Published on: June 20, 2017Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: May 30, 2023 Comments: 0
You’ve been searching review sites and soliciting colleague feedback for weeks. You know your business needs a CRM, but you’re not sure which CRM is best for you. As a small business, you need to have all of the features in place to scale quickly as you grow, and overcome any potential pitfalls, yet you don’t need a price tag that puts into question the ROI for your company.
Well, you’re in luck. Though we might be biased (surprise, surprise), we’re biased because we know that Zoho works for small businesses just like yours. We wouldn’t be so passionate about this business if that wasn’t true.
While Salesforce is the number one CRM on the market, at least by market share and revenue, Zoho is truly made for growing companies. Salesforce caters to large, enterprise clients – such as Coca-Cola, ADP and Delta. Zoho, on the other hand, was created for customers who own or are part of small businesses in technology, consulting media, real estate verticals and more. Although the features and benefits are similar, functionality is different when considering Zoho vs Salesforce.
With that said, here’s why small businesses don’t need Salesforce.
Because as a small business, you need a CRM that will scale with you.
As a small business, you do not need hundreds of thousands of contacts in your CRM – yet. That’s like a single bachelor living in a 10,000 square foot mansion. Necessary? No. Nice to have? Perhaps. Yet, the annoyances far outweigh the benefits – more rooms to clean, higher cost of rent, more space for stuff.
Similarly, a CRM that offers too much comes with room to house bad data (after all, if you never reach your ceiling, why would you perform housekeeping tasks on a weekly or monthly basis?), the price tag is outside of what you can actually afford, and the feature-set isn’t what a business like yours needs.
Instead, work with a CRM that can scale with your business – so you can add on those extra rooms as your company expands.
Because cost is a factor.
Cost is a factor for any business, but even more-so for a small businesses.
Why pay for an enterprise CRM when your needs aren’t that?
Zoho starts at a price that is affordable for even the smallest of independent contractors or businesses. Salesforce, on the other hand, starts at 100% more per user than Zoho’s standard user price. Simply put, when it comes to cost, small businesses don’t need Salesforce, or a similar enterprise-focused CRM.
Features are plentiful within Zoho.
Zoho can record phone numbers, emails, meeting notes, to-do lists, documents, and much more without leaving the system. Similarly, the Zoho Import Wizard, Web Forms, or the Zoho CRM API to easily import contacts from other third-party business applications. The features are plentiful and the opportunities are endless.
The Zoho platform also centralizes all forms of sales info and communications, such as email, phone, SMS, social media, and in-person, into contacts, activity and records. These features are provided natively in some cases, and in others they exist as Zoho integrations.
Reporting matters.
Zoho provides a comprehensive view of all sales activities, including deal size, lead source, competitor information, and any other metrics you select. In addition, you can collect data and provide reports around sales forecasting, invoice data, and contract management (through digital signatures). Reporting in Zoho is everything, especially as a business grows and scales.
On-the-go is a necessity for small businesses.
Both Salesforce and Zoho offer native mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, which makes on-the-go data and insights so easy to consume. For example, you can update a record or contact through mobile, and view past notes on your iPhone as you’re walking to a meeting with a potential new client. Forget the clunky laptop as you’re in transit.
If you’re an enterprise client or massive business, like the aforementioned Coca-Cola, ADP and Delta, you should consider the features and benefits of both Zoho and Salesforce; yet, if you are a small business that is ready to scale and centralize your communication through a feature-focused CRM, Zoho is for you. This platform will provide everything you need – features, reports and more – with a cost that makes sense for your business. And that’s exactly why small businesses don’t need Salesforce.
Questions about Zoho? Click here to connect with an expert from our ZBrains team.
When it comes to security with online software, you’ve likely heard it all. “Change your passwords“, says your Information Technology group. “Don’t connect to public Wi-Fi“, your colleagues suggest. Yet, with your CRM – Zoho, specifically – we are lucky that the platform has built-in, ready-made capabilities that will protect you and your business. Particularly, Zoho’s system security capabilities are second-to-none for Tech and Marketing teams alike.
But, why should your business even care about security?
Well, let us tell you a story about a little ol’ company named Sony.
Sony created a globally popular movie, The Interview, featuring Seth Rogan and James Franco. The Interview depicts two friends who run a popular tabloid show; these two friends pitch and land an interview with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. During this time, they are recruited by the CIA to turn their trip into an assassination mission. Naturally, North Korea (in real life) wasn’t impressed with this storyline. As the story goes, hackers who claimed to be from North Korea hacked Sony Corporation in one of the most popular cyberattacks in entertainment. From releasing salaries of Sony’s executives to spoiling the release of upcoming movies, to distributing medical information about Sony employees – the consequences of the hack were felt far and wide.
Yet, it was Sony Corporation who wasn’t prepared, and were completely unaware about what could happen if a company disregards security through online software. Needless to say, Sony changed their practices immediately, and focused on safety and security of their online software.
Now, your business might not be as large as Sony; but the principle remains the same. Safety and security of your online information is integral to the reputation of your business.
So, with that said, if your team uses Zoho, you can sleep well knowing that you are in safe hands with this software. Below, we’ll show you the system security capabilities you need to know, along with where they can be found in Zoho. Some features are through Zoho Vault, the online password manager for teams, and others are built right in Zoho CRM.
