Alternative to Method CRM for QuickBooks
QuickBooks is a wonderful, easy-to-use accounting system that’s perfect for many small and medium-sized businesses. As such, it makes sense for businesses to want to integrate their QuickBooks systems into other aspects of their businesses as much as possible in order to save time and reduce overhead for menial tasks like data entry. There are a few integration options for QuickBooks – most notably Method CRM – but, Method CRM’s dearth of features makes many business owners look for an alternative to Method CRM for a QuickBooks Desktop integration.
The solution to this problem seems to be to implement Zoho CRM instead, as an alternative to Method CRM.
Well, why not go with Method CRM?
It’s a good question to ask. Method Integrations is one of Intuit’s partners, which means the two companies share revenue on Method CRM licenses purchased. Intuit also provides an integration to Method CRM that is seamless and completely free of charge. Given that Method CRM’s price per user is only $5 more than Zoho CRM’s per month, it seems like Method CRM users are getting a great deal with the addition of that free integration. (See the full breakdown in the Method CRM vs Zoho CRM Review.)
But, appearances can be deceiving. This is why you may need to look into an alternative to Method CRM.
What do you get with Method CRM over Zoho CRM?
Aside from the aforementioned QuickBooks syncing mechanism, Method CRM users can automatically track all interactions with customers, including calls, services performed, and appointments. These are fairly standard sales tracking features; Zoho CRM provides all these as well. Method CRM also uses “unlimited contacts per account” as a selling point – and, while Zoho limits its number of custom fields to 300, it’s doubtful that most companies would exhaust that number of custom fields in their entire CRM, let alone in contact names.
Method CRM integrates with Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, giving its users a variety of email clients to use in conjunction with their CRM service, and also boasts an integration to SmartVault. Zoho CRM, in turn, also integrates with all these services except SmartVault – but, integrates with DropBox instead, a comparable secure data storage solution.
In short, with Zoho CRM as an alternative to Method CRM, you can get essentially the same services you’d get from Method CRM.
What does Zoho CRM provide that Method CRM doesn’t?
The chief difference between Zoho CRM and Method CRM is Method CRM is primarily a traditional customer outreach tool with a few extra bells and whistles, while Zoho CRM provides a great deal of extra functionality. In essence, this extra functionality – in the form of marketing and social networking tools – is what makes Zoho CRM just as expensive as Method CRM despite its lack of an out-of-the-box integration with QuickBooks.
Why do you need Marketing and Social Networking tools?
Obviously, being able to reach out to your customers and keep track of all your past interactions and sales is absolutely key – in fact, it’s the chief reason you’re using a CRM instead of a spreadsheet.
But, that’s certainly not all there is to a CRM, and unfortunately this is where Method CRM seems to fall short, and the chief reason why you’ll want to consider an alternative to Method CRM when you plug in to QuickBooks.
Why use Social Networking?
Social networking tools connect your CRM directly to platforms; Zoho CRM can connect directly to Facebook and Twitter via built in tabs (and, through Zoho Social, a social post-blasting mechanism, you can connect to LinkedIn and Google+ as well) and monitor social mentions for you, ensuring you stay on top of what your customers (or prospective customers) are saying about you. This takes you from simply engaging people inside your CRM to engaging them outside your CRM in the social networking world at large – a much bigger universe than your CRM entails by itself.
How about Marketing?
Marketing tools allow for emailing clients and prospects alike directly from your CRM (or from a Zoho add-on called Zoho Campaigns). This sort of functionality allows you to keep in touch with current clients with special announcements and newsletters, and also allows you to engage prospective clients with fresh content in the form of mass emails or timed auto-responders. These functions mean increased business for you in the form of:
- Current customers who can potentially take advantage of special or seasonal promotions you offer, who would have had no way of knowing about those offers without a marketing engine
- Prospective customers who read your newly generated content and are compelled to do business with you whereas before, when they viewed your site for the first time, they were only curious about you and your services.
Both marketing and social media engines are powerful tools offered by Zoho CRM that simply do not exist inside Method CRM.
But, can you customize Zoho CRM like Method CRM?
One great feature about Method CRM is its easy drag-and-drop customization feature for default and custom fields alike. Bear in mind, however, that you have the same ability to customize your modules with the fields of your choice with Zoho CRM when you consider an alternative to Method CRM – right down to the drag-and-drop.
Are you ready for your business to grow?
Truth be told, social media tools and marketing strategies might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you don’t plan to grow your business (e.g., you’re planning to close your business, or your business model is such that growing your client base simply isn’t possible for other reasons) and still want a QuickBooks integration, you may want to look elsewhere.
However, if you do want to engage your customers and prospects in a meaningful way and take advantage of a Zoho CRM QuickBooks integration as an alternative to Method CRM, Zoho CRM is the right choice for you.
The rest of the Zoho family are no slouches, either
In addition to Zoho CRM, using Zoho gives you access to even more software, potentially. Depending on your use case and the size of your company, it can be even less expensive to get an entire suite of Zoho apps (like Zoho One) than it is to get just the CRM by itself. The Zoho One suite includes the CRM, of course, but it also sports the aforementioned Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Motivator (a sales motivator tool for competitive sales teams), Zoho Desk (for managing support cases)…and even Zoho Books, an alternative to QuickBooks. If you ever get to that stage, that is.
Get Started with Zoho CRM as an alternative to Method CRM
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