Method CRM vs Zoho CRM Review

Published on: October 5, 2015Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: July 1, 2024 Comments: 0

Good method, or just madness?

This CRM face-off of Method CRM vs Zoho CRM is a little different than most. Whereas most CRM software systems have a specific use that’s geared toward the size of your business, Method CRM is a little different. Method CRM is designed purposefully, specifically, to integrate with QuickBooks. Ostensibly, this (and by proxy its backing by Intuit themselves) is its biggest selling point.

However, Zoho CRM too has the ability to sync data with QuickBooks via QuickBooks CRM integration. Does that mean it’s as good as or better than Method CRM, though? Not necessarily. There’s only one way to settle this…

Round One: The cost (of integration and more)

As one of Method CRM’s claims to fame is its seamless QuickBooks integration, one would expect the program to be quite expensive. It certainly isn’t free, but, compared to other CRMs on the market, it doesn’t seem so bad. Zoho CRM, with all its customizable features, clocks in at only a little cheaper:

It costs $44 per month to board one user on Method CRM Pro. To board ten users for a year, you’d pay $5280
It costs $35 per month* to board one user on Zoho CRM Professional Edition (PE). To board ten users for a year, you’d pay $4200

*Pricing updated June 2021

As we see, an extra $1080 in either direction probably isn’t going to make or break your businesses for the convenience of boarding ten users. And, if you have any doubts, you can go back and see you’re only paying or saving an extra $9 per month per user.

However, the real price difference comes when talking about the integration itself. Method CRM’s QuickBooks integration comes at no additional cost, whereas Zoho’s QuickBooks integration, while customized to fit the program exactly, costs an additional one-time fee of between $495 and $1295 depending on how many modules you need synchronized, plus a monthly fee of between $49 and $129 depending on the same.

That makes the winner of this round Method CRM by a healthy margin.

Round Two: Tracking your Sales

Keeping track of sales and where customers are in your pipeline(s) are the most important aspects of any CRM system. Method CRM comes into the game with standard abilities to track calls, services performed, associated appointments, and services performed on individual records. Method software also boasts self-professed unlimited contacts per company, alleviating a common problem of only having one or two contacts possible per record. It also comes with standard data importing ability, custom record views, custom reporting, and team selling options.

Zoho CRM comes with many of the same options as Method CRM in this regard: Call and email tracking, appointment and service records, custom data views, importing ability, customized reporting, and team selling options alike. Rather than infinite contacts per record, Zoho allows a fairly sizable 50 custom fields per module, likely enough to satisfy anyone’s multi-contact cravings (and also add a few useful fields to your standard modules).

One area where Zoho sets itself apart is in its feeds feature. Feeds turns your CRM into a social network of sorts, allowing for individual record or event tracking (“following”) as well as commenting, for a much more collaborative, project-like CRM experience. One notable benefit of this feature is that all comments are recorded and easily searchable, making it much easier to find conversations associated with particular records than it would be, say, scanning through your emails.

Aside from feeds, Zoho also features a competitor tracking ability, sales forecast reports, and sales quota tracking.

For these extra features, the sales tracking round goes to Zoho CRM.

Round Three: Any Other Integrations?

By now we know all about Method CRM’s and Zoho CRM’s respective abilities to integrate with QuickBooks, but, surely they can work well with other programs… right?

Well, of course.

Method CRM integrates with Gmail or Outlook giving its users a solution for the arguably most popular email clients. Method also boasts an integration to SmartVault, numerous VOIP options (for an extra charge), as well as custom apps.

Zoho CRM features integrations with all three email clients as well, plus VOIP and custom apps. (As with Method CRM, integrated VOIP comes at an extra cost.) While Zoho CRM doesn’t integrate to SmartVault, it does integrate to Dropbox, which achieves the same effect.

That said, there doesn’t seem to be a clear winner of the integration round of Method CRM vs Zoho CRM. It’s a tie.

Round Four: To Market Socially or Not to Market Socially…

This round combined social media and marketing integrations and abilities, if only to highlight one interesting aspect of Method CRM: it doesn’t seem to contain any of these.

Zoho CRM, on the other hand, contains out-of-the-box software integration capabilities for both Facebook and Twitter, as well as a built-in CRM tab and a way to monitor social mentions. On the marketing side, Zoho CRM features web-to-lead capturing ability, plus email templates, a campaign manager, mass emailing ability, and autoresponders. This is likely enough to get a marketing campaign off the ground, and probably enough to monitor your social networks adequately.

With that, the winner of this round is clearly Zoho CRM, but, this raises an important question for people who are already in love with Method CRM: does a CRM really need social media and marketing integrations in order to be good? This will be the topic of a future blog post, so, keep your eyes peeled.

(For those awaiting my answer with bated breath… I say yes, without a doubt.)

Method CRM vs Zoho CRM Champion?

This is a tough one. On one hand, you have Method CRM, which is very straightforward and seemingly light, its main feature being a complete QuickBooks integration. On the other, you have Zoho CRM, which also integrates to QuickBooks – for a price some may consider hefty – but, in return, packs a host of great features, including some essential ones, that simply can’t be found in Method CRM. So, how do you decide between Method CRM vs Zoho CRM?

On the basis of needing some of these features in order to run your business properly – and, going off the assumption that eventually you’ll need to purchase some other marketing or social media monitoring service in order to adequately satisfy clients and prospects on those particular channels – this bout goes to Zoho CRM.

Bonus Round: What else do you get with Zoho?

As Zoho CRM consultants, we’re obviously a little biased, but hear us out! One thing that separates Zoho from a platform like Method CRM, aside from everything we’ve mentioned so far, is that by choosing Zoho, you get access to Zoho’s network of Zoho partners – including us at ZBrains. Having a Zoho partner along for your CRM deployment means you have a dedicated business partner who can help you by determining the best way to use Zoho. And, that’s not just the CRM; that can be for many other apps like Zoho Campaigns, Projects, or Desk – anything in the Zoho One suite of apps, in fact. We can’t personally vouch for Intuit’s support of Method CRM, but with the tools Zoho puts at your disposal, the choice of Zoho partners can be a huge advantage for anyone looking to decide between Zoho CRM and Method CRM.

SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM

Published on: October 2, 2015Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho Campaigns, Zoho CRMLast Updated: May 8, 2024 Comments: 0

Just how sweet is Sugar?

This matchup of SugarCRM vs Zoho is interesting because, although SugarCRM is more expensive than Zoho CRM (seemingly) as a rule, SugarCRM Professional Edition (PE), a mid-level business program, costs roughly the same per user as Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition (EE), a higher-level business program. We won’t rush to conclusions yet, because words like professional, standard, and enterprise are all quite subjective terms. We’ll take a look at actual product specs to see how these two really match up.

SugarCRM vs Zoho Round One: The Costs*

As aforementioned, we’ll be comparing two different-tiered programs similar in pricing: Zoho CRM EE comes in at $50 per user per month and SugarCRM PE at $52 per user per month.

It costs roughly $6000 to board 10 users of either Zoho CRM EE or SugarCRM PE for a year.
For the sake of comparison, it costs $10,200 ($85/user/mo) to board ten users on SugarCRM EE, the supposed equivalent to Zoho CRM EE. That won’t be factored into our decision at the end of this bout, but, keep it in mind.

Another thing to keep in mind: Zoho CRM offers a monthly pricing plan (truly $50 per month) whereas the price per user for SugarCRM is still $52 per month, but, it can only be paid in one sum annually. Thus, you have slightly less flexibility with SugarCRM’s payment plan. However, this won’t affect every business owner.

As the price is dead even between SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM in this round, we’re calling it a tie.

*Pricing updated June 2021

Round Two: Tracking the Sales

Sales is the bread and butter of most businesses, so, having a robust system for tracking sales is of utmost importance. Both SugarCRM and Zoho recognize this; SugarCRM packs the ability to track Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities, plus the ability to generate Sales Forecasts and Quotas. While this is a sizable list of features in itself, Zoho CRM packs all these and the ability to track competitors, sell as a team, create macros, and keep track of certain activities using a feature called feeds.

Feeds is a feature that turns Zoho CRM into a sort of social network, giving users the ability to track (or “follow”) certain users, tasks, or records, and lets users communicate about those items by adding comments to them. This is an especially useful communication method for larger or disconnected offices; comments left this way are searchable inside Zoho and linked to specific activities, making looking up past conversations a bit easier than searching through multiple email threads about the same subject.

Because of Zoho CRM’s added features for the same price, this round goes to Zoho.

Round Three: How Social do you wanna get?

In today’s business climate, having a presence on social networks is absolutely key to engaging prospective customers and keeping current clients in the loop about your goings-on. That said, in the battle of SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM, both programs have a share of social interaction options.

SugarCRM PE lets its users interact with followers via Facebook and Twitter with integrations to both programs. By itself, this is a fine starter pack of sorts for social networking, but, that’s all SugarCRM offers in that regard. Zoho CRM EE offers the ability to monitor social mentions, making it easier to track customer interactions (or places where you’ll want to engage a customer who calls on you publicly), as well as a built-in tab for both Facebook and Twitter.

Overall, Zoho CRM gives users more social networking capability. Being able to track social mentions would seem worth paying an additional price by itself, but, as Zoho CRM is still the same price as Sugar CRM, this round also goes to Zoho.

Round Four: Wanna Automate that Marketing?

Marketing automation is key for businesses that want to reach a wide audience quickly while also managing email and marketing campaigns. Marketing automation as a concept seems to have evolved at a perfect time, as social media and other electronic marketing channels are more important than ever to the health of – at the very least – any tech-minded business, and many other kinds as well.

That said, hopefully your answer to that question above is a resounding yes.

Both Zoho CRM EE and SugarCRM PE come out of the box with a host of marketing automation tools, from web-to-lead capturing ability to mass emailing, email templates, and tracking campaigns themselves. Zoho CRM comes with one extra tool: autoresponders, which send messages to mailing lists based on time or click-through statistics. Some businesses may find this tool extremely useful, but, I don’t think its inclusion alone is enough to push Zoho over the top; thus, this round is a tie.

SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM Bonus Round: What About Workflow Management?

For those not in the know, workflow management is simply a term for when your CRM reminds you or prepares you to do certain tasks in order. The tasks you can program a CRM with workflow management capability to carry out are limitless, from simple email reminders upon moving records from one stage to another, to making certain information appear inside custom modules upon modifying a record, to programming a particular action to occur a certain time after another event has occurred. (It’s kind of like having your own personal assistant.)

Zoho CRM EE comes with all those abilities, including automatic lead assignment, case escalation (which prioritizes certain activities above others in certain circumstances, which you may set), and completely customized functions. This round is a bit of a mismatch, as SugarCRM PE doesn’t contain any of the marketing automation abilities listed (and none others, either). This makes Zoho the unequivocal winner of the round.

Who’s the champ in SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM?

Determining the victor between SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM was simple. For the price, Zoho CRM EE offers more features than SugarCRM PE, plain and simple. Based on this alone, we dub Zoho CRM the winner of this bout. As always, this review doesn’t take into account things like ease of use, general Zoho consulting services, or Zoho support plans, which can be very subjective topics. Be sure to schedule a walkthrough of the CRM that interests you most before you make any big decisions.

Bonus Round: There’s even more to Zoho than meets the eye

Just when you think the bout is over and you’ve decided the victor in this Sugar CRM review with Zoho, hang tight! There’s still one more thing to consider. We’re admittedly a bit biased over here, as we’re Zoho consultants, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that by choosing Zoho over Sugar, you’re not only gaining access to all of Zoho’s apps aside from the CRM, but you can also tap into Zoho’s extensive network of partners – including us. You can use your Zoho partner’s expertise to figure out the best way to solve your business problems using Zoho now, and also put together a sort of road map for the years to come, that way there’s no reworking of your system and no abandoning ship after a small handful of years.