Zoho’s Security Capabilities: What You Need to Know
Passwords are encrypted with the strongest encryption standard (AES-256), which means that you can securely store passwords through the software without worrying about changing them frequently for safety and security.
There are many password solutions out there – from OnePass to Security Server Online. Yet, many are clunky and – to be quite frank – a pain to use. After all, who wants to log-in to multiple platforms only to reach one?
Zoho’s system security capabilities gives you the ability to securely store passwords should keep your Tech team at rest.
If your company sends an email, tweet, updates a lead or tracks an opportunity, you want to track who does what, and when. For example, if your Marketing team creates a lead and your Sales Representative needs to know who performed this action, Zoho will tell you. Similarly, if you need to assign or re-distribute a password, your Tech team can see how and when this was done.
Tracking user actions allows your teams to see how and what changes were made, helping identify potential breaches if they are taking place.
Within your team, you might share passwords through email, text or over the phone. But, you don’t need to worry when it comes to Zoho.*
You can define access privileges through the platform, meaning you can share passwords with team members quickly and easily online.
*PS: Never share private or sensitive information (like passwords) over email! This is integral to Zoho’s system security capabilities.
4. Database security.
Application used: Zoho CRM
Hackers attempting to reach CRM systems and databases happen frequently. Much like the example of Sony Corporation above, it’s important to have security systems and checks in place.
With Zoho’s CRM database, encrypted data (AES-256 bit) is always sent over the internet. In addition, the connection is through SSL. This makes safety and security a priority and focus within Zoho.
Zoho makes it easy for big teams to securely share passwords and access. Instead of sharing passwords or providing access to 100+ individuals on just that – an individual basis – Zoho allows uses to provide passwords to users and groups in bulk and deny access when a user is removed.
By using Zoho CRM, Campaigns, Vault and more, it’s clear that safety and security is a priority when it comes to this software. Whatever the case might be, and regardless of your company’s industry, security needs to be at the forefront of all business decisions.
Published on: June 7, 2017Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: July 20, 2023 Comments: 0
So, what is the Zoho Sales Qualification process?
With a Zoho Sales Qualification process, you can avoid deleting “bad leads” or leaving them in the sales cycle, ensuring accurate data and statistics as your pipeline expands within Zoho.
Let’s turn that around – now.
If you can relate with the story above, it’s time to implement the aforementioned sales qualification process.
So, what is the Zoho Sales Qualification process?
This process is, in a nutshell, the steps you can take to ask the right questions of your prospects and determine whether or not they are a good fit for your business. Once you determine whether or not the relationship should continue, the qualification process also continues – qualifying or disqualifying such prospects within your sales funnel. Sales qualification works for business of any size – small, medium to enterprise. After all, 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy, which means they’re taking up space in your CRM instead of being an accurate representation of who’s ready to sign on the dotted line.
There are four key steps in a Zoho Sales Qualification; this blog will provide an overview of what you need to know to go through the process.
Streamlining Your Workflow for Effective Sales Qualification
Step 1: Identify who your target prospect is.
The first step to any sales cycle is to identify who your target prospect is. By this, we mean that you should look at organization level qualification – qualifying the company. For example, you should look at the following:
What is your target territory?
What is your focus industry?
What is your ideal target company size? (either in revenue or employee size)
What is your target persona’s job title? (for example, Communications Director or VP of Sales)
By understanding who your target prospect is, you can accurately perform outreach targeting and understand who should be in your funnel – and who shouldn’t.
Step 2: Determine prospect need.
After the prospect has shown interest in your services or products, such as filling out a form or sending you an email through your website, it is best to hold a discovery call to get to know one another. This is before any other move is made, such as putting together a proposal or turning into an opportunity.
Discovery calls will determine whether the prospect has an immediate need, or a need over the next 6 months. On the discovery call, you can ask the questions above to ensure your prospect is within your target audience. You should also inquire about need, pain points and company information.
Step 3: Qualify the stakeholder.
Once you have determined the prospect’s need, it is time to qualify the stakeholder. This is where the fun begins!
In this step in the process, you determine if the prospect is a decision maker. Ask yourself the question – can they sign on the dotted line? Or do they need a direct manager to do so? Is there anyone else who should be involved?
In this process, it is best to follow the BANT model. This model asks the following questions…
Budget: Is the prospect capable of buying? Authority: Does your contact have adequate authority to sign off on a purchase? Need: Does the prospect have a business pain you can solve? Timeline: When is the prospect planning to buy?
Using proper qualification means you can use Zoho lead scoring to give your leads actual numerical scores, which makes the distinction between qualified and unqualified easy if you’re just looking at passing a threshold. (Lead scoring assigns a point value to things like the usual BANT qualifiers, plus other metrics that you set.)
Step 4: Know when to disqualify.
Once you have gone through the BANT model, it is time to determine if you need to qualify or disqualify. Remember – disqualification isn’t bad! It keeps your Zoho CRM clean and with accurate data.
This makes it so you can disqualify based on asking wto simple questions:
If the company is not going to purchase your services because of budget, territory, lack of business pain, etc. – it is best to disqualify.
If there is an opportunity to purchase services, qualify – and nurture.
