailed error code/message when the student information system can't be accessed. For example, I am currently trying to move Informer to its own standalone server and I get an error message saying that our license isn't valid. Informer Support sent a new license, which prompted the same message, and the only explanation they have given me is that Informer can't reach the student information system. I would think that if that were the case, the error message would say that instead of an invalid license. Read full review our team found it very challenging to integrate directly to our wordpress site while there may be a way to integrate to the SMS system, we have not discovered how a sales rep would be able to get an sms when customers leave their contact info (not through the app) we have one team member who still works with outlook calendar. it was easy to integrate with google calendar, but a second calendar, depending upon the user Read full review Likelihood to Renew Informer has been handily meeting most of our reporting needs, and we've created a library of hundreds of reports that are used every day. They have a terrific support service to help when you have questions, and I've found them to be great at listening to what customers would like and adding new features. They are a small company that really listens and really cares, and I've been very pleased over the past few years getting to know them.
Read full review Zoho has been a wonderful tool for us for several years and there is so much more we can do with it. New features are released often which give a team like us the option to further fine tune our business process management techniques. I honestly couldn't imagine running our business not on Zoho.
Read full review Usability From the perspective of the new user and a seasoned user I would say eight would represent both parties. It presents a 'familiar' interface and easy to navigate display. Tagging is quite nice and allows for organization of reports based on those tags. These have to be monitored like anything else to keep them consistent but provides a better than average means of organizing reports.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability We have 10 concurrent licenses and we average between 6-8 at any given time during the day; and we host the application.
Read full review Support Rating I would have given 10 but no one and no system is perfect. The only issue with support is not the staff nor the response but the support Wiki and support pages in general run very slow at times. I believe this has been addressed by the company but the technical speed of the pages have been an issue.
Read full review 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.
Read full review In-Person Training It was harder to learn when there were mostly real estate users in the room. We are sales solely.
Read full review Online Training Online training is tough, but Zoho and their partners do a good job of explaining things.
Read full review Implementation Rating We bought the product on a Thursday morning, and we were writing reports on Friday afternoon. We did take about a month to manage the Mapping, Linking and Security to allow us to open it up across campus. We are now mapping from as many third-party vendors as we can to enable the creation of more ad-hoc reporting.
Read full review 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
Read full review Alternatives Considered I have experience with Advizor AnalystX, and it was just awful. It is advertised as an interactive reporting tool, in which you can use your mouse to select and segment constituents by where they live (by clicking on a map), how much they've given to your institution, when they last gave, etc. In practice, their map feature was unusable; it's a static map image (imagine a paper map hung on your wall), rather than draggable and zoomable Google Maps, and it required hours of work to configure one map region. As far as computing constituents' giving statistics, it required way too much back-end work to build simple giving totals.
Read full review Zoho is the only product we have used. Our company is fairly new and before purchasing Zoho a few years ago, client files were only saved and looked at through our company server. Because of how great Zoho has been, we have never considered looking for another product because there really is no need
Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model 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
Read full review Professional Services 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.
Read full review Return on Investment We have definitely improved customer service due to better reporting using Informer. All departments are better empowered to help our students in a more timely and accurate manner. Using Informer has given us the ability to eliminate functionality within our ERP system and offload reporting to a data store instead of the transactional system. This has resulted in successfully upgrading our core systems and improved response times. Read full review ROI is good, providing your entire team is involved with the program and uses it During busy season, Zoho keeps the flow going with reminders for quote follow-ups Our company saw an estimated 20% gain in closing sales that went through Zoho as compared to quotes not answered through Zoho Read full review ScreenShots Entrinsik Informer Screenshots