Aside from the CRM, Zoho offers a help desk app (Zoho Desk), as well as a finance app (Zoho Books). Zoho’s platform as a service (Zoho Creator) can be used to improve the functionality of existing Zoho apps, or create entirely new ones to suit your business needs. If you were considering something like Sugar CRM to begin with, chances are its malleability caught your eye. Zoho offers that same sort of feature in Creator, and Zoho’s partners can help with this, too. All of these apps are available as part of Zoho One, a suite of 40+ apps available for $35/user/mo.

Why Integrate QuickBooks with Zoho CRM?

Published on: October 1, 2015Category: Zoho CRM, Zoho IntegrationsLast Updated: April 24, 2020 Comments: 0

Why Integrate QuickBooks and Zoho CRM?

(A Theoretical Journey)

There are many reasons to integrate QuickBooks and Zoho CRM, but, if you’re not so familiar with the capabilities of both programs, those reasons for integrating may not be so obvious. And, if you’re someone who has done business one particular way for many years, you may not yet realize the importance of connecting business software programs.

In order to illustrate a point…let’s go on a short excursion.

Lousy communication looks like this

It may be cliché, but, in the world of business, it’s nearly always better to work together with your colleagues than to work separately. Being separated from your fellow workers comes with its share of disadvantages:

Nobody knows what the other is doing
Information has to be relayed between parties (and sometimes a third party) if it wants to get anywhere
Transferring information takes a long time

There’s a common thread connecting these, of course: it’s all about communication. Not communicating can really slow things down in a business, at times even preventing things from happening entirely. As a reader of this blog, you’re probably at least somewhat tech-minded, and you’re likely familiar with some effective communication methods as they apply to business. For example, you probably:

Call up a coworker or leave a message in a chat room rather than do nothing when you’re checking in on someone, and you can’t be there in the same room. This way, your colleagues know you’re trying to communicate.

Use a direct route of communicating for important matters–like a shout or a walk down the hallway–rather than tell someone else to pass along a message. That way, nothing gets lost in translation.

Work expeditiously to get your messages across to colleagues, vendors, and everyone else important in your life. That way, you get your required tasks finished quickly.

These are standard business practices, not to mention life practices. And, you’re probably nodding your head anticipating something slightly less obvious…

Well, try this notion on for size: in spite of knowing well how to communicate verbal information efficiently in the office, many companies do not use these same principles when thinking about their software programs.

Back to reality: Why integrate QuickBooks and CRM at all?

So, why would you want to integrate Zoho with QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online? We can apply the same principles from effective human verbal communication to effective software communication. Software programs essentially do the jobs people can’t quite do themselves. For example, a CRM remembers countless lines of data; QuickBooks tracks all your company’s finances.

It follows, then, that not integrating software programs creates situations similar to those created when people aren’t integrated properly in the workplace:

One program doesn’t know what the other is doing
Information needs to go through a not-always-compatible third party to get anywhere, and that sometimes corrupts data
The transfer of information is unnecessarily slow

Programs these days…

Just as technology has increased communication in humans dramatically over the past years, technology has done the same for software programs. Many programs that previously had no connective capability are now built especially for integration. Rather than have the three situations above, with integrated programs you have something much more effective:

Programs “knowing” what each other is doing
Information going through a specially-designed electronic corridor
Much quicker transfers of information, sometimes instantaneous

So, why integrate QuickBooks with Zoho CRM, specifically?

Now that we know basically why it’s better for humans to work together than not, and why it’s better for software programs to integrate in order to do the same, we should be able to glean why it’s good to integrate QuickBooks and Zoho CRM: Communicating efficiently is better than communicating slowly, or, not at all.

But, what are some specific things that QuickBooks and Zoho can communicate between each other?

Accounts and Contacts: If you have a record of someone in your CRM, chances are you’ll want to either pay them for services or goods, or charge them for your own, by having a record of that person in QuickBooks. Or, you’ll want to transfer that record from QuickBooks to your CRM so you can add additional notes on that person.

Invoices, Quotes, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders: The same ideas from above apply here. Use your CRM to take detailed notes on purchases, and use QuickBooks to collect payment.

Vendors: Again, synchronicity allows for detailed tracking in CRM and actual payments in QuickBooks.

When you integrate QuickBooks with Zoho CRM, you eliminate countless hours of manual data entry; you also ensure communication between the two programs. For example, you can turn Quotes in Zoho into Invoices in QuickBooks at the push of a button. That means no more having to manually enter order details.

Zoho CRM vs. ACT CRM: Which is the Best Choice for Your Business?

Published on: September 30, 2015Category: Zoho Campaigns, Zoho CRMLast Updated: May 16, 2023 Comments: 0

ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM Review

Is picking ACT? such sage advice?

This isn’t a typical CRM comparison in that if you find yourself comparison ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM, you’re probably deciding whether to keep ACT or move to Zoho CRM. If we were to make an analogy, this would be like pitting a heavyweight against a lightweight in the boxing arena – but, as you well know, it’s not always a throwaway match. Heavyweights, while powerful and visible, can be a little slow in the ring; and, lightweights, while not quite as potent at times, can be extremely agile and nimble.

If the comparison isn’t immediately apparent, the older ACT is the bulkier heavyweight, while cloud-based Zoho CRM is the lighter fighter. So, who wins this particular mismatched battle? Read on for the skinny on Zoho, as well as a ACT CRM review…

Round One: The Price

This battle won’t actually be quite as mismatched as I’ve led you to believe. Zoho CRM Professional Edition (PE) is very similar in price to ACT! Expert:

It costs $420 to board a single user on Zoho CRM PE for one year.
It costs $540 to board a single user on Act! CRM Expert for one year.

Not too much of a difference there at all, so this match is a tie!

The real differences are in the features of each product, though.

Round Two: Tracking the Sales

At the onset, both Zoho and ACT appear evenly matched, both providing a typical number of modules like Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, Sales forecasts, and the ability to import data from old CRMs. The real difference is in what Zoho provides in addition, though, that Sage does not:

Competitor tracking
Sales quotas
Feeds

The first two are self-explanatory, but, feeds is a feature that turns your CRM into a social network of sorts, allowing members to track or follow certain activities or records in the CRM, adding comments as they see fit. This style of communication is advantageous because it’s in a format most modern tech-minded (or generally younger) workers are used to, and, comments can be traced back to specific events or records easily, making it a much easier communication solution than starting an email thread (or multiple threads).