Remember – it doesn’t hurt to keep your prospects in a nurturing sequence within your email software. A prospect that is disqualified today might be ready to purchase in 6 to 12 months, and by keeping your prospects in nurturing, you’ll be top of mind when the time is right.
Questions about how to qualify prospects through the Zoho CRM? Click here and we’ll be happy to help you with Zoho Sales Qualification, Zoho implementation consulting, or anything else related to Zoho.
Published on: May 28, 2017Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: May 8, 2024 Comments: 0
Picture this: You’re closing deals because of your hard work ethic and quality pipeline. You’ve placed a great deal of emphasis on your sales strategy over the last year, and results are really paying off. Yet, you want to go one step further – you want to understand how quickly it takes for a new lead to become a closed deal, helping you and your team know the factors and levers that you can pull to move more efficiently. You want to really understand what your pipeline looks like, from lead to meeting, opportunity to closed deal. You want to understand your Sales Pipeline Velocity.
Your Sales Pipeline Velocity is like a mathematic equation. To find out how fast opportunities are moving through your pipeline, you need to determine the following:
Qualified Opportunities x Win Rate x Deal Size / Length of Sales Cycle
If you use this equation, you will accurately determine how quickly your opportunities will go through each stage of the buying process and turn into closed deals, meaning actual revenue for your business.
Yes, but why should you care about Sales Pipeline Velocity?
By accurately determining your team’s Sales Pipeline Velocity, you will have the ability to predict future sales and revenue, and discover how you can increase your team’s ROI.
You can predict sales and velocity by understanding how many opportunities it takes to turn into actual revenue. Yet, you can even go further – you can determine how many leads it takes to turn into a meeting, how many meetings it takes to generate an opportunity, and how many opportunities it takes to generate a closed deal.
How will the Sales Pipeline Velocity impact your business?
The Sales Pipeline Velocity will impact your business in four significant ways…
1. You’ll better understand and optimize qualified leads.
You know that qualified leads are where the revenue is really made. Qualified opportunities are leads who have contacted you, or have shown interest in your product or services. Only a fraction of leads actually make it through your pipeline to become qualified, which means that you need to focus on these gems.
By understanding and monitoring the Sales Pipeline Velocity, you will see how your qualified opportunities have grown over time. If it is not, this is a red flag to be aware of – which means you need to focus more on marketing and driving more leads, then focus on pulling levers where it matters most.
2. Your leadership team will have realistic expectations for sales cycles.
Most executive teams think, mistakenly, that a deal can be generated and closed within a month or two. Yet, that’s not always the case. Some sales cycles take upwards of six months to one year to close. Great sales teams spend time early in the sales cycle to establish the value they offer, instead of pushing and pushing to close a deal.
Back to understanding the pipeline velocity, understanding the average time to close a deal will provide accurate data to your leadership team – setting realistic expectations and targets.
3. You will accurately predict revenue.
Further to setting expectations, understanding your velocity will help you accurately predict revenue. Instead of guessing, crossing fingers and simply hoping for the best each and every quarter, your team will have the ability to predict how much revenue is in the pipeline every month. No more guessing; instead, rely on data to tell the tale.
4. Deal size will become more relevant.
Instead of spending time and energy on the small deals in your pipeline, understanding and interpreting data will give your team insight into which deals matter most – and which ones you should push to the side momentarily.
Deal size becomes more relevant when you focus your time on data and insights, making your sales pipeline much more relevant than ever before.
How Zoho helps optimize your Sales Pipeline Velocity
Thankfully, Zoho tells users exactly what their Sales Pipeline Velocity looks like – providing accurate data and insights. There is a fantastic Zoho Motivator dashboard available to users that displays potential stages, which includes open records, won records, closed records and initial states. It also provides KPI analysis, and gives you insight into how you can increase your opportunities, win rate, average deal size and sales cycle length.
Interested in seeing Zoho’s Sales Pipeline Velocity in action for your business – or, just have a general Zoho consulting or Zoho implementation question? Click here to contact us.
Published on: May 23, 2017Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: November 13, 2023 Comments: 0
When it comes to working more efficiently and closing bigger deals for your business, there’s no doubt that having a CRM for your team is essential. Yet, many companies go a few steps beyond exclusively using a CRM, and also include integrations and add-ons to scale their efficiency. One of our favorite third party tools to use with a CRM is Slack integration with Zoho. Slack is a user-focused productivity tool that allows you to chat with your colleagues, share files, start video and audio calls, and hold virtual stand-up meetings while you’re at it. The platform was initially created as an alternative to email (gasp! right?) and many companies have adopted this service in place of internal email communications. Slack is available for users as a stand-alone app for desktop, mobile and tablet, enabling users to stay connected and productive wherever they are.
What is Zoho CRM Slack Integration?
Zoho CRM, a popular customer relationship management tool, empowers businesses to efficiently manage leads, contacts, and sales processes. In contrast, Slack, a leading team collaboration platform, is renowned for its real-time messaging capabilities. Integrating these two powerful tools creates a synergy that enhances your team’s productivity and decision-making.
So, what does Slack have to do with Zoho?
Well, as we teased, Slack integration with Zoho is available to use with all package options of this CRM. But what does this mean, you ask? For effective team communication, Zoho has integrated Slack into Zoho projects, meaning that you and your team can push project updates to Slack feeds and mange your project activities through the platform. For example, you can group project activities and conversations in Slack so your team will always be aware of status updates and progress.
