At The Marks Group, we sell and implement five Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications and currently serve more than 600 companies who use these applications to increase their sales, improve customer service and grow their profitability. A good CRM system, when implemented properly, will ensure that important tasks are never falling through the cracks, critical information is being shared by everyone in your organization wherever they are and the value of your company is increasing.
This whitepaper is about Zoho CRM. Zoho CRM is made by Zoho Corporation. Like the millions who already use this great product, it may be right for your company. If you’re seriously considering Zoho CRM, then let me share these five reasons why you should consider buying it, based on the more than 90 clients we serve who have already purchased it.
1 – It’s very affordable
Zoho CRM has a free version with limited capabilities. But it’s full-featured Enterprise version is only $35 per month per user. I like to call Zoho CRM the “poor man’s Salesforce.com.” This is not a knock on Zoho. It’s just that the cloud based application includes most, if not all, of the features and functionality that’s commonly used by our clients who have anywhere between two and fifty users. We sell and implement Salesforce.com and it’s fantastic – but it’s pricey and in many cases overkill for our typical client. For Zoho CRM’s base price you get many functionalities (i.e. service, marketing) that would cost extra in Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce.com With Zoho you get a lot of bang for the buck.
2 – The CRM mobile application is great
We use Zoho CRM in our company. Last year I was on a family vacation and my laptop died. For almost a week I was forced to conduct my business, stay in contact with my office, follow-up on certain matters – all from my smartphone using Zoho’s mobile applications. And I never missed a beat. Zoho CRM has a fully featured mobile app for an iPhone or Android that contains most of the capabilities in its browser-based CRM product – from opportunities to account management. Its separate e-mail application integrates deeply with the CRM system so I never had to worry about my emails being saved in my company database. Both mobile apps are free and downloaded from the Apple or Google stores.
3 – There are great third-party products
Zoho CRM is a cloud based application and the company has established partnerships with most of the other leading cloud based business applications available today. For example, there are integrations with MailChimp for bulk emailing, QuickBooks Online and Xero for accounting, ZenDesk for customer service and many others. Zoho also works well with Zapier, Workato and other cloud-based integration tools. Zoho synchronizes well with Microsoft Outlook and Office 365 but it’s also strongly intertwined with Google’s business apps too.
4 – It belongs to a powerful suite of products
Zoho is unique in that it’s CRM application is just one part of a broad suite of business applications that the company offers to handle every part of your processes. Zoho offers its own tools for accounting, project management, invoicing, help desk, website creation and email – and many, many others. The Zoho suite of products integrate well with each other and the company wants it to be your only platform for doing all of your work.
5 – You can customize just about anything
Even though Zoho is much less expensive than other enterprise tools, it does not lack capabilities or customization. As you would expect, Zoho allows the complete design of all forms, views and fields. You can restrict data views and updates by user or group. You can add and remove modules. You can design specialized lists and add as many fields as you please. Using its’ own built in features or adding on Zoho Creator, we’ve been able to build entire new modules for clients that help them manage inventory, organize equipment and fixed assets or track vehicle maintenance. Most importantly, Zoho is user-friendly enough to learn how to do this on your own (or with educational materials they provide) so there’s no requirement that you use a firm like The Marks Group – unless, of course you have better things to do!
The Bottom Line
We recommend Zoho CRM to companies with these characteristics:
- a need for a fully cloud based CRM application
- a smaller user group (about two to fifty people)
- a smaller budget and less need for extensive customizations/integrations
- a need to integrate with other cloud based apps out of the box
- less reliance on Microsoft Outlook and other Microsoft products.
If these characteristics fit your description, then Zoho may be the right choice for you.
The Marks Group offers expert-led Zoho training and support on all Zoho apps and products. Contact us at info@marksgroup.net to find out more and check out our YouTube video library!