That said, the winner of this round is Zoho.

Round Three: Integrating the Social Aspect

Having an online presence – especially in social media – is one of the most important things a business can do nowadays. Sage clearly recognizes this and equips ACT! Pro with all sorts of social media integration options: Facebook and LinkedIn, built-in tabs for both of those networks, and ways to monitor mentions of your company on those social media platforms. Zoho CRM PE, which only sports integrations to Twitter and Facebook, seems a bit behind in this aspect. For that reason, Sage wins the social media integration round.

Round Four: Automating your Marketing

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get your CRM to help you with your marketing? Indeed, you can. Many CRMs are equipped with marketing automation tools – but, as we’re finding out, not all of these tools are distributed equally. Zoho CRM comes with a variety of standard marketing automation tools: Available email templates, mass emailing ability, an email campaign manager (Zoho Campaigns), and, the ability to transfer web leads directly into your Zoho CRM. Sage, on the other hand, provides mass emailing and campaign tracking ability – and web-to-lead conversion, but at an increased price. Overall, Zoho wins this round, as it simply provides the user more marketing options, and at an ostensibly reduced price.

ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM BONUS ROUND: Inventory Management

For a bonus round (even a self-described one), this one is certainly no contest. In short, if you need a CRM with inventory management capability and you’ve narrowed your search down to ACT Expert and Zoho CRM PE, you should choose Zoho CRM PE.

Zoho CRM PE allows users to track and modify Sales Quotes, Sales Orders, Products, Price Books, Invoices, Vendors, and Purchase Orders – and, it comes with integrated order procurement and fulfillment capabilities.

ACT! Expert packs none of these features.

And, the winner of ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM is…

For the rounds we took into account, the clear winner seems to be Zoho CRM Professional Edition over ACT! Expert. However, it’s worth noting that you may want to do additional homework before making a final decision on a CRM. Paired with its lightweight quality, Zoho is unequivocally the cheaper option, but, that fact and this analysis don’t account for factors like customer support, Zoho consulting, or UI, which are quite subjective. In any case, we hope this has provided you the information you need to ultimately choose the CRM that best fits your unique business.

One more thing about ACT vs Zoho

A final thing to consider when comparing ACT and Zoho is that aside from Zoho’s dedicated apps for managing inventory, projects, and your books (Zoho Books, to be exact), Zoho offers even more functionality at only a fraction of the price of a single app, in some cases. This offering is called Zoho One, and it’s a collection of over 40 different Zoho applications, available for only $45/user/mo, or $37/user/mo when paid annually*. The only requirement to use Zoho One is that all of your W-2 employees use the suite. Obviously, this isn’t a good choice for all companies – but, it tends to help very many. *Pricing updated June 2021

Still not sure which direction to go in? We’ve helped many companies in your situation before. Contact us to get started, or keep reading for more helpful information.

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Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: The Ultimate Comparison by ZBrains

Published on: September 29, 2015Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho CRMLast Updated: November 13, 2023 Comments: 0

Who’s the bigger force to be reckoned with?

With so many different CRMs available today, all with different specs, you’re bound to be a little bogged down if you try to absorb too much at once. With that in mind, we’re going to pit just two against each other today: Salesforce vs Zoho.

When comparing features of Salesforce vs Zoho, it’s important to keep in mind the different versions of the two products. Tags like “Professional Edition” and “Enterprise Edition” can be misleading, as standards obviously vary between companies. In this case, the closest thing to Salesforce’s Professional Edition isn’t Zoho’s own Professional Edition, but their Enterprise Edition.

Anyhow, without further ado, let’s dive right in and figure out who wins in Salesforce vs Zoho…

The Salesforce vs Zoho CRM Review

Round One: The Cost

This is a chief concern for many business owners when picking out any software programs. Let’s take a look by making the simplest calculation possible: price per user.

It costs $50 per month* to board a single user on Zoho CRM EE. *Pricing updated June 2021
It costs $100 per month to board a single user on Salesforce CRM PE*.

For companies only boarding a few users, this sort of cost won’t be a big deal, understandably. But, when considering boarding ten users – or twenty of them – the cost per user becomes a much more important factor.

Cost per year to board ten Zoho CRM EE users: $5000
Cost per year to board twenty Zoho CRM EE users: $10,000
Cost per year to board ten Salesforce CRM PE users: $10,000
Cost per year to board twenty Salesforce CRM PE users: $20,000

In this case, the trend is clear: it costs twice as much to board the equivalent number of Zoho CRM EE users on Salesforce CRM PE, making Zoho the winner of this round of Salesforce vs Zoho.

Logically, the next thing you’ll want to do after comparing prices is see exactly what features you’ll get for the prices. That process is a little more involved than just looking at a couple of numbers, so we’ll divide it into a few rounds by category.

Round Two: The Sales Automation

One of the big reasons you’re looking into buying a CRM in general is so the program will keep track of certain things for you. Like, for example, your different leads, contacts, opportunities, and the like. Both Salesforce CRM PE and Zoho CRM EE pack a similar list of features, including competitor tracking, catalogs, and sales forecasts.

One notable feature Zoho packs that Salesforce does not, however, is feeds.

Feeds allows users to keep track of updates to certain leads, opportunities, or other activities; users can even leave comments on those activities, much like one would on a social network. This aspect alone gives Zoho an edge, although the rest of the sales automation features in Zoho are quite similar to the ones in Salesforce.

By just a nudge, Zoho wins this round as well.

Round Three: The Social Aspect

Being able to interact with customers on social media is very important, especially in today’s business environment. Both Salesforce PE and Zoho EE come into this round prepared for social battle, sporting Twitter and Facebook integrations, and Salesforce adding a LinkedIn plugin. Zoho makes up for its lack of LinkedIn with a social tab (to more easily monitor Facebook and Twitter entries) and a way to monitor social mentions, but, with LinkedIn as a big a player as it is in the business space, this round belongs to Salesforce.