Setting-up your integration with Zoho and Slack is super easy (Zoho has a great how-to here). From a high level perspective (TL;DR), here’s our Top 3 favorite things you’ll love about Zoho and Slack integration:
You can share data records with with user and channels in Slack. All you need to do is click on the record you want to share (within Zoho), and press “Share via Slack”. This will give your colleagues a business card view, making it easy to chat about users and records within one platform.
You can share reports within Slack, such as revenue breakdown, leads overviews, and much, much more. Again, this saves users from flipping between dashboards and programs.
Need updates or reminders on leads, prospects or closed opportunities? Slack will do just the trick. You can add instant notifications to Slack so, for example, if a prospect engages with your website and you want to send an email to them within 24 hours, you’ll receive a Slack notification to do just the thing.
Key Benefits of Zoho CRM Slack Integration
1. Real-Time Updates One standout feature of this integration is that it delivers real-time updates from Zoho CRM directly within your Slack channels. Consequently, your sales team can stay promptly informed about leads, deals, and customer interactions without the need to switch between multiple applications.
2. Improved Visibility Zoho CRM Slack integration offers enhanced visibility to every team member. Sales representatives can effortlessly access customer information, deal progress, and contact details using Slack slash commands. This heightened visibility ensures that everyone operates from the same playbook, making collaboration more efficient and effective.
3. Seamless Communication Effective communication lies at the core of successful teamwork. Zoho CRM Slack integration promotes smooth communication by enabling team members to discuss specific leads or deals in dedicated channels. This eliminates the need for lengthy email threads and ensures that relevant discussions are readily accessible.
4. Customization and Alerts Customizing the integration to align with your team’s specific needs is straightforward. You can configure custom alerts and notifications in Slack, ensuring that you receive instant alerts when specific CRM events occur. For instance, you can be notified when a high-priority lead enters the CRM or when a deal reaches a critical stage.
How to Set Up Zoho CRM Slack Integration
Setting up the integration between Zoho CRM and Slack is a simple process:
Access Zoho CRM: Log in to your Zoho CRM account.
Navigate to Integrations: Within the settings menu, locate and select “Integrations & Add-ons.”
Select Slack: Choose the Slack integration option.
Authenticate: Follow the on-screen prompts to authenticate your Slack account.
Customize: Tailor the integration to your requirements by specifying the Slack channels where you want CRM updates to appear.
Save: Save your settings, and you’re ready to go!
Curious About Slack Integration with Zoho? 5 Compelling Reasons:
#1: It strengthens team communication.
It’s so easy to talk and communicate on Slack, there’s little wonder as to why team communication is strengthened with this platform. Not only can you text 1:1 or in groups, you can also start video and audio messaging.
For those of us who love to communicate through emoticons, Slack has a very Facebook-like “reactions” tool that enables users to react to messages with emoticon-like symbols.
There are also mobile and desktop notifications, which are not invasive as users enable their own settings. For example, you can be notified if there is any activity in a certain project you are following, or you can turn off notifications all-together after a certain time. Users can turn off notifications after 6PM on weekdays, or be completely silent on weekends. Only check at your leisure, and when you need.
#2: Increase the speed of your sales cycle.
Everyone loves the idea of closing deals faster, right? Right.
With Slack, you can see when your colleagues are online and get answers to your questions immediately. For example, if you are on a sales pitch call and your prospect is asking you for a case study within a certain industry, you can message Jane who is online and ask for a brief overview while you are holding the call. Your prospects will be impressed, and it’ll save you time in following-up via email, increasing the speed of your sales cycle.
Integration with Zoho also means that you can pull in any conversations around deals and topics to CRM, which will give you greater visibility into the progress of certain deals, or any areas that are facing challenges within the process.
#3: Save time in your day.
What’s the point of third party integration if doesn’t save you time and efficiency in your day, right?
With Slack integration, you can push your project updates to Slack feeds so you won’t have to check multiple sources for project timelines or sales contact information. You won’t need to update multiple forms, CSVs or CRM. Focus on closing deals instead of performing administrative tasks.
Speaking of administrative tasks, Zoho Books is another tool that connects with Zoho CRM. This integration gives you flexibility for things like syncing your customers’ contact and account information to viewing generated invoices. It makes your life easier – and saves so much more time in your day.
#4. You can work from anywhere.
From an employee perspective, productivity is higher when working remotely versus strictly being tied to an office. Employees are statistically happier when they have work/life balance, which means they will be more loyal to your company, your department and your team.
Using Slack integration with Zoho, you can truly work anywhere. You do not need to be glued to the office and your chair to make updates to Zoho – simply use the Slack app and Zoho, and your leads will update in synchrony.
#5. Save time in meetings.
Meetings. Ugh.
Meetings are a necessity for external communication and sales funnels; however, internal teams can drastically save time with various integrations when it comes to internal meetings. For example, you can host stand-up meetings with Slack third party tools, like GeekBot, a meeting tool that allows you to hold update meetings through text in real-time. Or, you can set a requirement to have daily huddles and updates in project groups with quick written updates, instead of bringing your team together in-synchrony and in-person.
