To let you know about our upcoming DIY integration for Zoho and QuickBooks.
The Zoho QuickBooks integration video
We made this in hopes that it would help the good number of you who’ve been calling and emailing in with questions about how the Zoho QuickBooks integration functions. It was high time we put out something like this, and, we really appreciate how patient you’ve all been.
The video should help to answer some of the really basic questions about how the plugin works. Once you’ve watched that and you have some additional technical questions, we’ll (still) be glad to talk to you about those.
Anyway, you can check out the Zoho QuickBooks integration video below!
If you have any additional questions after watching the video, don’t hesitate to call is at (888) 207-4111. Or, submit your information right here and we’ll reach out to you ourselves. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, too, for fresh video content.
The Zoho QuickBooks DIY integration is coming!
We’re very excited about this, as we’ve been working on getting a do-it-yourself version of our QuickBooks integration to you for a good, long while – and, I know many of you, business owners and resellers alike, have been waiting for this very patiently. And, we’re very thankful for that.
The DIY integration is slated for launch on January 1st, so, keep your eyes peeled.
To accompany the integration, we’ll have a full page of information so you’ll see exactly what the product consists of, as well as a video detailing how it all works and how you can install it on your system.
If you’re new: What does it do?
Of course, not everyone who reads this blog has been poring over it for months. For those of you who don’t know, a QuickBooks integration with Zoho is designed to sync information across the two platforms. The amount of information that gets synced depends on which package you’re looking at; it happens that a lot of people were waiting for this free integration to arrive, either because they simply didn’t require the synching power of our premium integrations, or because the premium integrations were outside their price point.
Of course, Zoho CRM isn’t the only one that can sync with QuickBooks…but, we think it’s the best one for a number of reasons. (Method CRM, for example, is supported by Intuit directly and integrates with QuickBooks, but is not nearly as customizable as Zoho.)
A few fast facts for the freemium integration:
Here’s a little primer to get you started:
The DIY freemium integration utilizes the QuickBooks Web Connector to sync data between Zoho and QuickBooks, just like our premium integration.
It will allow you to sync Accounts/Customers and Products between Zoho and QuickBooks in a bi-directional sync.
It will come with its own tutorial video detailing how it all works and showing you how to install it.
It’s completely free – no strings attached.
Keep it locked here for future notifications!
We may have more news on this before the final release date of January 1st, so, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to get the latest updates and other fresh content. (Use the buttons at the top of this entry.)
As always, please call (888) 207-4111 if you have any questions about the freemium integration, the Zoho QuickBooks integration video, or if you need additional Zoho consulting, support, or Zoho training options.
Published on: November 5, 2015Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: April 17, 2023 Comments: 0
Zoho Sales Gamification is here!
Welcome Zoho Motivator!
Note: As of February 2020, Zoho Corporation has discontinued Zoho Motivator. Rather than continue developing the app, Zoho has moved many of its features (and then some) to Zoho CRM. This gives users a more unified experience, and allows for easy sales gamification access without needing two different Zoho apps. Read on for our full-write up of Zoho Motivator, but look for many of these features inside Zoho CRM.
Zoho Motivator might be my favorite new Zoho app as of late. Most Zoho products fulfill a business need or make a process easier, but, only Zoho Motivator can take something like sales and turn it into a game through bona fide Zoho sales gamification. But, what’s so hot about sales gamification?
Well, picture this.
You go into an office day-in and day-out. You strive to reach your sales goals every day or every week. …And, sometimes you have a head honcho breathing down your neck the whole time. You get a paycheck every month, but…it’s just not fun anymore. The energy in your office is lacking, and, it’s getting lower by the second.
Obviously, this doesn’t sound very fulfilling or healthy. What can you do? Or, better yet, what can your boss do to turn this situation around?
It’s actually pretty easy.
By using sales gamification via Zoho Motivator, you give your sales team a new lease on life, and get them doing things you always wanted but never imagined possible. All it takes is a little positive reinforcement and a little competitive nature, both of which Zoho Motivator gives you the power to provide.