Round 3A: Integrated chat options

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that both Salesforce and Zoho have integrated website chat options. In both Live Agent (Salesforce’s platform) and SalesIQ (Zoho’s), users can wait for visitor questions to roll in, or engage visitors directly via chat box. (This feature works particularly well for members of a Sales team or a Customer Support team.) Since Live Agent and SalesIQ are very similar, however, their inclusion doesn’t factor into the final decision.

Round Four: The Inventory Management

Another great quality of many CRMs is their ability to track inventory. That said, not all inventory management systems are created equally… Inventory management is where Zoho CRM EE really shines against Salesforce CRM PE; while Salesforce can track Sales Quotes, Products, and Price Books, Zoho can track those three categories of items plus Sales Orders, Invoices, Vendors, and Purchase Orders. In addition, Zoho has an integrated order procurement and fulfillment option. In this case, the unquestionable winner is Zoho.

Salesforce vs Zoho CRM BONUS ROUND: Integration

The ability to integrate is another absolutely vital part of modern businesses, as integrated systems can save time and money. Even if an integrated program doesn’t end up lowering costs, the potential for time savings can make up for that.

This round is no contest, though. Zoho was built with integration in mind; users of the program can also access MS Office, MS Outlook, Gmail, Google Apps, QuickBooks Desktop – and, they can access Zoho CRM and modify records entirely from mobile devices. Salesforce packs a few of those options – notably, integrations for QuickBooks, Gmail, Google Apps, and MS Office; however, some of the integrations are only offered for a higher cost.

On the subject of integrations, it bears mentioning that, like Salesforce, Zoho comes with a whole suite of apps and add-ons that can integrate with the CRM. Zoho’s offering, called Zoho One, is a suite of over 40 programs – and the number grows nearly every month. The entire suite, which includes CRM, Zoho Books, Zoho Desk, and a project management app, is just $45/user/mo, a far cry from similar offerings from Salesforce. With Zoho already coming up with a lower total cost without the extra charges for certain integrations, Zoho wins this round as well, far and away.

Zoho CRM vs. Salesforce: Similarities & Differences

Zoho CRM and Salesforce are two well-known customer relationship management (CRM) software packages that provide a variety of capabilities to assist organizations in managing their customer connections, sales processes, and marketing initiatives. They have certain similarities but also significant differences. To better understand the similarities and differences between Zoho CRM and Salesforce, let us compare and contrast them:

1.Editions and pricing:

Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM offers a variety of editions, including a free edition for up to three users, as well as paid editions with additional features and functionality, such as Zoho CRM Plus. The pricing is generally more affordable, making it suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

Salesforce is well-known for its extensive customizability. It offers a strong foundation for developing custom apps, processes, and integrations using Apex, its own programming language, and declarative tools such as Process Builder and Lightning App Builder. Salesforce is thus highly scalable and well-suited to organizations with complicated business processes.

2.Specifications and functionality:

Zoho CRM: Contact management, lead tracking, email integration, sales forecasting, social media integration, and analytics are just a few of the capabilities available with Zoho CRM. It also includes modules for email marketing and customer assistance, such as Zoho Campaigns.

Salesforce: Salesforce provides a variety of capabilities that span CRM, sales, marketing, and customer service. Through its care Cloud, it provides lead management, opportunity tracking, email automation, reporting and dashboards, workflow automation, marketing automation, and customer care functionality.

3.User Interface and Usability:

Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM offers an easy-to-use user interface. It provides a consolidated view of client data, allowing users to easily access contact information, activity history, and associated records.

Salesforce: Salesforce’s user interface is highly flexible and can be adjusted to meet unique user requirements. However, the interface, particularly for beginning users, can be confusing and daunting. The latest user interface, Salesforce Lightning, offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

4. Ecosystem and Integration:

Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM interfaces with a wide range of third-party apps and services, such as email marketing platforms, accounting software, and productivity tools. It also offers its own set of business applications, such as Zoho Books and Zoho Projects, that can be combined for complete business management.

Salesforce: Salesforce has a large ecosystem of third-party integrations as well as a dedicated AppExchange marketplace. It has a large developer community and may be integrated with a variety of popular programs such as marketing automation tools, collaboration platforms, and ERP systems.

Unparalleled Performance: Unveiling the Value of Zoho CRM

When evaluating the ideal CRM solution, Zoho CRM emerges as a strong contender, offering a suite of features that seamlessly align with your organizational goals. From robust lead management and streamlined workflow automation to comprehensive analytics that yield actionable insights, Zoho CRM is customized to enhance your business operations holistically.

Why Zoho CRM Prevails: A Closer Look

Tailored Solutions: Zoho CRM recognizes the diversity of business requirements, hence offering customizable interfaces and adaptable modules. This ensures that your CRM experience is a reflection of your unique needs.
Seamless User Interface: Navigating intricate functionalities becomes a breeze with Zoho CRM’s intuitive dashboard. The user-friendly design empowers teams, enhancing their efficiency and overall productivity.
Affordability, No Compromises: Zoho CRM stands out for its affordability without compromising on capabilities. Experience the full spectrum of CRM tools without stretching your budget, setting it apart in the market.
AI-Powered Insights: Gain a competitive edge with AI-driven analytics from Zoho CRM. Unearth patterns, predict trends, and make well-informed decisions propelling your business towards exponential growth.
Harmonious Ecosystem Integration: Zoho CRM seamlessly integrates with a suite of Zoho applications, establishing a unified ecosystem that streamlines operations across your organization. This synergy fosters collaboration and maximizes efficiency.

In the compelling face-off between Salesforce and Zoho CRM, the latter emerges triumphant in addressing the multifaceted needs of modern businesses. With its tailored approach, intuitive interface, budget-friendliness, AI-infused insights, and ecosystem integration, Zoho CRM emerges as the definitive choice for enterprises poised to achieve unparalleled success.

Conclusion?

