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Category : Job Costing

zoho vs hubspot crm

Zoho vs Hubspot: Which CRM for Field Service Companies?

Zoho vs Hubspot CRM – which one is the better choice for your business needs? Field service companies face several unique challenges—from measuring and tracking job performance to scheduling and routing technicians to customer sites, numerous moving parts go into running a successful business.

With customer relationships at the core of any service-based business, field service companies need CRM software to manage leads, scheduling, invoicing, and other nuanced customer relations tasks.

Zoho and HubSpot are two popular CRM systems that make it easy for field service companies to streamline operations and grow their business while nurturing their most important asset—their customers. Here, we’ll take a look at the features, benefits, and costs of both Zoho CRM and HubSpot to help you decide which system is right for your business.

Zoho CRM vs. HubSpot: A Comparison of CRM Features

Zoho CRM and HubSpot are both comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) systems that help field service companies manage their accounts and contact information, automate sales processes like quoting and invoicing, and track customer interactions.

Each has an impressive reputation in the marketplace. But while Zoho offers a full range of apps and comparable features, Hubspot has doubled down on its marketing and email capabilities.

  • Zoho CRM is one of the many applications included in the Zoho ONE platform, an end-to-end platform that offers powerful features like marketing automation, sales tracking, customer service tools, a full finance suite, and more. It also integrates with popular programs like Xero, Dropbox, and QuickBooks.
  • HubSpot, on the other hand, is better known for its sales, marketing automation, and customer service tools. It also offers a marketplace of third-party apps that extend the system’s functionality.

How Zoho CRM and HubSpot Stack Up

Let’s take a look at how Zoho CRM and HubSpot compare when it comes to features, benefits, and costs.

Contact and Lead Management

HubSpot and Zoho CRM are not only easy to use for organizing contact and lead information, but also for managing sales data, such as call logs and sales signals. With the paid versions of both software programs, you can also score leads to determine which ones should receive priority outreach.

However, there are a few differences to be aware of. HubSpot’s duplicate management feature, for example, is only available on the company’s Professional and Enterprise plans, which can be costly. Zoho CRM de-duplicates data on its top three-tier plans for a lower price, potentially making it a better option for smaller field service businesses.

Lead Generation and Sales Quoting

Another significant benefit to Zoho CRM is its end-to-end software. While HubSpot has many integrators, keeping everything on the same platform reduces data silos and supports processes like marketing lead gen; ‘configure, price, quote’ (CPQ) task management; job scheduling and work order management; and billing, invoicing, and job costing.

Since field services companies often have complex pricing models, automated lead funnels and CPQ software that can quickly generate automated quotes is invaluable. Zoho CRM, with its CPQ capabilities, makes this task simple and efficient. While HubSpot can handle these tasks, most require the use of add-ons that must be purchased separately.

Field Service Processes

When it comes to managing field service processes, Zoho CRM simply offers more features than HubSpot. For example, Zoho’s capabilities can support job scheduling and dispatching, billing and invoicing, job costing, and an offline mode built-in for reps who travel to places with low cell reception.

With Zoho ONE, you can reduce data silos, the number of vendors you use, support and maintenance costs, implementation time, integration points, and risk of system failure—all while keeping your costs low.

HubSpot doesn’t have a dedicated, integrated field service app, but it does offer some features that can support field service companies, such as a robust task management application, customer support ticketing, and contact tracking.

Pricing

Generally speaking, Zoho is much cheaper than Hubspot—especially if you go with their all-inclusive Zoho ONE package, which includes access to several integrated applications (including CRM and field service) for one low monthly price.

HubSpot’s lowest-tier plan is significantly more expensive than Zoho ONE, but it does offer a more traditional email marketing platform compared to Zoho’s email marketing solution. The Professional and Enterprise tiers of HubSpot also offer features like lead scoring, contact segmentation, and more that aren’t available on the company’s Basic plan, but which are offered by Zoho’s ONE’s competitively priced plan.

Reporting

With HubSpot, you can have three free dashboards with 10 reports each. If you upgrade to a paid plan, you can store up to 50 dashboards, each of which can have 10-30 reports at a time. The Professional and Enterprise plans let you create 100 and 500 custom reports, respectively—a feature unavailable on any other plan.

