In our review, we found that Zoho CRM is a SaaS-based platform that recommends CRM solutions for sales and marketing. This review will teach you how Zoho CRM benefits businesses through its robust features. You will learn how Zoho CRM suits your operations through its rich features. In our extensive research, we have tried to cover everything about Zoho CRM. Several features, prices, customer support, etc., are available to suit the needs of your business. In addition, Our throughout research will help you better understand how Zoho CRM can be useful for your business. It will also help you know what are the strengths and weaknesses of Zoho CRM.
What is Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM is the platform that enables different experience levels to maximize productivity and build customer relationships. Robust features include analytics, process management, customization, third-party integration, etc. Zoho CRM allows businesses to track their workflow and streamline the entire sales and marketing process.
Seamless third-party integration and collaborative tools, including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Whatsapp, Intuitive QuickBooks, and Slack, can enhance productivity by eliminating time consumption.
Furthermore, we have found in our research about Zoho CRMs' flexible mobile support on iOS and Android devices that is available in Apple's app store and Google Play store. As a matter of fact, this platform offers 4 different plans, which include AI-Zia as well. The plans start with a free plan and end with an ultimate one, as seen in our pricing plan review.
Customer support Zoho CRM provides to end users differs based on feature plans. Additionally, Zoho CRM offers various support options, such as live chat support, email support, and a complete customer portal, to serve the finest service and maintain customer retention.
Zoho CRM is Majorly Helpful for?
As we know, Zoho CRM offers an excellent sales CRM platform for all sizes of businesses. It is required for sales processes as it provides sales-centric solutions for customer satisfaction. So it is available for:
Sales Leaders
Sales leaders are very important for achieving business goals. They always have to make sure that all team members are facilitated with the best CRM solution equipped with the robust features, like project management, sales forecasting, meeting scheduler, training, sales pipeline management, customer segmentation, time management, and analytical abilities. If you are in the sales leader’s shoes, Zoho CRM would be the best choice for you. It provides the best features that increase conversions and streamlines the sales process.
Sales People
Zoho CRM is a powerful sales CRM solution. It is beneficial not only for higher-level managers but also for those at the ground level. It helps them juggle daily tasks, such as emails, phone calls, appointments, meetings, targets, analytics, etc. Zoho CRM provides AI-based solutions that generate a new customer database for upcoming pipelines. Automation reduces duplications and provides accurate data and more that can help increase sales and eliminate workload, and let them provide effective results.
Which Size of Businesses can Use Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM is one of the best CRM tools out there, offering robust functionality that are suitable for small to large-scale businesses. Nevertheless, our research indicates that the tool is used mostly in the following business sizes:
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- Freelancers
- Mid-size Companies
- Small-sized Businesses
- Large-scale businesses
What is the Language Zoho CRM Supports?
Zoho CRM supports 25 languages across the world, including Zoho Emails, Zoho Cliq, Zoho Work Drive, etc., and many other products where Zoho CRM supports multi-language such as: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
The Zoho CRM team is working on localizing the user interface for another language, such as Chinese. In addition, they are also working on supporting UK English to expand their customer service offerings in the UK region.
Does Zoho CRM Support Mobile Devices?
Zoho CRM is available on both iOS and Android platforms. You can be in touch with the sales world at your fingertips. Zoho CRM enables its mobile app features to track all sales information from an opportunity to closure from anywhere and anytime. In our throughout research, we have also found that Zoho CRM offers mobile support in various ways, such as:
› Mobile CRM: It can help you manage and operate all your sales activities, including deals, contacts, tasks, customers, and your team from one place.
› Analytics for Mobile: You can monitor KPIs and team performance. Helpful for sales reps and managers to control access to the sales analytics dashboard.
› RouteIQ Mobile: An intelligent route planner that helps you find qualified leads and drive them to closure. You can navigate through your customers' locations on your mobile device with a single click. It can help generate leads and update event information.
› Mobile Card Scanner: Through Zoho Card Scanner, you can easily import contact details by photographing any business card from iOS and Android devices.
Overall, Zoho CRM offers various facilities, even on mobile devices. However, it also differs in feature plans.
Does Zoho CRM offer API?
Yes, Zoho CRM equips various APIs to customize solutions as needed. Here is some API information you may find helpful. The list includes
› Rest APIs: These help integrate third-party applications.
› Metadata APIs: Helps fetch the metadata modules, fields, relevant lists, custom views, etc.
› Composite API: It enables multiple calls in a single request.
› Bulk APIs: Using asynchronous APIs, Zoho CRM allows bulk data to be retrieved.
› Notification APIs: Notify alerts when data changes occur.
› Query APIs: Helps fetch records using SQL syntax.
What Prime Apps does Zoho CRM Integrate with?