Of course, this report doesn’t extract every single detail from both Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition and Salesforce CRM Professional Edition. However, the overview of the few features outlined gives prospective users an idea of what to expect.

What this report does not do is detail the exact look and feel of each UI, nor does it mention the methods of online or phone support plans or CRM consulting services offered, since those tend to be judged more subjectively.

The real object is to get you to make your own decision between Salesforce vs Zoho. While Zoho may be a cheaper option with more features, you may be looking into something more, still. You might prefer something lighter than Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition–or lighter than Salesforce Professional Edition. In any event, hopefully this post helps in your search for the CRM that’s most appropriate for your own business.

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Zoho VOIP Integration: Boosting Your Inside Sales Efficiency

Published on: September 20, 2015Category: Zoho CRM, Zoho IntegrationsLast Updated: September 21, 2023 Comments: 0

When you’re running an outbound call-based inside sales business, time is everything.

In fact, the phrase “time is money” probably doesn’t ring more true in many types of businesses. Your salespeople have a singular task of reaching as many potential customers as possible, so, every second they spend off the phones (mental health breaks notwithstanding, sure…) is a second they aren’t selling. That’s a second your company isn’t earning!

Even with that in mind, a shocking number of these kinds of businesses don’t use an integrated calling system. They dial numbers the old-fashioned way, manually – whether from an online list or even from a phonebook.

This wastes time needlessly. But, many business owners simply aren’t aware of a better way of going about things: integrated VOIP. Essentially, an integrated phone system bridges the gap between CRM and telephone, and, this saves a great deal of time with processes that were traditionally a little cumbersome, like, entering phone numbers manually and navigating through many different programs to record notes.

Integrated VOIP at a glance

Imagine these scenarios possible with integrated VOIP:

Your salespeople are able to make calls with just a push of a button on their keyboards.
When your salespeople make calls, special software cross-references dialed numbers with numbers inside your CRM and automatically pulls appropriate notes and call history.
When your team members receive incoming calls, the software pulls up the same notes and call history.
Your salespeople can record notes inside this special software while on the phone, and the software records those notes to your CRM.

All this is possible with existing technology: that is, an integrated VOIP program.

The chief objective of using any integrated systems, including an integrated VOIP program, is to save time. That said, an integrated VOIP saves times in a number of ways:

By pressing a single key instead of dialing an entire phone number, your sales team members can save a fraction of a minute on every single call.
By having a program automatically recall notes and call history, your sales team members can save at least a minute searching for notes manually on each call.
By having this same program automatically record notes into your CRM, each sales team member saves an additional minute they’d ordinarily spend navigating inside your CRM, perhaps through multiple screens.

Consider Zoho VOIP Integragtion for the time you get back every day

For a business that needs its sales team members to make hundreds of calls per day, this is absolutely invaluable. In fact, if team members saved just one minute per call and only made 60 calls per day,those team members would gain an entire hour of time per day. What could all of your sales team members do with an extra hour?

Already sold on the idea? Try an integrated VOIP solution from Zoho

Zoho’s integrations with VOIP software pack all the features listed above, plus much more. Let us show you a little more about it on this Zoho unified communications page. By integrating VOIP with your Zoho CRM in particular, you get all the benefits of the integration combined with everything good about Zoho CRM. And, there’s a lot that’s good!

For even more help with Zoho and its various other integrations, including one for Zoho CRM and QuickBooks, don’t hesitate to give us a call at (888) 207-4111.

For other Zoho concerns, including how to get CRM training, Zoho support, or Zoho consulting packages, see the links provided or contact us by clicking the button in the upper right corner of your screen.

Moving off Spreadsheets and onto a CRM

Published on: September 12, 2015Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho CRMLast Updated: March 15, 2024 Comments: 0

The Benefits of Switching from Spreadsheets to CRM for Your Business

There comes a time in every person’s life when he must abandon his training wheels and go forth into the night on just two of them.

As a very young person, you may have thought this was absolutely ludicrous. Why abandon the safety of the training wheels? (Maybe you saw a sibling get into an accident and it scarred you for a while.) Whatever the reason, you may have held out for a while, but, when you finally got up the nerve to go out on two wheels – or, into the pool without water wings – or, onto the street in your car without a supportive parent in the passenger seat – it probably felt much better than you thought it would. Much more freedom! Many more possibilities.

And, so it is with your business.

For years, you may have been dealing with your customers in a very simple way, just keeping track of them on a spreadsheet you periodically update. Maybe that’s just the way it’s always been. Maybe you tried learning a different way of managing your contacts before, and it didn’t take for one reason or another. But, that’s the way it is for now.

What if there was a better, more streamlined way of reaching out to and keeping track of your customers and prospects, though? The very possibility of this can be a lot to take in, especially for someone who’s used to doing the same thing day in and day out. But, the fact that you’re reading a tech blog – and, this blog post – means you’re probably open to the idea of it.

What does a spreadsheet do?

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(other than cramp your style, obviously)[/caption]

The thing about spreadsheets is they’re very passive. If you want a spreadsheet to tell you a piece of information, you have to pull a few strings, write a few formulas, and make it happen yourself. Your record-keeping must be very precise, and, the spreadsheet probably demands a lot of your attention, and will keep on doing so in higher quantities as your business expands.

Moving through a sales cycle is a tedious, manual process, comprised of many copy+pastes and cross-references with other documents (or programs, if you use an inventory management system or QuickBooks). Calling customers is completely manual, and, taking notes can be quite messy. When it comes time to email those customers, you’d better have a special folder set up for correspondence, too, or else say goodbye to ever finding customer records without knowing what you talked about before – so you can enter search terms into your email client.

In short, spreadsheets are great if you’re keeping track of just a little data, not needing to modify it or move it very much…

But, is your business small and simple?

If you’re reading this, I have a hunch it isn’t, or, it’s reached the point where it’s about to break out…with a little help from a customer relationship management system – a CRM.

What does a CRM do?

