02.01.2023

15 minutes

Author: Dan Polonskiy

Zoho CRM: a quick overview

Companies in various industries, from web studios to large retail chains, build their operations on the basis of CRM. The platforms help to organize interaction with customers, monitor employee productivity, plan tasks, generate work reports, contracts, and other business documentation. CRM for browsers with add-ons in the form of modules are especially popular. Sales managers interact with customers through a remote access system and the manager receives a full report on the company's performance in time.

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM is a convenient system for interacting with customers, which features a secure storage where confidential user data is reliably protected from prying eyes. It includes various modules that extend the functionality of the platform.

Zoho has a large portfolio of cloud applications, which means that you have a wide range of reliable business applications that you can integrate. All the tools of this company are easily connected. And Zoho CRM is one of the main ones. This is the product to choose if you need advanced customer relationship management features, as it offers almost everything that CRM has to offer.

According to available statistics, the system is installed in more than 250 thousand companies. Zoho provides CRM for free for testing. If the client likes the content and technical implementation, they can migrate to a paid plan.

Zoho CRM features and functions

At the beginning, the user has 15 days of trial access, then he can switch to a free license or move his offline office to the online space. The system has a clear and concise interface. On the Zoho home screen, there are widgets with open tasks, previous contacts and stages of transactions.

"Hot deals" that are due to close in the current reporting period are highlighted. To get acquainted with the system's capabilities, it is suggested that you import the initial data. We recommend that you accept the offer, as it will be easier to understand the features of the platform.

The sales automation function includes workflow automation, account management, contact management, deal management, and lead management. This is then complemented by collaboration, marketing automation, sales forecasting, performance management, partner relationship management, sales support and intelligence.

Data transfer from:

Salesforce;

Microsoft Dynamics;

Pipedrive;

HubSpot;

Insightly;

Highrise;

Other CRM;

The import functionality is thought out to the smallest detail and consists of several steps:

Drag & drop interface;

Comparison of documents;

Compare fields;

Preview the results;

Save the results;

The following formats are supported: XLS, XLSX, CSV, VCF.

API

The API is an interface that allows one software to receive data from another, based on connected procedures. For example, a developer can create a robot in Telegram, connect it to the CRM API using a secret key and receive notifications about new deals or customer requests in the messenger.

As for Zoho, the API documentation is described in detail. It is not difficult for a web developer or desktop application creator with a basic knowledge of English to understand the list of variables and constants.

The list of calls to the automated interface is limited by the tariff plan. The list of limits is provided in the documentation. A special tab has a convenient panel where you can track the history of calls. Statistics are updated with a 15-minute delay.

Integrations

In addition to data import and a user-friendly CRM interface, the system needs flexible synchronization with external services for sending emails or SMS.

Zoho allows you to use the functionality of other services:

1C. Invoices, balance sheet, order list, etc. are uploaded from the accounting platform. If you create a new customer in CRM and correctly configure the connection with 1C, the new contact will automatically appear in two places;

Mailchimp newsletter service. When sending emails, it detects non-working mailboxes. This saves system resources, invalid email addresses are automatically highlighted and no offers will be sent to them;

SMS aggregators. Synchronization with Zoho is done via webhook. It is possible to connect to SMS campaigns using SMS Magic and Burst SMS services;

Telephony. Integrates with telephony using PhoneBridge technologies. CRM can be integrated with various telephony systems (Asterisk, Twilio, Avaya, Elastix, ...);

Communication with customers via Twitter and Facebook.

Zoho is the developer of many great services besides Zoho CRM and provides integrations with them that can be set up in a few clicks. Some of our clients use Zoho Campaigns for email campaigns and Zoho Project for project management. There were no problems with the integration, everything works out of the box and it's very well thought out.

Integrations

In addition to data import and a user-friendly CRM interface, the system needs flexible synchronization with external services for sending emails or SMS.

Zoho allows you to use the functionality of other services:

SMS aggregators. Synchronization with Zoho is done via webhook. It is possible to connect to SMS campaigns using SMS Magic and Burst SMS services;

Telephony. Integrates with telephony using PhoneBridge technologies. CRM can be integrated with various telephony systems (Asterisk, Twilio, Avaya, Elastix, ...);

Communication with customers via Twitter and Facebook.