Moreover, Zoho CRM also provides third-party integration seamlessly. It can help you manage your software and streamline your business in less time. Here are some featured integrations Zoho CRM is friendly with.
Microsoft 365, Slack, Google Workspace, Mailchimp, Shopify, Facebook, PandaDoc, and many other apps can easily be integrated with Zoho CRM, providing valuable benefits to your business.
Is Zoho CRM Right For Your Business? Yes/ No
According to our review, Zoho CRM is an excellent tool best suitable for all business sizes. It also offers its end-users a wide range of features with advanced analytics. However, advanced features are available for higher-tier subscribers. In the free-tier plan, Zoho CRM has limitations in using features with basic options that may concern startups or small-scale businesses.
The tool is very easy to set up. With its simple installation and implementation guide, users can start using the solution quickly. Moreover, users can set up the solution if they do not have in-house tech support. The tool comes with the specific and straightforward step-by-step installation guide, leaving no chance for confusion.
Suppose you are in the sales leader role and require advanced features and capabilities to manage your sales team efficiently. You can completely rely on the Zoho CRM. It has all the top-notch features and capabilities that sales leaders may need.
With its advanced features that boost sales through CRM and AI innovation, Zia creates an exceptional experience for any business process. Regardless, it is also true that its free features plan doesn't provide such functions that may hinder small-scale businesses.
Zoho allows numerous custom layouts, forms, and views to the industries, based on their needs. Several integration and API tools require technical support for developers in the organization. Regardless, Zoho CRM has stated that for higher-tier plan subscribers, it is not recommended for limited tech team members.
However, customer support Zoho CRM extends to their customers is time-consuming. They don't offer 24/7 customer support to subscribers. Though they have friendly customer support with some limitations.
Overall, Zoho CRM offers a wide range of features, including a contact management system and sales tracking tools that are useful for businesses. Even with this, Zoho CRM receives low customer support ratings due to its chargeable customer service plans. All this information can help you to decide on further procedures and let you understand the investment.
Is Zoho CRM Superbly Easy to Use, Or Easy to Use?
Zoho CRM provides an easy-to-use interface that connects with other Zoho apps conveniently with its paid plan. It is easy to install and does not require any technical expertise. It includes comprehensive guidance on how to use and explains all the processes that release stress for any start-up.
Easy-to-understand dashboard and menu bar that is designed to focus on the needed things. Such as reports analytics, activities, deals, contacts, leads, accounts, etc., that are automated and customizable.
Its flexible customization, extension, and integration with Zoho Marketplace improve it, provide streamlined sales processes, and increase sales. So many features make Zoho CRM exceptional, which makes it different from other CRM platforms in the market.
Zoho CRM Pricing Review
Zoho CRM has different feature plans with different pricing. As we all know, Zoho CRM is the best solution for all businesses. But it is most concerning budgeting. Through our extensive research, you will find detailed information about Zoho CRM feature pricing.
Compared to others, Zoho CRM offers an effective pricing packages with 15 days trial in all tier plans except the ultimate-tier plan. This plan offers a 30-day trial period. During the subscription, if you pay annually, you will get a 20% discount on all monthly subscriptions.
1. Free plan: This plan is valid for up to 3 users. Regarding features, it provides only account, lead, and contact management. In addition to that, integration is inaccessible with this plan. Sales forecasting, lead generation, and other sales-relevant features are initially needed.
2. Zoho Standard: The Standard plan costs $14 per user/monthly (if billed annually) and opens the door to some perks. You will discover sales forecasting, lead scoring rules, and multiple pipeline features here. You can also get reports based on your creations in this plan, but 100 reports are limited. You can create up to 100 reports under this plan.
3. Professional Plan: The plan costs around $23 per user/month (if billed annually). Although it may not fulfill your desire, it has some automation limitations. But yes, you can integrate Google Ads and inventory management. The professional plan can be an appropriate choice for those who do not require a separate inventory app.
4. Enterprise Plan: It is the highest plan in Zoho CRM, where you can access exclusive features without restrictions, including customer segmentation, auto-responders, and marketing attributes to generate marketing campaigns and leads. It is worth $40 per user/month (if billed annually).
It opens up the possibilities to utilize Zoho CRM fully, including the recently added AI Zia feature. These features can help you generate predictive conversions with accurate leads, sales trends, and more management features. The result may be an increase in revenue for your business.
5. Ultimate plan: For most professional plans, you can subscribe to the Ultimate plan, which costs $52 per user/month (if billed annually). Ultimate plans with ultimate features without bars. That can get you access to all the features, such as sales force automation, process management, product customization, etc. However, it being expensive for startups may be a nuisance for them. But for enterprise-level businesses, it can be fruitful.
| Plan / Pricing | Free Plan | Standard Plan ($) | Professional Plan ($) | Enterprise Plan ($) | Ultimate Plan ($) |
| Monthly | 0 | 20 | 35 | 50 | 65 |
| Annually | 0 | 14 | 23 | 40 | 52 |
Overall, Zoho CRM has several automated scalability tools for large-scale organizations. Additionally, it has exclusive features for specific analytics and split testing for web forms. Yes, and it is expensive for small businesses and startups. For well-growing companies, it can be a reasonable plan to accelerate business in competitive markets.