Essentially, a CRM is like a spreadsheet in that it can certainly list all of your contacts, leads, and other records; however, it’s equipped to help you manage all sorts of business scenarios with a little more finesse. For example, filtering certain leads or contacts (so, for example, you’re only looking at clients who have birthdays this month), which is impossible with a spreadsheet, is easy with a CRM.

Want to move someone from one category to another in your database? It’s as easy as clicking a button, or, selecting an option from a drop-down menu.

Keeping track of past correspondence with customers, one of the best parts of having a CRM at your disposal, is suddenly second-nature, as all your notes appear on the same page as your contact, complete with dates, a sales history, and, of course, all the requisite contact info. With a CRM, taking notes is as easy as typing what you want and pressing OK.

Even the act of calling customers itself, historically a manual task, can become nearly automatic with calendar reminders and integrated calling features within a CRM, as well.

Data security is much better with CRM, as opposed to spreadsheets

Have you ever been entering information in your spreadsheet, when suddenly – poof – a column disappears? Or, it disappeared minutes ago and you aren’t sure when, and you don’t know how many CTRL+Zs it will take to get anything back? With spreadsheets, being vigilant is a constant struggle. One great thing about CRM is fields are protected, and you have to verify info before saving it. This means there’s virtually no chance of accidentally mass-deleting 1000 phone numbers. Sure, this may not be a problem if you’re a super-human, methodical worker. But, most people aren’t perfect. And, people tend to become less perfect as their workloads increase. Which is what you’re trying to do with your business, hopefully. So, why not use something that in essence catches your mistakes?

CRM improves security in another way too, however, by restricting or granting access to certain data modules (tables) or fields based on permission level. Of course, you can solve this problem in spreadsheets by simply creating multiple sheets. But, like all things related to using spreadsheets, it simply isn’t a sustainable solution in the long run. It’s better to have a system that allows for creating system users that can be added or deactivated at will, and whose permissions can be changed easily, with just a few clicks.

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Just like this![/caption]

You can use CRM as your hub, and connect different spokes at will

Everything else notwithstanding, one of the best parts of having a CRM is the ability to connect other apps to it, hands down. There’s only so much you can reasonably track in a CRM itself – and, there’s only so much you’ll want to give your sales staff access to. But, with other apps to track things like customer orders and invoices, project statuses, and the like, you can give yourself and your sales team a 360-degree view of any given customer, so they know just how to react whenever that person gives you a call. And, they’ll know just how to market to that person when it comes time to do so.

With great spreadsheets come great paper waste

Well, maybe not all the time. But, if you’re using a spreadsheet – something that inherently doesn’t connect to anything else in the business – you’re probably making some kind of waste. It’s likely you’re either sending loads of emails back and forth, or you’re printing out physical documents to send to accounting. Having a CRM eliminates the need for any of that. Of course, sometimes printing physical documents is harder to avoid, like in the case of warehouse pick sheets when employees don’t have access to mobile devices – but, in most cases, CRM drastically helps in this area.

Are you ready to do away with the training wheels?

The first step to eliminating a problem is at least admitting the existence of one. You may be satisfied with your way of contacting clients at the moment. But, can you imagine the difference without being encumbered by the manual labor of a spreadsheet?

Take off those extra wheels and explore the two-wheeled world – by taking a look at some CRMs! You’ll probably find it’s a lot easier to get around, you can go a lot faster, and, you get a lot more done at the end of the day.

As Zoho consultants, we’re happy to give you a training of Zoho CRM, an intuitive, simple CRM solution, as it applies to your style of business – with all the Zoho support you need, to boot. If you’d like to explore apps other than Zoho CRM, too, that’s no problem. Zoho One is packed full of apps aside from the CRM, and they are all related or integrated to each other.

Zoho SalesIQ: 3 Reasons to Upgrade Your Sales and Marketing Strategies

Published on: August 28, 2015Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho CRM, Zoho SalesIQLast Updated: September 21, 2023 Comments: 0

Just How Far Does a Little Chat Go?

Zoho SalesIQ is a fantastic way to get your customers talking and drive your sales up. It might not be obvious why that is right away, though. Here’s what’s going on:

Every day, thousands of people crawl the web searching for businesses just like yours. Maybe they even find them. …Maybe they even find you. But, then, what do you do?

Maybe some of those customers convert without you lifting a finger. Your website could look gorgeous, attract all the right traffic, and even have a logical path that potential customers can follow, one that can (and sometimes does) lead to a conversion without any intervention on your part.

But, the tacit approach isn’t going to win everyone over. Some people need a little push in the right direction. A little conversation. You’re going to need to chat them up to make them yours.

Enter Zoho SalesIQ.

Why Zoho SalesIQ?

Zoho SalesIQ is Zoho’s prospect communication module. It allows people in your company to chat directly with people viewing your website, which, when done at the correct times, can mean the difference between a few curious (but ultimately indecisive) lookie-lous and a few purchases.

But, why use Zoho SalesIQ specifically? There are tons of other chat modules available. Why choose this one?

1. Zoho SalesIQ allows for prioritizing (scoring) your leads

For businesses that attract a good deal of traffic, this is huge. For want of a better example, imagine for a moment that it’s 1998 and you’re the owner of a Furby distributorship. You’ve just opened the doors to your very first retail outlet, and, it’s causing a huge commotion in your strip mall. With all the fanfare, not only are serious buyers heading in in droves, but everyone off the street is also stopping by to witness the chaos. You’re selling quite a few Furbys, obviously, but, you’re running into a bunch of people in your store who aren’t really sure what Furbys are, don’t have the money to buy them, or, are planning to take your Furby quote to the next-nearest retailer and demand a price match.

You think to yourself, Life is pretty good today, but, it would be even better if I only ran into serious buyers and other people carrying more than $50 on them, and, none of these other people!

In effect, by using lead scoring from Zoho SalesIQ, this is exactly the type of situation you’re helping to create.

Lead scoring is a way of separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were. With Zoho SalesIQ, everyone gets to see your website, of course – but, lead scoring lets you prioritize your potential customers in a way that’s completely up to you by giving them points for each criteria of yours they meet. The more points they have, the closer they’re allowed to come to you, and, if you’re getting bombarded, you’ll know to engage the good visitors first and get to the others later, if you want.