Sales Gamification Means Something for Everyone
Zoho Motivator turns an ordinary selling stint into a contest. This comes complete with statistics for your team members, detailed analytics for a sales director, and the ability to really up the ante with prizes linked to sales milestones. Furthermore, you can broadcast it all on your office TV monitor (or multiple monitors) for some real in-office fun.
Detailed stats mean quicker sales
Your sales team members will feel like stars when they can access all their statistics from the Zoho Motivator app. Team members can use these stats to compare themselves to their peers and use historical data plotted on graphs to measure their progress over time. They can even see comprehensive pipeline views that show how long their prospects spend in each sales stage, giving them an idea of where they can improve their own processes. It’s also important to note that many of the stats provided by Zoho Motivator, like pipeline velocity and close ratio, can’t be found in Zoho CRM or QuickBooks alone.
Sales gamification means teamwork!
Having the very idea of sales turn into a game with Zoho Motivator makes it intuitive for a sales team to band together in order to achieve the highest success rate. Team leaders can use dashboards to look into their own processes and offer key advice to team members in need. Or, they can just use them to offer congratulations when one of their own closes a big deal.
When teams compete, you win
Having your sales team members band together is great when you have a strong team leader. But, having two sales teams face off against each other in a little friendly competition? Even better, and even more fun for everyone. You can sweeten the pot by adding publicly viewable prizes to each sales level a given team reaches. Or, simply leave a pot of gold at the end of the month for the team with the highest revenue to take! The possibilities are many.
Your own sales channel can really MoTVate your office
Zoho Motivator’s healthy flow of statistics and analytics into the lives of your sales team members will do a lot to help them have fun and work towards sales goals . But, broadcasting live sales stats on a screen in your office makes things even more fun! With the spotlight thrust upon them, your sales team members will have reason to work even harder.
Are you feeling motivated today?
At ZBrains, we know that sales gamification can invigorate a stagnant sales environment, and Zoho Motivator is the perfect tool for the job. If you need help with Zoho consulting, support, or training, give us a call at (888) 207-4111.
The cloud-based Insightly has a variety of easy-to-use sales features designed to make office life a bit easier than you might be used to when it comes to fussing with a CRM system. And, when comparing it to Zoho, it seems a battle of Insightly vs Zoho CRM might be the closest thing we’ve seen to a draw yet. Both of these cloud-based CRM systems seemingly have it all: great sales tools, marketing automation abilities, social integrations, and, of course, the ability to sync with other programs.
So, how do we determine a victor?
We’ll take a deeper dive into the specifics of Insightly vs Zoho CRM so we know exactly what’s going on. Come on down!
Round One: Sales Tracking
A CRM’s sales monitoring capability is its bread and butter, so, it’s very important for your customer relationship management system to come with a fully stacked system. In this regard, both Zoho CRM and Insightly are no exception.
Both Insightly and Zoho CRM have basic sales modules like Leads and Contacts, as well as built-in calendars for viewing appointments and other events, the ability to search your entire CRM for any bit of text, file sharing, and – of course – custom fields.
To augment its powerful CRM-wide text-searching tool, Insightly packs a great feature, contact tagging, which is exactly what it sounds like: It allows users to tag CRM contacts with text of their choosing, making finding contacts that fit in a certain group or have certain characteristics all the easier to find – and reach out to – in your system. Zoho CRM does not have a feature like this.
And, to answer Insightly’s specialized tagging feature, Zoho CRM gives its users the ability to create entire custom modules, allowing for customized functions (and fields) and, for that matter, a truly unique workflow experience. Insightly users can’t create custom modules.
Both Insightly and Zoho CRM contain another useful feature called feeds, which sets the normal CRM engine in a collaborative, social network-like environment. This allows users to follow certain tasks and contacts, and allows users to communicate easily with each other through commenting and tagging.
All other things being equal (and, they do seem to be that way), it’s difficult to compare the value of contact tagging to that of custom module creation, as different types of businesses will clearly require different functions from their CRMs. For that reason, this round is a tie.