An example of Zoho developments

The App Store has many interesting apps that increase the functionality of the system. Among them are: connection to WhatsApp, creation of a kanban board, integration with Google Drive and Dropbox cloud storage.

Zoho Reports

Let's pay special attention to such a tool as Zoho Reports.

Zoho Reports is a report builder for Zoho CRM. It allows you to create almost any report in any context. The system has basic reports that are quite good, but you can also create your own report without any problems.

Examples of Zoho Reports:

by managers and groups of managers;

by products and product groups;

by revenue;

by calls: their efficiency, duration, topic, etc.;

by deals: their stages, amounts, probability of winning;

by tasks: their stages, deadlines;

temporary reports: for a day, week, month;

and many other reports.

An example of Zoho developments

Zoho Reports

Let's pay special attention to such a tool as Zoho Reports.

Examples of Zoho Reports:

by managers and groups of managers;

by products and product groups;

by revenue;

by calls: their efficiency, duration, topic, etc;

by deals: their stages, amounts, probability of winning;

by tasks: their stages, deadlines;

temporary reports: for a day, week, month;

and many other reports.

Zoho Creator

A few words should be said about Zoho Creator, a system for creating custom applications within Zoho. Creator easily integrates with Zoho CRM.

Let me show you how it works with an example:

The client is a chain of beauty salons. They have a so-called Service Record. In Zoho Creator, they created the Customer Record application, in which they created their own fields. In one of the fields, you can specify a link to a contact in Zoho CRM. This customer record was created as a separate module. Zoho Creator is the topic of a separate article, but I can say that this system has very wide capabilities.

Automation

With Zoho CRM, you can set up approval of any actions or documents within your company. For example, approval of invoices.

You can also automate all routine processes in Zoho CRM by writing rules. For example, with Workflow, you can create workflow rules that can be applied to different modules, such as leads, deals, invoices, products, sales orders, and many others. Specific actions, such as sending an email, adding a label, or updating a required field, can be performed when certain conditions are met. Workflow rules can contain up to 10 conditions, which provides extremely advanced automation to reduce time-consuming administrative tasks.

This is evidenced by the following facts:

Two-factor authentication via Face ID, Touch ID, SMS, voice call, and Google Authenticator. Data on the servers is encrypted through a security protocol. The same measures are applied during the transfer of information;

Secure online storage to work with confidential data;

Users can choose a server in the USA or the EU countries;

Restriction of entry by IP address;

Audit log to track the history of user activity;

Backup;

Restriction of functionality by role.

This is evidenced by the following facts:

Secure online storage to work with confidential data;

Users can choose a server in the USA or the EU countries;

МІНУСИ:

Restriction of entry by IP address;

Audit log to track the history of user activity;

Backup;

Restriction of functionality by role.

The platform covers all basic needs:

Storage of the counterparties database;

Work with contacts;

Deal accounting. Generate reports on sales and interactions with leads;

Work with orders and invoices;

МІНУСИ:

Task and project management;

Online chat with employees and contacts;

Convenient notification system;

Built-in search.

The platform covers all basic needs:

Storage of the counterparties database;

Work with contacts;

Deal accounting. Generate reports on sales and interactions with leads;

Work with orders and invoices;

Task and project management;

Online chat with employees and contacts;

Convenient notification system;

Built-in search.

To start working with Zoho CRM, you need to purchase a license. You need a license to have access to the system for a month or a year. Each license gives you the right to connect by login and password as many times as you want, for example, from a computer, laptop, and smartphone. Licensing is done by users, i.e. one license corresponds to one user registered in CRM. You can run as many simultaneous sessions as you want under one user. This is important to understand in order to determine the number of licenses you need to purchase. For example, if the company has 3 managers who use only reports in the CRM system, you do not need to buy 3 licenses, one will be enough. However, the number of users registered in Zoho CRM cannot exceed the number of licenses, you need to understand this. That is, to give access to a new user, you must either deactivate another user or purchase a new license.

Having figured out the number of licenses, now you need to choose a tariff.

The cost of the platform for one user ranges from €14 to €100 per month (annual subscription). A detailed comparison of subscriptions can be found on the Zoho CRM website.