Here’s how scoring might work:

Did you just start an email campaign? You can give people who accessed your page from one of those messages a higher score to denote their interest in your products. Want to go after people who’ve spent more than two minutes looking at your website? More than five minutes? You can also give those visitors a higher score. The more criteria your customers meet, the higher their score, and, the closer they get to you, figuratively; you can spend more time engaging those people on Zoho SalesIQ instead of engaging people who have less potential to buy from you at all.

2. Zoho SalesIQ plugs directly into Zoho CRM

Any time you can integrate one customer-oriented part of your business with your main customer hub, your CRM, you’re going to reap benefits. SalesIQ’s CRM integration ability lets you do a couple of things that aren’t possible with a standalone chat module:

Start sending emails and alerts right away
- With an integration to Zoho CRM, Zoho SalesIQ can transfer customer data directly to your CRM, making it easy to add them to email campaigns, and otherwise keep track of their progress through your pipeline in a more universal sense than would be possible with a standalone chat system.

Save a great deal of time
- Zoho CRM integration means you spend more time interacting with customers and less time – well, no time at all, precisely – manually entering lead information into your CRM, because Zoho SalesIQ transfers information to your Zoho CRM with the click of a button. For businesses with many qualified customers finding them every day, this feature is absolutely invaluable.

Recall and analyze the past with ease
- Memory a little fuzzy on that last conversation you had with the 20th prospect of the day? Zoho SalesIQ’s chat logging feature combined with access to past data from Zoho CRM allows you to make decisions you couldn’t have made before, such as placing your customer into an “interested” email campaign list from a “lukewarm” list. Perfect for anyone who has more than a couple of conversations each day.

3. Zoho SalesIQ’s mobile compatibility means you’ll never miss a potential connection

Obviously, almost anything can be made better when you’re doing it from the comfort of your living room as opposed to the unyielding chair of your office. Engaging your customers is certainly no exception to this rule.

With Zoho SalesIQ’s mobile compatibility, you can have conversations with your customers outside of work, too – during a walk outside, a TV commercial, or even a lousy date. (Priorities!) Combine this mobile capability with aforementioned lead scoring and CRM integration, and it really is like bringing your customer base – the core of your entire business – with you, right in the palm of your hand.

Zoho SalesIQ is clearly a wise choice

Hopefully this sheds a little light on a common problem some businesses have: Even in the best of times, they might be wasting lots of valuable resources talking to the wrong people, manually entering data, or missing lots of good connections – or not talking to potential customers at all!

Zoho SalesIQ takes the mystery out of your process. Whether or not to engage your customers smartly (by prioritizing), efficiently (by integrating), or easily (by using mobile capability) shouldn’t be decisions you have to make – they shouldn’t even enter the equation. Leave those details to Zoho SalesIQ and you’ll find you’ll focus less on the things slowing you down and more on what you do best: communicating with customers who really want to buy from you.

Want to see what SalesIQ’s all about? Contact us at (888) 207-4111 for dedicated support and we’ll show you how it works and give you a personalized training session as well.

Referring Page

Lead Source

Lead Type

Lead Status

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Author : Jeremy Mozlin

Good method, or just madness?

Round One: The cost (of integration and more)

Round Two: Tracking your Sales

Round Three: Any Other Integrations?

Round Four: To Market Socially or Not to Market Socially…

Method CRM vs Zoho CRM Champion?

Bonus Round: What else do you get with Zoho?

Just how sweet is Sugar?

SugarCRM vs Zoho Round One: The Costs*

Round Two: Tracking the Sales

Round Three: How Social do you wanna get?

Round Four: Wanna Automate that Marketing?

SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM Bonus Round: What About Workflow Management?

Who’s the champ in SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM?

Bonus Round: There’s even more to Zoho than meets the eye

Why Integrate QuickBooks and Zoho CRM?

(A Theoretical Journey)

Lousy communication looks like this

Back to reality: Why integrate QuickBooks and CRM at all?

Programs these days…

So, why integrate QuickBooks with Zoho CRM, specifically?

ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM Review

Is picking ACT? such sage advice?

Round One: The Price

Round Two: Tracking the Sales

Round Three: Integrating the Social Aspect

Round Four: Automating your Marketing

ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM BONUS ROUND: Inventory Management

And, the winner of ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM is…

One more thing about ACT vs Zoho

Who’s the bigger force to be reckoned with?

The Salesforce vs Zoho CRM Review

Round One: The Cost

Round Two: The Sales Automation

Round Three: The Social Aspect

Round 3A: Integrated chat options

Round Four: The Inventory Management

Salesforce vs Zoho CRM BONUS ROUND: Integration

Zoho CRM vs. Salesforce: Similarities & Differences

Unparalleled Performance: Unveiling the Value of Zoho CRM

Why Zoho CRM Prevails: A Closer Look

Conclusion?

Integrated VOIP at a glance

Consider Zoho VOIP Integragtion for the time you get back every day

Already sold on the idea? Try an integrated VOIP solution from Zoho

For other Zoho concerns, including how to get CRM training, Zoho support, or Zoho consulting packages, see the links provided or contact us by clicking the button in the upper right corner of your screen.

The Benefits of Switching from Spreadsheets to CRM for Your Business

What does a spreadsheet do?

What does a CRM do?

Data security is much better with CRM, as opposed to spreadsheets

You can use CRM as your hub, and connect different spokes at will

With great spreadsheets come great paper waste

Are you ready to do away with the training wheels?

Just How Far Does a Little Chat Go?

Why Zoho SalesIQ?

1. Zoho SalesIQ allows for prioritizing (scoring) your leads

2. Zoho SalesIQ plugs directly into Zoho CRM

3. Zoho SalesIQ’s mobile compatibility means you’ll never miss a potential connection

Zoho SalesIQ is clearly a wise choice

Want to see what SalesIQ’s all about? Contact us at (888) 207-4111 for dedicated support and we’ll show you how it works and give you a personalized training session as well.