Use Cases of Zoho CRM Slack Integration
Sales Teams
This integration offers immense benefits to sales teams. They can receive notifications about new leads, deal updates, and even collaborate on strategies and client interactions in dedicated Slack channels. This streamlines the sales process, leading to quicker deal closures.
Customer Support
For customer support teams, having access to CRM data within Slack allows them to provide more personalized assistance. They can swiftly retrieve customer information, purchase history, and past interactions, resulting in faster issue resolution and improved customer satisfaction.
Marketing Collaboration
Marketers can leverage the integration to monitor lead and campaign progress. By receiving updates directly in Slack, marketing teams can adjust their strategies in real time, ensuring alignment with sales efforts.
Embrace Slack CRM Integration for Streamlined Operations
Enhanced Communication and Collaboration: By integrating Slack with a CRM system, businesses can foster seamless communication and collaboration among team members. The integration allows real-time updates and notifications about customer interactions, sales opportunities, and support tickets, ensuring that relevant information is readily available to the right people. With the ability to share CRM data and insights within Slack channels, teams can collaborate more effectively, resolve customer issues promptly, and coordinate sales efforts efficiently.
Streamlined Workflows and Improved Efficiency: Slack CRM integration enables teams to automate manual processes, eliminating the need for switching between multiple platforms. By consolidating CRM data and communication channels in one place, employees can access vital information, update records, and take necessary actions without leaving Slack. This streamlines workflows, reduces administrative overhead, and empowers employees to work more efficiently. Time spent on data entry, searching for information, or toggling between applications is significantly reduced, allowing teams to focus on high-value tasks.
Real-Time Customer Insights: Integrating Slack with a CRM system provides teams with real-time customer insights directly within their communication platform. When a new lead is generated, a deal is closed, or a support ticket is resolved, relevant notifications can be sent to designated Slack channels. This ensures that all team members stay informed about crucial customer interactions, enabling them to provide personalized and timely responses. Real-time insights help sales teams identify opportunities, marketing teams tailor campaigns, and support teams address customer needs promptly, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased revenue.
Improved Visibility and Accountability: With Slack CRM integration, managers and team leaders gain enhanced visibility into their team’s activities and performance. By integrating CRM data into Slack channels, managers can monitor progress, track key metrics, and assess team productivity. This visibility promotes accountability, allows for timely interventions, and enables data-driven decision-making. Managers can identify bottlenecks, address challenges, and provide timely guidance to ensure that sales and customer support activities align with organizational goals.
Conclusion:
In today’s interconnected business landscape, integrating Slack with CRM systems is a crucial step towards fostering efficient communication, collaboration, and productivity. By harnessing the power of Slack CRM integration, businesses can enhance their workflows, gain real-time insights, and improve customer experiences. Embracing this must-have integration empowers organizations to stay competitive, drive growth, and unlock the full potential of their CRM systems in the digital age.
When it comes to Slack integration with Zoho, there are so many benefits to connecting your CRM with this productivity tool. Not only will it help you communicate more efficiently and effectively, it will help you save time and stay connected as a cohesive team.
If you have a question about the Slack integration with Zoho, a different Zoho integration, or just have a question about implementation or consulting, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us today to schedule a short chat with one of our Zoho certified consultants.
Published on: May 10, 2017Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: November 17, 2020 Comments: 0
When it comes to sales outreach and performance, there are a plethora of options to help managers and leaders alike in hitting goals and reaching targets; yet, time is always of the essence. Does your team have enough time to prospect and qualify each and every lead? Do you have the bandwidth to manually research what your prospects are clicking on, and the types of content they are converting on? If the answer is “no”, you’ll want to read on and learn more about the lead scoring model – particularly, Zoho lead scoring.
The lead scoring model refers to that of “scoring” a prospect, lead or client. Over 68% of B2B marketers are already using behavioral and demographic scoring, which helps them qualify and convert prospects. Scoring rules can include:
Company size
Industry
Web page visits
Job title
Company location
Email opens
Fiscal revenue
Downloads
Form submissions
(and much, much more).
For example, if your target persona is a Marketing Manager in a company with $10 million in revenue, you could further score and gauge interest by creating smart lists that display contacts who are actively engaged with your content and website (indicating interest) versus those who are not.
When it comes to usage within CRM software, like Zoho, the lead scoring model can be used by everyone across a range of job functions, from Marketing Managers to the VP of Sales. Typically, Marketing and Sales functions are closely tied with lead scoring, as they are the front-line in connecting with B2B or B2C clients and customers
Fun Fact: 68% of effective and efficient marketers are more likely to identify lead scoring based on content and engagement as one of their main drivers of revenue.
Now that you know what lead scoring is and who uses this sales and marketing function, it’s time to talk about how awesome it is. Zoho lead scoring, in particular, will help give your business a competitive edge unlike ever before.
Here’s why scoring rules are awesome – and why you should try Zoho lead scoring now.
Reason #1: It prioritizes prospecting.
Remember when we talked about how much time in the day your sales team has, and where they prioritize their efforts?
Lead scoring does just that – in fact, using lead scoring best practices makes it even easier.
For example, when you implement your lead scoring practice, prioritize everything. Don’t waste your time. Create a lead scoring list that only shows you leads from your target industry, with your target annual revenue, who have engaged with your website over the last three days. You’ll receive engaged, interested contacts who have budget for your services or products.
