Salesforce Service Cloud vs. Zoho CRM Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Service Cloud provides companies with a call center-like view that enables them to create and track cases coming in, and automatically route and escalate what’s important. The Salesforce CRM-powered customer portal provides customers the ability to track their own cases, includes a social networking plug-in that enables the user to join the conversation about their company on social networking websites, provides analytical tools and other services including email, chat, Google…
$65
per month
Zoho CRM Plus
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Zoho Corporation offers Zoho CRM Plus, a customer experience management platform that features a virtual AI assistant, process automation and business rules engine, and customer behavior analytics.
$59
per month per user
Pricing
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
$57
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.4
57 Ratings
4% above category average
Zoho CRM Plus
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.255 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.140 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.847 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.242 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.656 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response8.855 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.6
53 Ratings
7% above category average
Zoho CRM Plus
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.346 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base9.051 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.9
57 Ratings
11% above category average
Zoho CRM Plus
-
Ratings
Customer portal9.139 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR9.225 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration7.534 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.656 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration9.149 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Sogolytics
Sogolytics
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Quadient Inspire
Quadient Inspire
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Quadient Inspire
Quadient Inspire
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(62 ratings)
7.2
(51 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(11 ratings)
7.2
(18 ratings)
Availability
8.7
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(29 ratings)
9.7
(44 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(16 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Service CloudZoho CRM Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
- Heavy volumes of tickets/ support workload - Audit trail of all dispute resolutions and customer history - Can be easily configured as per business requirements - Integration agnostic with 3rd party systems like CTI, ERP, other external systems Service CLoud can help increase your CSAT / NPS score by giving customers a better support experience and helping increase the efficiency of your service organization. It is priced more than some good competitors in the market but is more scalable and configurable compared to other solutions
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Zoho Corporation
Starting with campaigns, once we send the campaign out, prospects who open it are moved into the sales funnel; the sales team then calls or emails the prospect. Our VOIP works in conjunction with Zoho CRM Plus, so phone calls are logged into the contact. And generates another call, letter, or appointment with the client on the Zoho calendar. Emails are sent through Gmail since Zoho CRM Plus does not work with Gmail. The client's email must be copied and pasted into Gmail. (responses are tracked in the Zoho CRM Plus). Once the sales team meets with the client and starts the process, it turns into an "opportunity" where all stages in the sale are tracked. We mail merge the contact info to the correct letter template, then download it into "Word," where the letter is proofed and corrected as necessary (Zoho merge does not allow you to work in "Word" 2019). When finalized, it is then uploaded back into Zoho CRM Plus under the Opportunity. The sale then continues through the process, and once signed off on, all the details of the job are logged into the Zoho CRM Plus. When the job is completed and closed out, Zoho CRM Plus automatically sends the client a thank you email. The client will then can biannual automatic emails reminding them to set up their bi-annual inspection.
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Pros
Salesforce
  • Super fast set-up of the service from design through to production.
  • Robust method of release management from sandbox, to test, to production.
  • User access controls can be fine grain, which is great for GDPR requirements, limiting access to only necessary data.
  • Simple api integrations with other third party systems
  • Broad range of features and functionality
  • Einstein search features provides faster information mining for our agents as they help to resolve customer requests.
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Zoho Corporation
  • Zoho CRM Plus is very good at automating many functional areas of our company including: sales, marketing, operations, and engineering. It is functionally rich, and matches the functionality we used to have with Salesforce.com, but at a much more reasonable cost.
  • Zoho CRM Plus is easily "configured" to match our business processes. The ability to configure the user interface is very good, and the "BluePrint", custom functions, and reporting allow us to automate our unique operational needs.
  • The buying process for Zoho CRM is extremely friendly. You can switch between software types from basic CRM to Zoho CRM +. You also can pay monthly, or annually, and don't have to purchase months before your renewal dates and get pestered by sales people.
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Cons
Salesforce
  • Incredibly complex to set up and configure.
  • Multiple points of potential failure.
  • Things Desk.com did out-of-the-box require customized code and components in Service Cloud.
  • Front-facing community is extremely difficult to configure and comes with many limitations.
  • No help is provided by Salesforce without expensive Premiere Support plans.
  • Expensive! Hidden costs and development costs are going to make Service Cloud far more expensive than almost any other Help Desk provider out there.