Zoho CRM free Vs. Paid
Zoho CRM serves various industries and offers multiple features that differ from several plans. Businesses consider plans based on their needs. Our research showed that providing a free version is a significant opportunity. However, it only includes a few features for start-up businesses. As Zoho CRM has multi-plans, a standard plan still contains a few features that will be challenging for any small-scale business model.
Regarding the free plan, Zoho CRM considers only 3 users. At the same time, the higher plan offers an AI tool for better functionality that is not included in the free plan. With the higher plans, such as the standard tier, you still get limited features and customer support. However, everything will remain the same as the free tier. You can upgrade to the higher plan for unlimited and better features per your business needs.
Zoho CRM Features
Zoho CRM is the complete sales and marketing suite that provides flexible customization, contact, and deal management. Any business can achieve its desired goals thanks to a variety of features it offers, such as:
› Contact Management: Zoho provides a simple and straightforward contact management system. The software provides users with a secure storage place where they can add, edit, or delete contacts hasslefree.
› Workflow Automation: Automation eliminates workload, streamlines workflow, and simplifies sales and marketing routines. Automation can help analyze work performance through its artificial intelligence Zia and increase productivity by identifying the improvement.
› Lead Management: It can help your sales team convert leads into conversions and bring more sales to increase revenue. Nurture and analyze leads from multiple channels that enter lead management. It measures ROI through online ads, analyzes and tracks key details about leads, and provides a predictive lead forecast.
› Deal Management: It helps close deals faster with deal management solutions. Establish a custom pipeline, analyze essential deal information, and build a sales process that meets demand. Achieve more deal closure across territories and sales structures.
› Sales Forecasting: It guides you through predictive business revenue with real-time sales data. In addition to providing a comprehensive view of forecasting all through a business hierarchy, it provides a detailed breakdown of all forecasting. With comprehensive data, you can increase business standards and performance.
› Sales Process Builder: It can learn, analyze, and observe business goals and build a strategic and standardized sales process roadmap. Depending on your business needs, it can provide great lead-generation capabilities. It can capture the sales process and let the team follow the appropriate strategy to achieve effective results.
› Marketing Automation: Marketing automation can help you segment your customers to differentiate and conquer the targeted market. Lead nurturing to convert leads into conversions. And capture customer insights from various other web forms to build web leads.
› Email Management & Tracking: Email management and personalizing email content as per customers and providing contextual CRM information. Zoho CRM aims to improve sales through its compatibility with other email systems. You can schedule email messages, update email statuses, personalize emails, and save and analyze email templates.
› Social Activities Tracking: You can track real-time social media engagement notifications across all social media platforms through social activity tracking. You can also track with Zoho Social with flexible customization.
› Omnichannel Conversation: It enables real-time communication with customers. You can get customer insights notifications if anyone browses your site. With Zoho CRM, you can manage all social media activities related to lead conversions with omnichannel features.
› Reports and Analytics: With reporting and analytics, you can see the entire sales process and get comprehensive information on your sales performance. You can track your business metrics to empower your sales team with results. You can get complete pipeline tracking reports, smart deals alert notifications, and in-depth sales analytics that give you actionable data to increase sales faster and wiser.
Zoho CRM Customer Support Review
In our deep research, Zoho CRM is an affordable and easy-to-use CRM solution. However, it has some customer support flaws. With Zoho CRM, you get a seamless experience with various powerful features and other flexible integration options that vary based on your subscription. It increases the challenges that need to be solved in time. In contrast, it is not worth the effort and is time-consuming.
Zoho CRM offers various customer support options. For additional customer assistance, they will charge 20% for the premium plan and 25% for the enterprise plan.
› Classic support: You can contact the support team via email, call, or chat. However, this service is free, but you can receive remote assistance with a paid subscription. Also, you can get the facilities 8 hours/day and five days/week.
› Premium Plan: It will cost 20% of your subscription, and you will get 24 hours/day and five days/week. As an additional benefit, you can get support for 3 hours before the onboarding session. Furthermore, remote assistance, personalized configuration assistance, and product onboarding support will be provided.
› Enterprise Support: It will cost 25% of your annual subscription plan (including a minimum of 25 user licenses). You can get personalized customer support tailored to your team and product. This plan includes a technical accounting manager, 24/7 multichannel support, early access and training for feature demos, quarterly reports on feature usage, and access to documentation.