Reason #2: You’ll close deals faster.
If a lead in the opportunity stage of your sales funnel clicks on your proposal and views it five times, then visits your website, they’re probably interested. So, why not pick up the phone and give them a call?
Engaging with your prospects based on their level of interest will not only show the lead that you’re in touch with their wants and needs, it’ll also help get that pen on the dotted line quicker.
Reason #3: Keep your prospecting and client database cleaner
No one dislikes a messy CRM more than us. After all, what’s the point of having a data center if you’re not using it properly?You can assign scoring rules based on a number of factors, but importantly, it will help you keep your database cleaner.
For example, if an email bounces you can assign a negative score. Poor feedback on your company’s social channels? Assign a negative score.
Only keep in touch and prospect with those leads who are interested in your services.
Reason #4: Send focused communications.
Through automation in Zoho CRM, communication can be sent based on engagement with your website, products or services. For example, you can send an automated email based on a click that takes place on your contact page.
Much like keeping in contact with your target prospects, keep your communications focused and concise. As you determine what your scoring rules are, you will have a greater ability to stay focused and communicate efficiently.
When it comes to prospecting and the sales process, engagement through the awareness, consideration, purchase and experience funnel is key to success. With outbound leads costing 39% more than inbound leads, this means that you need to engage with the audience you have, while prospecting further down the funnel.
Scoring rules aid in this process. From targeted prospecting to focused communications, using lead scoring best practices with software like Zoho will help your team become more efficient and drive revenue along the way.
Published on: April 11, 2017Category: Zoho CRM, Zoho DeskLast Updated: March 30, 2023 Comments: 0
Zoho CRM Blueprint – The Blueprint to Sales Success
Hello, everyone! This is the second post in a series on the latest new offerings in the realm of Zoho CRM. Zoho has chosen to focus heavily on sales automation for this round of upgrades, and with good reason: as CRM is the most expensive and arguably most important Zoho offering, Zoho wants to ensure you get the most bang for your buck. These new offerings are only available with Zoho CRM Enterprise (and now Zoho One), so the powers that be really want to entice you to use that version of the software. And, for good reason – it’s already the best version of the system. So, without further ado, let’s talk Zoho CRM Blueprint.
When someone mentions a blueprint to you, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
Probably a plan to build a house or other structure, but it isn’t a full rendering. Really more like a cross section showing all the walls, windows, and beyond… The guts of the edifice, where the wires and pipes go, the lighting fixtures – everything.
And so it is with your sales cycle, in a manner of speaking. Even if you don’t see everything at once.
See, sometimes your salespeople need a blueprint to get from A to B. Obviously they know how to sell, but, especially in today’s technology-driven work environment, outside stimuli are everywhere. And, it can be easy to get distracted and lose focus.
So, wouldn’t it be nice if your salespeople had a blueprint, a sort of road map to get where they need to go, in terms of sales?
Obviously this is all a little abstract, but I’m hoping you’re with me so far! This is Zoho CRM Blueprint:
What we essentially have here is a literal blueprint to success for your sales team. This document has a few different color-coded blocks: White rectangles correspond to stages in the Deals module, while the gold parallelograms correspond to potential actions your salespeople can take in relation to those stages.
Now, ordinarily, your sales staff might have deal stages in front of them and just be expected to follow up with clients on a schedule, moving the deals stages accordingly when appropriate. But, that isn’t always enough to ensure success, as general instructions aren’t always clear. Even if you or your Zoho consultant of choice have set up workflow rules for your sales staff to let them know what tasks they need to carry out in relation to a deal, salespeople still have to access the task and click “complete.” Zoho CRM Blueprint takes this routine a step further, making it possible to complete tasks directly from the Deal screen and giving those tasks a wider context from which salespeople can view them and understand exactly where they are in the sales cycle.
Zoho CRM blueprint allows for setting simple instructions, as the illustration above shows: Start. Schedule Appointment. Qualify. And so on. Like a Zoho training session, but better.
Drawing up your Zoho CRM Blueprint
Unlike conventional blueprints, using Zoho CRM blueprint doesn’t require the use of drafting programs to really nail down – in fact, you don’t even really need a steady hand. It really is as easy as creating deal stages, creating per-deal tasks for salespeople (called “transitions”), connecting the dots, and doing a little drag-and-drop. Observe:
You can give conditions to Zoho CRM Blueprint transitions, too.
Part of drawing up your sales process involves setting parameters, and of course you’ll want to make sure everyone is on the same page. You can use these parameters to ensure that, for example, contracts are closed within a certain window of time, or that your sales staff doesn’t go crazy with giving out discounts. When your sales team goes to complete a transition, they’ll see an additional dialog box if you choose to add one asking for some details:
Not only does this keep your sales team in line with your company vision, but it gives you even more data with which to build reports and gauge the health of your company. For example, with the data collected from this dialog box to the right, you’ll be able to determine the average discount rate given by all sales team members, the average discount given by salesperson, and of course the amount of time taken to close a deal by salesperson and on the whole, if you aren’t already collecting that data elsewhere.
Thankfully, Zoho CRM anticipates this is just what you’ll be doing and created a screen just for drilling down into this data. Kinda makes me want to go in and start playing with it right now… Either that or make some sales; I haven’t quite decided yet.