Round Two: Marketing Automation
Second only after keeping track of sales, marketing automation is a huge part of what value a CRM system can bring to a business. As sales tracking allows the business to take in information, marketing automation allows that business to reach out to groups of its customers without much work on the part of a salesperson at all – hence the word automation.
Both Insightly and Zoho CRM provide for themselves similarly well in this arena. Both systems provide users mass emailing capability, the ability to create email templates, and web-to-lead capability in the form of customizable webforms. These are fairly standard features of a CRM system.
Zoho CRM and Insightly can each integrate to social networks as well, giving its users access to those networks (and the ability to see which networks its clients and prospects use) without having to navigate between multiple windows. In this regard, Insightly comes out on top, boasting integrations to many social networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter, while Zoho CRM only provides integration capability for Facebook and Twitter.
Zoho gets a leg up on Insightly, however, with its Zoho Campaigns add-on, which doesn’t have an equivalent in Insightly. Zoho Campaigns allows for mailing list synchronization straight from Zoho CRM, and houses email templates designed especially for marketing campaigns. The Zoho Campaigns engine also provides detailed analytics on individual campaign performance, allowing users to know exactly how effective their marketing efforts are.
Although Zoho Campaigns ends up adding to the overall price of Zoho CRM, the fact that users can organize automated marketing campaigns at all inside Zoho CRM gives this round to Zoho.
Round Three: Project Management
Project management capability inside a CRM is key for service companies involved in budgeted or fixed projects, whose members often collaborate with each other. The project management arm of a CRM can house data imported right from the CRM itself, and vice-versa; it provides a more detailed view of projects and the amount of work (and hence productivity) applied to each project.
For something that provides such value, it’s important that any competitive CRM have this sort of function. And, thankfully, both Zoho CRM and Insightly have project management capabilities.
Aside from standard task listing and team member assignment functions, both Zoho CRM and Insightly can keep track of project milestones (smaller tasks within tasks), can be programmed to send out email reminders when certain tasks are approaching their due dates or when someone adds to a conversational thread. Both Insightly and Zoho CRM allow users to view past completed projects – but, Zoho CRM only allows this functionality for an additional fee. (Zoho users can still access Zoho Projects in a more limited capacity for free.)
Obviously, price is important in the grand scheme of things. (We’ll cover price as a whole later in this article.) For that reason, Insightly wins the Project Management round.
Round Four: Mobile Power
In today’s business climate, the ability to take your business outside the office is just as important as working at your desk, if not more so. By using mobile apps that connect to their CRMs, business owners and salespeople can perform most any task they would in the office from the palms of their hands, making CRMs that have mobile capability much more accessible at trade shows and other out-of-office situations.
Both Zoho CRM and Insightly have mobile apps associated with them, making them perfect for those sorts of scenarios. Zoho CRM has a family of mobile apps, including Zoho CRM itself, a Leads app, and a dedicated Card Scanner app for business cards. (You can read more about all three of these by looking at this Zoho mobile CRM apps page.) Insightly has a fully functional mobile CRM app itself (found here) that has a built-in business card scanner – and, the whole thing can be viewed as a widget, adding convenience that Zoho’s mobile app doesn’t provide. For this reason, the mobile round is a tie.
Insightly vs Zoho CRM Bonus Round: The Cost
Product cost notwithstanding, Insightly vs Zoho CRM has been quite an even match; both CRMs provide a great assortment of features, both are very customizable, and both have robust sales and marketing tracking features.
Bearing that in mind, one would think the deciding factor in the match to be the cost of the products. Let’s take a look at some real numbers:
To include the features listed here, Zoho CRM costs $20 per user per month*. This also includes unlimited CRM records.
For the features listed here, Insightly costs exactly the same: $49 per user per month.
With these two products so evenly matched, it seems we have our first bona fide tie. While Zoho CRM emphasizes customization and plasticity to draw in customers, Insightly emphasizes ease of use and consolidation – and, in this case, both products succeed.
