Item: Zoho CRM
Rating: 6
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Zoho CRM in combination with the rest of the Zoho suite to meet our ERP and CRM needs. We use the books, inventory, projects, and CRM needs to interface between departments and with customers. We also use it for all of our accounting needs except payroll, and we use it to track and purchase inventory.

Pros and Cons

Easy Setup
Good single front-end integration. service, sales, and engineering all prefer to operate through CRM applications.
User friendly

Ability to link product prices to website.
Inventory management needs help. Can't allocate inventory until all of it is ready to ship. So if a part is on backorder in a composite item, you have to manually remember the remaining items that make up composite items are allocated.
A lot of the permissions are rolled together that shouldn't be (ex. viewing archived projects and deleting projects are one permission).
Syncing had issues and resulted in duplicate accounts that we will have to manually merge.

Return on Investment

Cost effective

Usability

From a front-end user standpoint, it is very easy to use. Most of my challenges have been from the backend administrator side.

Product Configurability

I have less experience with CRM, so it may be better, but other Zoho apps could use more configurability for my application. However, as mentioned before, I think it is just right for simpler applications.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Access Management and Siemens PLM Components

Zoho CRM is much simpler to use than Oracle and is a much more "out of the box" product. There is much more training documentation widely available so it is easier for companies that may not have a dedicated IT administrator. On the other hand, it will limit larger companies as it doesn't have nearly as much customizability as Oracle and Siemens, and it has its own software language if you want to code any extensions or APIs called Deluge.

Key Insights

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Zoho CRM go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Zoho CRM again?

Other Software Used

SOLIDWORKS

Likelihood to Recommend

Whether I recommend Zoho CRM greatly depends on the industry of the company. I would not recommend it for large-scale or custom manufacturing, but I would recommend it for a distributor, software company, or small-scale manufacturing company with simple products. As a large custom product manufacturer, we face a lot of issues due to the inventory and projects applications, but it is not cost-effective to outsource those to third-party platforms and then integrate with Zoho CRM. I believe that Zoho CRM on its own would also not be effective for us as one of the great benefits of a CRM is its cross-functionality. One of the main points about having a good experience with CRM is ensuring that it is set up properly and data is properly imported before you begin using it. Dumping your data in a system that is half set up will not yield good results.

Great for distributors and simple products, not so great for large scale CUSTOM manufacturing

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Zoho CRM