Item: Zoho CRM
Rating: 9
Author: Adam Montgomery

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Zoho CRM is used across our entire organization, with our sales department using the software most frequently. Zoho CRM acts a database for all of our leads, contacts, and clients. We use the software to ensure that our sales staff, engineers, and consultants all have visibility on where clients are in the sales process and the what the latest communication with current and prospective clients has been. We also use it to track our sales pipeline.

Pros and Cons

Zoho CRM has an incredible amount of features, from tagging contacts to social media integration (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) and email capabilities.
Zoho CRM is very customizable. The entire look and feel of each page and account can be customized to fit your organization's needs.
Zoho CRM is just one of the products offered under Zoho's suite of software products. It easily integrates with other enterprise software like Zoho Project Management and Zoho email.

Zoho CRM customer service is responsive but when dealing with a specific issue, it can be time consuming and cumbersome to schedule a call to review the issue. Oftentimes while waiting, I spend a lot of time searching for answers on 'how to' videos and FAQs, but searching for answers this way can be frustrating.
While all of the functions and features are great, new users can find Zoho CRM a little overwhelming. It takes a while to fully grasp all of Zoho CRM's capabilities.
Zoho has other software products but it can be challenging to know when it would be useful to turn to their other products. For example, Zoho CRM has emailing functions but there is also Zoho Emails, which is a separate product.

Return on Investment

Zoho CRM has helped us visualize and analyze our sales pipeline in a more detailed manner, which has helped us better forecast our annual revenues.
Zoho CRM has brought a level of visibility across our organization that was not there before. This has helped us stay on track and keep everyone accountable.
Since using Zoho CRM, we've seen our annual sales jump 10%. While it's impossible to attribute this entirely to Zoho CRM, it has definitely helped our sales grow by helping us stay focused and disciplined in our communication with clients.

Alternatives Considered

Insightly and Hatchbuck

We jumped to Zoho CRM from previous trial periods with Hatchbuck and Insightly. Zoho CRM is better suited for larger, growing organizations as it has more capabilities and features than Hatchbuck and Insightly. We liked to think of those CRMS as "starters" for small businesses just entering the CRM world.

Other Software Used

MailChimp, Constant Contact, Canva

Likelihood to Recommend

Zoho CRM is a great CRM for organizations of all sizes. It's best used as a tool to organize and communicate with clients and prospective clients. Our sales staff uses it on a daily basis to continuously keep notes on their communication with clients during the sales process.

At times, it feels like Zoho CRM is trying to offer too much and it can be overwhelming if trying to use all features and capabilities. It's better to focus on a handful of features and get your organization using those features on a consistent basis than trying to incorporate everything that Zoho can do.

Zoho CRM has it all!

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Zoho CRM