How do these Blueprints fit into Zoho’s ultimate vision for the CRM?
Again, Zoho’s game as of late seems to be taking the sales process and automating as much of it as humanly possible, so after implementation you hardly have to touch it at all. After all, why spend any time thinking of what to do to improve sales processes if a machine can analyze your behavior and tell you exactly what works and what doesn’t? Why fret over which tasks to complete in what order if you can have the Zoho CRM blueprint right in front of you? Of course, Zoho recognizes that less time spent thinking means more time spent doing actual work, and since, barring your deftly-worded phone conversations, sales procedures themselves don’t tend to be all that individualized – that is, they tend to fit right onto a blueprint.
Look! Blueprint is now a component of Zoho Desk, too
Zoho has added blueprint functionality to Zoho Desk, which means you can give your support agents the same daily structure you give to your sales team. It also means you get all the same reports for your help desk that you do for your sales team, from time spent per transition to time spent on each blueprint itself. And that, in turn, lets you analyze your weak points and work to eliminate bottlenecks in your process.
Hungry for more?
Well, that makes at least two of us. I can’t wait to see what else Zoho has in store in terms of sales automation. The very prospect is a little mind-boggling: someone had to design the sales process itself, but once it’s committed to the blueprint and you have a dedicated staff to carry it out, it arguably runs itself.
Stay tuned for more updates like these, and let me know if you have any questions by clicking the link below this post!
Published on: March 30, 2017Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: May 16, 2023 Comments: 0
Howdy, you zany, tech-minded readers. This blog’s been a little quiet lately… and, rather than bore you with my very personal story of wearing 19 different hats, solving global hunger, and curing cancer, I figure I should just get down to business and tell you about some new Zoho offerings, as that is what I seem to do best. So, without further ado, let’s talk about Zoho’s newest addition to the CRM: Zia.
Zoho CRM is getting even better
Zoho has, in fact, been just as busy developing new product extensions as we’ve been over here helping Zoho users. Their last big CRM update was almost a year ago, in June 2016, when they came out with the new UI, so I suppose they were due for an update. (Zoho doesn’t seem to be able to fathom letting most apps stagnate for more than a year.) This round of new additions certainly did not disappoint. This blog post will cover one of those updates, while some of the next blog posts I write will cover the others.
So, this Zia. What is it, exactly, and why is it here?
Zia: Like having a business coach right at your desk
Zia is a nifty little widget that sits right in the lower right corner of your CRM (if you’re using Enterprise edition, that is) and gathers information about how you use the CRM. That’s everything from how many tasks you complete (and their types) and which records you interact with, to what emails and templates you’re sending out to your prospects and clients. Zoho’s AI tool then delivers predictions about how well you’re going to be doing, sales-wise, not only to individual users, but to team leaders as well.
Zia also points out anomalies with special Zoho CRM screens
One important part of forecasting sales is pinpointing aberrations in your trends and finding out just why they occur. Zia can hopefully help you prevent these weird glitches entirely with the helpful tips, but, if she doesn’t (yes, it’s a she – Zoho told me so), she provides extra screens with charts to help you visualize sales trends versus actual figures. Pretty neat.
But, where else can we find Zia inside Zoho CRM?
Zia isn’t limited to just a few screens and a lower-right widget. Truth be told, you can find her in every lead or contact you’ve reached out to in the form of SalesSignals, a real-time recommendation as to the best time to call someone.
[caption id="attachment_2411" align="alignleft" width="168"] Hm, looks like I missed my mark today.[/caption]
And furthermore, Zia will even politely interrupt you after seeing you’ve performed a particularly rudimentary task over and over again, asking if you want to create a macro that simply does that task for you.
So, if it isn’t abundantly clear why you should use Zia, this is the gist:
Zia sees where you’re spending time doing tasks and helps to automate them.
She sees when you’re contacting people, when you’re having the most success, then generates suggestions about how to duplicate that success.
Zia notices anomalies in your forecasting and offers suggestions about how to rectify those before they become realities.
Basically, it’s like having a coach right there at your desk to help you use the CRM. Not a bad deal, as the price of Enterprise hasn’t gone up…but, you might just want to upgrade to that version if you aren’t on it yet!
Still need some help with Zoho CRM?
Did you just upgrade to Enterprise edition and get confused by the array of new features, including Zia or Blueprint? Or, are you a new Zoho user looking for some expert Zoho consulting? Just contact us using the button below this blog post and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
Published on: November 17, 2016Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: October 21, 2024 Comments: 0
Lately, we’ve been getting a good number of questions about moving from Salesforce to Zoho CRM: namely, questions about migrating data between the two platforms.
I’m talking about things like:
Does it all transfer from system to system the right way, or do things get lost in translation?
Does it take a long time to do?
Is it expensive?
First things first: it’s absolutely feasible to migrate data from Salesforce to Zoho, and to get your whole team on the platform. But, the three concerns listed above are clearly important to address, and far be it from me to leave you hanging.
#1. What actually comes over in a data migration?
Something that can really hamper you when migrating data is when information simply will not transfer from one system to another – that is, things get lost in translation. At best, this leads to loads of manual entry after the big move; at worst, you’ll permanently lose valuable information about your clients and the overall health and history of your business.
