Item: Zuora
Rating: 6
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Zuora

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our organization uses Zuora across sales and finance in conjunction with Salesforce.com to manage all product subscriptions and invoicing. We use its price book for quoting as well, and its data is pulled to our other websites for renewal and product-add purposes.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Subscriptions are handled very well. They are flexible and easy to manage.
Invoicing and bill runs are also flexible and easy to manage.

Cons

The user interface in many places is obtuse and complicated.
The system has several inexplicable rules dealing with subscription amendments that should be removed or user-toggled.
The accounting backbone of the system is weak and could be more flexible.

Alternatives Considered

Zuora is generally helpful in managing these things, although it still contains several rules and restrictions (accounting periods, amendment management, etc) that should be either removed or made user-defineable.

Likelihood to Recommend

The system appears to be designed primarily for monthly-type automated billing. We use it primarily for annual, piecemeal billing, however, and it holds up reasonably well there. Subscriptions are a far superior method to managing customer inventory, forecasting, and billing than what we used previously.

Using Zuora

Users and Roles

10 - About ten people (all in finance) use Zuora through its own portal, but another 100+ use it indirectly through Salesforce.com (reporting, quoting).

Support Headcount Required

5 - Finance, IT

Business Processes Supported

Subscription management
Invoicing
Renewal campaigns

Innovative Uses

Usage information is loaded into Zuora and then pulled by our renewal website to display to customers.

Future Planned Uses

Evergreen billing

Likelihood to Renew

The product has a lot of room for improvement, but there is also nothing better on the market that is compelling enough to make us want to switch after two and a half years.

Return on Investment

Hard to say. It certainly hasn't had a negative impact, and its help of our renewal process has definitely served as a catalyst.

Other Software Used

Salesforce Partner Management

Evaluating Zuora and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - Microsoft Great Plains. It was slow and entirely unsuited to subscription-based billing.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation

Compatibility with Salesforce.com, which we were already using

Evaluation Lessons Learned

No idea - we vetted the product quite thoroughly.

Zuora Implementation

Implementation Rating

it will take a while, so be very careful and deliberate. Prepare for secondary users to struggle with the transition.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house
Professional services company

SaaS International (now Baldpeak) in conjunction with our in-house IT folks

Implementation Phases

Yes - Two phases: implementation of Zuora and launch of an external-facing customer portal website tied to the Zuora database

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a major issue with the implementation - Sales teams fought the change in the quoting and Salesforce reporting that went along with the shift to Zuora, necessitating the creation of an elaborate custom-coded "bridge" that still exists today. This took several months.

Implementation Issues

Data import was messy and had to be done several times
Long delays due to required custom code (see previous answer)

Zuora Support

Support Rating

Support usually responds quickly but is always slow to grasp the problem and rarely helpful without escalation. Part of the problem may be that we use the product in a slightly unconventional way.

Zuora Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Kept well informed	Slow Resolution Poor followup Less knowledgeable Problems left unsolved Escalation required Need to explain problems multiple times

Bug Resolution

Yes - Considerable issues with Titanium upgrade. Small problems persist several months later and support has not been particularly helpful.

Exceptional Examples of Zuora Support

Not in recent memory, although I don't recall my perception being so negative in the first year or two. It appears as though support's level of training and knowledge has dropped since we began using the product.

Using Zuora

Usability

You're basically able to do what you need, but sometimes it seems as though the interface was designed by a space alien from a different galaxy. A space alien who is, on its home planet, an expert at interface design.