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Zoho CRM has what you need from A - Zoho
Updated September 21, 2021

Zoho CRM has what you need from A - Zoho

Stephen Lalla | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Professional

Modules Used

  • CRM, DOCS, Books, Mail, Calendar

Overall Satisfaction with Zoho CRM

As a promotional products dealer, we use Zoho CRM to track leads and conversions to accounts, and potentials as they travel down the pipeline in various stages until we quote a client. And then once a client signs off we use Zoho CRM for sales orders and purchase orders to track the clients order and provide updates as to it status. I have virtual assistants working with me and they both have access to various stages in the process based on their specific roles. And we all have access to client and vendor info to use in performing our specific duties. I've used other CRMs in the past and definitely feel that Zoho has it down to a functional app. What I love most is the use of merge letters and emails as we use those many many times on a daily basis. We value Zoho so much that we subscribed to Zoho One the all inclusive suite of apps to run our business.
  • Tracks interactions with clients.
  • Allows anyone on your team who you've provided access permissions to the ability to share the same info.
  • A trusted source for your CRM data that you can access from anywhere in the world via your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
  • Integrates across the board with the full suite of other Zoho products
  • Everyone once in a while Zoho CRM will make a features update without advance notification.
  • Ease of converting a Sales Order to a Purchase Order without having to re-input vendor info for each line item.
  • More consistency of names in Zoho CRM and Zoho Books. In Zoho CRM there are quotes, Sales Orders, and Purchase Orders. In Zoho Books there are Estimate, Sales Orders and Purchase Order and Vendor Bills. Would be awesome if a Quote in Zoho CRM would map over to an Estimate in Zoho Books and the same with Purchase Orders in Zoho CRM to map over to PO's in Zoho Books.
  • Have been a longtime user so I started out on the Global edition. There is a US edition which I'm not able to easily migrate over to so some functionality is lost but it's not been enough of a stumbling point to truly turn us away from Zoho.
  • I'm a big David Allen, Getting Things Done fan so having a trusted source for all of my info is important. Zoho CRM is that source for me. Everything I have going on I enter in Zoho CRM.
  • Definitely increased employee efficiency as no one should have to ask anyone else for what's going on with a specific client or project because as long as they have been granted access, they can see for themselves.
  • One of the things our clients have mentioned to us once we started using Zoho CRM is that they never have to wonder about the status of their order. We've become very efficient with getting the necessary info and communicating that to our clients and the ease of use with Zoho CRM is what has made that possible.
Like anything new there will be a learning curve but once you understand their UI it functions the same across all of the Zoho suite of products. I can't say enough how important it is to work with a certified Zoho Partner so that you can set up the system correctly from the start. There are a lot of customizations including specific levels of department and employee access that you would want to do for privacy and security reasons. You and your team can learn on the fly but a Zoho Partner will make sure it's set up correctly from day one.
I've not ran into a business or industry that Zoho cannot be configured for as it is truly fully customizable. While there are many options it can be used immediately if your needs are basic. Otherwise, you can customize it yourself which is what I did but it took time. I wish I would have hired a Certified Zoho Partner rather than go it alone as there were some inherent challenges in trying to figure out some aspects of the automation features.
I loved Daylite and hated to leave it as it was great but it didn't have a cloud-based solution and that was paramount to me at the time. I tried about 7 different CRMs and found that most of them had some really great features but each one seemed to be lacking some integration that I needed. And it didn't make sense to have multiple apps in order to do what I needed. And Zoho CRM in conjunction with the full Zoho suite of products served all of my needs.

Do you think Zoho CRM delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Zoho CRM's feature set?

Yes

Did Zoho CRM live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Zoho CRM go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Zoho CRM again?

Yes

I generally tell people because of the various suites of apps that Zoho has to offer, it's a great service as you can grow and expand as you need some of the other modules and they all integrate seamlessly together. And if someone just needs a contact manager for an uber basic contact list, Zoho has an app for that as well that can be upgraded to a more feature rich service later when needed. There is a free trial but my advice to anyone who wishes to truly incorporate Zoho CRM or the full suite of Zoho One into their business to work with a certified Zoho Partner who can customize Zoho CRM so you can onboard yourself and staff much more quickly based on how your currently operate your business.