Overall, Zoho CRM is worth some customers and unworthy of some customers. While Zoho software is receiving an immensely positive response, some Zoho reviews are difficult to categorize. However, customer support waiting times decreased as support plans got expensive.
To provide an end-to-end business solution, Zoho CRM has developed various ways. Here is the list of ways in which you can connect to customer support for solutions to business issues:
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- Email/Help Desk
- FAQs/Forum
- Knowledge Base
- Phone Support
- 24/7 (Live Rep)
- Chat
Industries using Zoho CRM
It is clear that Zoho CRM is popular with businesses, and it is used in several trades. However, it has various features-plan per any business's needs from low to high. You can learn more by looking at the following Sector using Zoho CRM:
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- Automotive Industry
- Life Sciences Industry
- Financial Services Industry
- Real Estate Industry
- Retail Industry
- Services Industry
- Insurance Industry
- For Nonprofits
Zoho CRM Pros & Cons
As we reviewed Zoho CRM, we discovered that any business can benefit from its fruitful features. Although it has all the features a business may need to grow, there are some noticeable downsides as well. We have put all advantages and disadvantages in a form of pros and cons so you can easily understand them. They are as follows:
Pros
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- Easy-to-use interface
- Easy-to-understand
- Mobile devices are supported.
- Free plans available
- Multiple integrations
- Flexible unsubscribe and refund guarantee
- The email marketing process
- Process automation
Cons
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- Learning curve steep
- Only higher plans have access to the AI Zia tool
- No integration with the free plan
- Chargeable customer support
- The lengthy cycle of refund (30-45) days
Zoho CRM Alternatives
Zoho CRM is the recommended solution for sales and marketing for your business. However, the pricing and customer support part can be challenging for newcomers. Zoho CRM can be the best choice for any business in other aspects, such as marketing and business strategy, but you can also check the other best alternative CRM software. That can be the appropriate match for your business in all aspects.
Zoho CRM Other Review Responses
In our Zoho CRM review, you will find all the information about the tool. If you with to know more about tool’s reliability and credibility from the real Zoho CRM tool users, you can visit the best software review and rating platforms that we have mentioned below:
Zoho CRM Technical Details Review
Deployment: As well as being easy to use, Zoho CRM is also easy to implement without a technical team involved. It has a deployment guide for end-users that they can quickly implement through the guidebooks available on the official site. Zoho CRM enables easy and multiple deployments, including:
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- Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
- Mobile - Android
- Mobile - iPhone
- Mobile - iPad
Training: Zoho CRM offers various certification courses. You can explore Zoho Spark's various methods. It has specialized training for all Zoho products. You can learn skills and techniques from its experts via virtual classes, face-to-face online classes, or interactive classroom training with various platforms such as:
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- In-Person,
- Live Online
- Webinars
- Documentation
- Videos
Our Verdict
Zoho CRM is prominent CRM software that engages customers and helps businesses increase sales to generate growth-driven revenue. Undoubtedly, Zoho CRM is popular in the CRM world due to its robust features. The tool provides flawless features that accelerate your sales process.
The tool has a mobile app that allows users to perform all the sales-related processes from anywhere by putting the customers' and leads’ data at their fingertips through the mobile app. Moreover, the mobile app’s interface is user-friendly, and most Zoho CRM users find it simple and straightforward. The main benefit of the mobile app is that users can work offline even if there is no network coverage available.
The Zoho CRM provides a free version for small businesses and startups. The free version offers fundamental features that can help businesses to grow. On the other hand, some users think that the free version should include more features and integrations.
Furthermore, Zoho CRM takes its customer support very seriously and offers exceptional customer support. However, some users found the paid customer support options a little bit expensive. Additionally, according to some users, video calling customer support is a time-consuming process. In the paid version, you get limited hours and remote assistance. In addition, you will receive personalized assistance from higher-tier subscriptions.
FAQs
What is the use of Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM brings sales and marketing teams together and allows users to automate both processes. It aims to streamline the process to increase conversions.
Who is Zoho CRM best for?
Whether you're running a start-up or a large corporation, Zoho CRM is a valuable sales, marketing, and customer support tool for businesses and individuals of all sizes.
What is the difference between lead and account in Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM converts leads into accounts, contacts, and deals (opportunities) as the sales rep follow-ups them. Accounts are the companies or departments with which you do business.
How many workflows can be created in Zoho CRM?
A workflow rule can have 5 time-based actions. Each time-based step can have 5 alerts & tasks, 3 field updates, 5 custom functions, and 5 webhooks. Emails will be sent to customers only if the Email Opt Out option is enabled.
How many pipelines can you have in Zoho?
Each category can have its pipeline in the Sales layout. The Deals module has a Stage field used for the default pipeline.
Does Zoho CRM track emails?
Zoho CRM manages emails and provides notifications by tracking emails. It also tracks email template performance.