However, before jumping to conclusions, it’s important to note that Zoho offers an entire suite of business apps for less than the cost of Zoho CRM – only $37/user/month when paid annually*. This offering, called Zoho One, contains 40+ apps under the Zoho umbrella, and the number grows nearly every month. Apps include not only the aforementioned CRM, Campaigns, and Projects, but Zoho Books as well. This variety of apps to use, all with the ability to integrate to each other as needed, lends much more power to Zoho as a choice overall. (The only caveat to this choice is that all of your organization’s W-2 employees are required to use Zoho One, so it isn’t a good fit for everyone – but it does help in many cases.) *Pricing updated June 2021
Before you make a decision about which CRM, Insightly vs Zoho CRM, to implement with your business, note that this article doesn’t compare things like ease of use or quality of customer support, which are quite subjective. Do your due diligence before jumping into anything and you’ll be better off than you were before because of the knowledge you will have gained.
Whether you have questions or you’re ready to get started, feel free to connect with one of our Zoho Certified Consultants anytime!
Published on: October 12, 2015Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: July 20, 2023 Comments: 0
Get Ready to Take Your Business to the Next Level with Zoho’s New CRM Mobile App
Zoho has just announced a trio of exciting new products designed to let you take your whole business on the road! These mobile apps will not only prove invaluable to business owners looking to access important company information from their phones, of course – but, they’ll also allow salespeople to collect and manage prospect information easily at trade shows, and even scan business card data to relay to Zoho CRM.
Zoho CRM Mobile App – your entire business in your hands
The Zoho CRM mobile app allows for immediate access to your Zoho CRM, whether you’re on the road or just away from your home base. The app works on Android, iPhone, or iPad, and allows you to make business decisions and even collaborate with your team just as you normally would from your computer.
Standard tasks like emailing and calling directly from the app are, of course, available. As well, the app allows for data access even when not connected to the internet (for example, when your mobile device is in Airplane Mode) and synchronizes the data automatically as soon as your device is reconnected.
Cool feature: Visit your customers
The Zoho CRM mobile app comes with a great feature that can alert you when you’re close to your prospects’ businesses, so you can visit them (with built-in driving directions) if you’d like. This is a great tool if you have an hour to kill before or after a trade show in a client-dense area, or, simply for when you aren’t sure how to get to a client’s office.
Scanning badges at trade shows can be a major hassle; you need to have the right equipment and generally follow protocol like waiting until the end of a trade show to get more prospect information, or waiting around with a stack of business cards. The Zoho Leads mobile app makes the whole process much easier. It works as a trade show scanner app, letting you transfer information into your Zoho CRM immediately, and even allows for following up and managing your new client details directly from the app.
How does the Zoho business card scanner work?
All you have to do is scan your prospects’ badge QR codes, or just take a picture of their badges or business cards from your mobile device; the Zoho Leads mobile app imports all relevant data to the app (and to your Zoho CRM) automatically. You can then assign lead owners and even send followup emails to your prospects right from the app. Pretty nifty!
(If you’re unable to scan badges, business cards, or QR codes, you can also add lead details manually.)
Cool feature: See your success rate right away with Zoho Campaigns integration
It can sometimes take a little time to see just how successful your trade show efforts were. However, with Zoho Campaigns integration with your Zoho Leads mobile app, you can add your prospects to special mailing lists immediately and serve them fresh content to gauge their level of interest in your company.
Zoho Card Scanner Mobile App – like Leads, but streamlined
Want the card-scanning functionality of the Zoho Leads mobile app without the extra bells and whistles? The Zoho Card Scanner mobile app is right for you. The Zoho Card Scanner mobile app allows users to automatically import business card or QR code data directly to Zoho CRM just by scanning a badge or taking a picture of a card.
Neat features:
The Zoho Card Scanner mobile app reads business cards in seven different languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Russian, and Swedish.
Similar to the Zoho CRM mobile app, the Zoho Card Scanner mobile app locates your prospects’ addresses on a map so you can see how close you are to their businesses.
Published on: October 5, 2015Category: Zoho CRMLast Updated: November 13, 2023 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, Zohowins 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.
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.