This factor alone can sometimes keep people on a CRM that no longer suits them – and, in the case of staying on Salesforce, this can mean keeping a system that’s too complicated and has low user adoption, a system that’s too expensive to be a wise choice for your business.
Thankfully, there’s one important point to consider: Zoho CRM’s data import tool is able to read the metadata of records exported from Salesforce. That means you’re able to keep all your notes and other auxiliary data attached to individual records, and that you don’t lose a bit of your past history. (It’s important not to use the API data migration tool if you want to keep your metadata.)
#2. How long does it take to go from Salesforce to Zoho?
It goes without saying that time is of the essence in the business world. Projects taking too long – even data migration or CRM platform migration projects – can be relegated to the back burner if the project manager knows they will take too long for the company to carry out and not be totally messed up for days on end. Sometimes, these projects are simply never completed, and the business isn’t able to move on from a system that’s outlived its usefulness – even if it’s something robust like Salesforce.
Zoho Corporation offers a data migration service of their own but with one caveat: it can take up to several weeks to complete. Even for the price point ($100), not many companies can afford to be in limbo between systems for that long – and, for those in a hurry, it won’t do at all.
Fortunately, Zoho CRM’s built-in tool for migrating data helps immensely with this with its ultra-quick migration time. Even for many modules and thousands of records, as long as your Zoho consultant knows how to map your fields correctly, data migration only takes two days at most. That means that portion of the project can be completed over a regular weekend.
#3. What will a Salesforce to Zoho migration cost?
Cost is yet another factor that can put a data migration project on hold if it’s too much to bear; it’s unfortunate that halting a simple data migration project could ever come down to cost, but it does indeed happen. ZBrains’s team of consultants can spend a weekend, or even two solid weeknights, with your data to make sure it all flows from Salesforce to Zoho, but in return the service costs more than a flat $100 fee. (Let us know if you’d like a quote based on the number of modules you need to work with.)
If price is still an object, you might even choose to use a Zoho training session to get familiar with the ins and outs of data migration from Salesforce to Zoho CRM yourself at that point.
Still not sure how to approach migrating from Salesforce to Zoho?
If you still have questions about how this would work, don’t hesitate to contact us. Salesforce can be quite overwrought for businesses, and we’re happy to take a look at your existing configuration and tell you what it would take to replicate your current system on Zoho – or, even improve upon it. Contact us today and a certified Zoho consultant will get back to you within 24 hours.
Published on: October 17, 2016Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: March 30, 2023 Comments: 0
Zoho CRM Tooltips: the three-in-one helper that’s brand new to the CRM
If you’ve ever had to force an entire team to start using a new piece of business software, you know what a pain it can be.
Not only can your team not read your mind (so they just don’t know how awesome the new system is or how many hours you put into overseeing its development), but training isn’t always engaging for everyone, and sometimes people are left with questions about what to do with the array of new data entry options before them. Not the best way to success.
In this breakneck-paced business world, there isn’t always time to ask questions to peers about using your new system properly, let alone flag down your supervisor for a best practices tutorial. So, people are forced to adapt. And, they do so – but, not always in the best way, as you find out when you run a report in your system and all the numbers are off. You might ignore this the first time this happens, but as soon as you see it again, you know something’s amiss; you realize you can’t accurately gauge the health of your company because your staff aren’t using the new system correctly.
So, what’s a business owner to do to make sure the team stays the course and doesn’t break off into a bunch of factions using the new system improperly?
Well…there is something you can do – and, in retrospect it seems like such an obvious feature, I’m really glad Zoho Corp chose to implement it in the new Zoho CRM UI.
Introducing Zoho CRM Tooltips
Zoho has introduced a tooltips feature in the CRM for custom fields. The idea here is that standard fields are all going to be pretty self-explanatory, but nonstandard or custom fields might be a little harder for your staff to grasp the meaning of, especially if you just added them yesterday and didn’t tell anyone.
Zoho CRM tooltips places a handy question mark bubble next to custom fields of your choice (the tooltips can be enabled or disabled in CRM custom fields) and allows an explanation of the custom field in question to be set.
This does a few different things for you:
Reminds your team of the proper way to use your custom fields
Ensures more accurate data entry for better employee record-keeping
Allows for more accurate, more complete reports for executives
Of course, providing help to your team in the form of a little question-marked bubble is great, but the real end result – better insight into the health of your business – is unbeatable. Zoho CRM tooltips is just one more reason to use the new version of CRM if you haven’t begun to already.
Psst! Need a Zoho CRM tutorial for tooltips and other Zoho best practices?
Zoho realizes what an issue proper system adoption can be, and to that end they’ve released a couple of gamification features: essentially, they turn using the system into a game, with points, badges, a leaderboard, and – as your game director sees fit – the possibility to win prizes. Gamification in the form of Gamescope is a component of the new Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects; Zoho also uses the leaderboard concept and applies it to sales in general in the Zoho Motivator app.
From an employee perspective, 
When it comes to usage within CRM software, like Zoho, the lead scoring model can be used by everyone across a range of job functions, from Marketing Managers to the VP of Sales. Typically, Marketing and Sales functions are closely tied with lead scoring, as they are the front-line in connecting with B2B or B2C clients and customers
Hm, looks like I missed my mark today.[/caption]