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Zoho Corporation
  • Managing attachments. Limited space for each user and you can’t easily delete attachments in bulk so if you reach your limit it becomes expensive to buy more space or labor-intensive to find and delete attachments manually.
  • You can’t filter accounts by their related module fields. For example, in list view, filter all accounts with more than one contact.
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Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.
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Zoho Corporation
No answers on this topic
Usability
Salesforce
I had Salesforce experience prior to using Service Cloud which made it a little easier to learn and navigate, but overall my team (some who had no Salesforce experience) caught on very quickly and found Service Cloud to be easy to use.
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Zoho Corporation
I personally started off as a CRM novice. But in a matter of 2 months, I was writing my own custom workflows, playing with modules and fields, and training my sales and operations teams to manage leads and accounts. Simply put, the system is intuitive after a brief introduction. The level of customization is staggering until you change your mindset. Zoho CRM Plus excels where you're able to attack your goals as problems already solved in the platform — you just need to locate the feature to make what you want to happen... happen! I equate it to the Adobe Creative Suite. You don't pick the fun filter before you lay out what exactly you want to draw. With that mindset intact, you can dial in the system to meet your and your team's needs based on your proposed SOLUTIONS, not just leaning heavily into a single feature to "force" some ROI.
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Reliability and Availability
Salesforce
Salesforce has a more than 99% uptime rate and Salesforce Service Cloud is no exception. I have never had any issues experiencing outages or service degradation when it comes to using the Service Cloud product (that I can remember). Always reliable and easy to use, I would recommend this product as your go-to for helpdesk, service desk, incident management, call center, and other business process needs.
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Zoho Corporation
No answers on this topic
Performance
Salesforce
There are issues with page load performance and database performance for sure, but we are a very complex setup with a lot of automation and processing for 2000+ users so this is not surprising. We are also global, so the issue with distance from the regional servers is a problem.
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Zoho Corporation
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Salesforce
It depends on what support package you buy from Salesforce. That can be good or bad. It's highly flexible to your needs pricing wise. If you have devs on staff then don't buy support. If you don't, then sfdc offers support for a cost.
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Zoho Corporation
Every account representative I have worked with has been extremely helpful and nice. You can tell the account reps and support staff truly care about the product and want to provide you with the resources that you need. The response time is also fast for support inquiries and that has been a massive help for us.
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Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
I have used Microsoft Dynamics in the past and I feel that Salesforce compares positively to it. While both software offers cloud based service and a mobile app, Microsoft Dynamics doesn't support integration with Gmail. One of the reasons we like Salesforce so much is that it can integrate with your email.
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Zoho Corporation
I utilize HubSpot to gather data based on IP addresses from customers who visit our website. I do not use Zoho CRM for forms since the customization is clunky to design. HubSpot collects account data from the form and that helps me evaluate to sales potential of that account. Then I use Zapier to Zap the info into Zoho. Zoho CRM then is used to reach back out to the customer and begin tracking interactions
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Zoho Corporation
I would recommend that module wise update feature be opened up, for free to an additional 50-75% of paid users. These users can be restricted to work on a single module to update information only where they do not cross over multiple modules
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Professional Services
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Zoho Corporation
I already discussed this prior with the Enterprise Support. But them aside, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Zoho is committed to connecting their userbase together. Within a month or two of using the product, we were told about Zoho User Groups. We had one right in my backyard (Chicago). I was able to both attend a meeting (pre-covid), and then stay in touch in an integrated Cliq channel. I always have power-users at my fingertips to ask quick questions. That Zoho makes it a point to keep these connections, and empower them... makes my life easier when inevitable "wants" pop up.
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Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Probably negative due to the cost of Salesforce. We haven't seen a return on the sales side yet to really justify the costs.
  • On the positive side, it's nice to manage opportunities from cases and cases from opportunities.
  • Our data has never been more organized and in better shape, though it's a constant battle!
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Zoho Corporation
  • The ROI is significantly positive due to the comprehensive set of modules available.
  • Positive: My clients have better Dashboard data developed through Zoho Analytics than they do even though they use Salesforce. Also, Zoho CRM Plus can integrate with Salesforce or other system either through their own integrations or from Zapier.
  • Campaigns allows me to target specific prospects via HTML emails, and complete tracking. This is a complement to the more shotgun approach of social media,
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Service Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud OverviewScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Customer CommunitiesScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Agent ConsoleScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Live AgentScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Wave AnalyticsScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Social Customer Support

Zoho CRM Plus Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of