Zoho CRM Feature Ratings

9.2
Customer data management / contact management
9
Workflow management
9
Territory management
Not Rated
Opportunity management
9
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)
Not Rated
Contract management
Not Rated
Quote & order management
9
Interaction tracking
10
Channel / partner relationship management
Not Rated
8.0
Case management
8
Call center management
8
Help desk management
8
10.0
Lead management
10
Email marketing
10
9.3
Task management
10
Billing and invoicing management
9
Reporting
9
9.3
Forecasting
9
Pipeline visualization
9
Customizable reports
10
9.0
Custom fields
9
Custom objects
Not Rated
Scripting environment
Not Rated
API for custom integration
Not Rated
9.0
Role-based user permissions
9
Single sign-on capability
9
9.0
Social data
8
Social engagement
10
Not Rated
Marketing automation
Not Rated
Compensation management
Not Rated
9.0
Mobile access
9

Using Zoho CRM

1 - We use the full suite of Zoho Products via a Zoho One subscription which includes all of our email, marketing, emarketing, social media integration, accounting, HR, password manager, etc both in a desktop and a mobile app.
1 - I had multiple people working for me for a while but once I was able to fully integrate all of the automation features that are available in Zoho CRM and the full suite of Zoho One products I was able to eliminate every position so now it's just me.
  • Client Satisfaction
  • Profit Maximization
  • Automation
  • Ease of Use
  • Trusted System
  • Little to no downtime
  • The Automation features continue to surprise me
  • Zoho continues to improve the product with new features
  • Support is available anytime 24/7 if/when I run into an issue or just forget how to do something.
  • Enhanced social media engagement
  • There is a client portal which we've not enabled yet
We've been longtime users of Zoho CRM and from there it was Zoho Docs, then Zoho Books, Zoho Sites, until at some point when Zoho One, the full suite of all Zoho products was launched we went with that subscription as it was the most cost effective. I occasionally will peruse other CRM's but none of them are as fully integrated or as feature rich as Zoho CRM is.

Evaluating Zoho CRM and Competitors

Yes - We had been using Daylite which was awesome but there were host server-based which meant not cloud-based. When I migrated to a virtual office it was imperative that I have a cloud-based system that would function for my employees regardless of where they lived. After doing a lot of research and testing out probably 5-7 other CRM's I opted for Zoho CRM due to affordability, features, and ease of use. I do not for one moment regret my decision.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
It really is hard to choose just one factor as there were cheaper CRM's but who cares about the price if it doesn't deliver on the requirements you need to fulfill. And there were more expensive CRM like SalesForce that I tried for a while but the pricing and the extreme challenges of learning the system made it not good. There's the old saying about Price, Quality or Service, pick any two. Well, I've found Zoho CRM to deliver all 3 with the added benefit of never ending feature enhancements.
I think if I had to do it again and had experience using Zoho CRM the only thing I'd do differently is not waste time evaluating any other CRM but just start out with Zoho CRM.

Zoho CRM Implementation

Take it slowly and meet often with your team to solicit their feedback. Listen to what they are saying so that if something is not clear, you can address it before they turn on the CRM. Also, whatever system you were one previously will not match Zoho CRM which is both good and bad. It's good as I know Zoho CRM will be better than whatever you're been using. Bad because it will require change and how you did things in your old CRM may need to be modified a little when using Zoho CRM.
  • Implemented in-house
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - You have to get buy in from your team otherwise it won't work or you'll need to eliminate some staff. Everyone needs to know up front it won't be easy and will be a challenge. But if everyone uses the system as it's intended it will make everyone's life so much easier. Also, mapping out on paper first how you would like the system to function. Then meet with a Certified Zoho Partner to go over your plan. The reason this is important is there may be some efficiencies gained by using inherent Zoho CRM functionalty which may change your current system flow. Having a Partner just follow your current processes may not be the most efficient.
  • Trusting that all of the data would be protected and not lost
  • Ensuring that access to certain info was protected by user level permissions
  • Understanding all that Zoho CRM is capable of doing and slowing implementing it's full functionality at a pace that each user could keep up with.

Zoho CRM Support

I am impressed with the level of support I receive from Zoho. There are times when something simply isn't working as I would expect and I do a live chat session with them and it's usually resolved. If we are unable to do it via live chat we'll do an instant remote session so they can evaluate or fix the issue. There have been times where the issue needs to get bumped up to an advanced level systems engineer and so it may take 24 hours for the fix to be corrected but I'm notified along the way and there is follow up to make sure all is well.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
I did not as being a longtime user, I've learned a lot along the way via reading tech info and looking at YouTube videos. I know if you have a large team it with very complex functionality and customizations that may be necessary but it was not for me.
I was having issues setting up a field update which was being triggered by another field update. After attempting to do the customization myself several times and having it not function as I'd intended I reached out to them. Rather than talk me through my errors, I gave them permission to make the fix in my system which they did and it functioned. What more can you ask for as that level of service truly exceeded my expectations.

Using Zoho CRM

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
None
  • Basic contact searching
  • Basic Opportunity/Task Tracking
  • Seeing previous account/contact interactions
  • Forecasting functions
  • Opportunity status
  • Global address updates for an account or vendor contacts
  • Wish Click-To-Call would function with Google Voice but it is on Google's side that it doesn't
Yes - I find it equally functional albeit being on a much smaller screen. I really love the click to map functionally so I can go to a contact, click on their address and my Apple or Google map will pull up and allow for directions to arrive at my client.