All paid plans of Zoho CRM come with standard reports, as well as the ability to schedule these reports. Zoho’s Standard plan offers 100 custom reports, while the three higher-tier plans offer an unlimited number for any KPIs you want to track.

Zoho CRM vs. HubSpot: Which Should You Choose?

Ultimately, when evaluating the features of each program, Zoho CRM is the clear winner for service companies. With more features tailored to field services, a lower price tag, and more comprehensive reporting capabilities, Zoho is the logical choice for most field service businesses.

That said, HubSpot’s email marketing platform is one of the best out there. If you’re looking for a traditional email marketing platform—or if you’re only interested in sales and marketing tools and can get what you need from the company’s lowest-tier plan—HubSpot could be a good fit for you.

Consider your business needs carefully before making a decision. Or, if you need help comparing the two programs, reach out to ZBrains. Our expert team can support you in evaluating both options to determine which solution will best meet your needs going forward.

Team members gather to discuss the benefits of job costing

Maximizing Profits: How Job Costing Solutions and Zoho ERP Can Help

Zoho ERP with ZBrains Job Costing Extension: Advantages

zoho erp job costing

Job costing is a phenomenal way for businesses owners to stay on top of their finances and ensure they are on budget across all projects. The ZBrains Zoho Job Costing App, built by our Zoho Creator experts, offers businesses of varying industries a pathway towards greater financial management and allocation of resources. When performed correctly, job costing ensures employees are being utilized smartly. Traditionally, job costing is associated with manufacturing and construction companies. However,  service companies (law firms, accounting businesses, and private investment companies) also have a lot to gain from this application. Plus, medical services businesses, film studios, and retail companies likewise can utilize job costing to great effect.

Streamline Workflow: Quotes, Proposals, and Planning Made Easy

Companies often rely on multiple software platforms to track expensesThe Advantages of Using Zoho ERP with the ZBrains Job Costing Extension and coordinate their budget planning.  The beauty of our job costing app is having all your data conveniently housed in one place. Want to adjust a proposal to include more line items within a single deal? Done. Looking to monitor the work load for multiple employees? You got it. This application takes all expenses into account, including labor, materials, and employee wages, to give you an accurate picture of your business as a whole. Planning for the future is easier with Zoho Job Costing as a result, because you can see the true cost of every job. For a great job costing example, see this job costing example.

Organize your Team and their Individual Workflows

[caption id="attachment_3417" align="alignright" width="500"]zoho erp job costing workflow Photo Credit: Stand With Main Street[/caption]

Any great manager can speak to the difficulty of monitoring multiple team members at once, and this app significantly eases that process. See where your efforts are pointed, and re-assign team members as needed. Perhaps you have a go-to worker for smaller, short window projects and another ace in the hole for complex, longer term projects — the job costing module lets you track their progress and add to their plates as you see fit. Another aspect to consider is the speed of a worker compared to another. This job costing app enables you to assign a junior employee to a lower priority project and a senior specialist to a project that needs to be completed as quickly as possible.

Optimize your Business Strategy

As with any great tool, the way you use it determines how much value you extract from it. So it is with the job costing module: when used to its full potential business owners can see how their resources are being utilized. For example, maybe there is an uptick in jobs requiring stone, or a decline in jobs requiring lumber. With the job costing module you can take stock of your resources and adjust as needed. This makes life easier for you and your employees and helps you avoid resource shortages and surpluses alike. Job costing is but one element, one spoke in the wheel that is Zoho ERP Software, which helps your business sync with inventory, order management, and financial data.

zoho erp job costing integration

Zoho integration: The ultimate advantage

Above all else, the reason you’ll want to consider the Zoho Job Costing tool we’ve developed is its deep integration with Zoho CRM.  By using our Zoho integration and allowing the two systems to communicate, you’ll be opening your employees’ eyes to a much easier method of calculating job costs.  Integration allows for data to be synced between systems at the very least, eliminating double-entry.  And, at most, you could even access the Zoho Creator Job Costing module from inside the CRM, for a truly unified user experience.

If you have questions about this Job Costing module, another Zoho Creator app in our arsenal, or anything related to CRM or Zoho customization, we’re happy to lend you an ear.  Contact us today and a certified Zoho consultant will get back to you as quickly as possible.