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Zoho Sales Gamification

Zoho Sales Gamification is here!

sales gamification

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.

sales gamification

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

sales gamification

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!

sales gamification

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

sales gamification

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?

sales gamification

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.

Happy selling!

Zoho Motivator

zoho motivator

Drive Your Sales Team’s Success with Zoho Motivator

Note: As of February 2020, Zoho has deprecated Zoho Motivator.  Rather than keep the special KPIs and charts separate from the CRM, Zoho Corporation has moved these items into the CRM.  In addition to making these features more accessible, this move has improved the general user experience of Zoho CRM.  Please read on for our write-up on Zoho Motivator, but bear in mind these features are either available or in development for Zoho CRM.

Zoho‘s Motivator app for Zoho CRM is designed to make your sales team work even harder for you – and, as the name suggests, really want to do it.  Just how does that work?  Well, it’s simple…

What Zoho Motivator Does

zoho motivator

Zoho Motivator turns an ordinary day doing sales behind a desk into a game.  And, the thing about playing games is they’re much more fun than doing work.  What about playing games that contribute to getting work done?  It may sound too good to be true – but, it isn’t!

Zoho Motivator compiles statistics about your team’s performance and pits individual team members against each other in friendly competition.  You can leave your team members to try besting one another.  Or, you could up the ante by providing a prize to the sales winner, complete with a countdown to victory.

As for access, you can give your sales team access to Zoho Motivator, sure.  But, for a true big game environment, you can project Zoho Motivator onto your central office TV monitor(s).  Your sales team – and, soon, your expectations – will completely transform.

How Zoho Motivator Works to Boost Sales

It can be a little tough to grasp how such a simple concept as gamification can have such a drastic effect on your sales team.  Here are some ways the motivational app can contribute to your team’s success:

  • Having fun makes it easier to make sales.  When you’re not having a good time at work, it affects how you deal with your clients and prospects, whether you’re in a meeting or simply talking on the phone.  Conversely, doing better at work is as simple as having a good time; the people you communicate with will be able to tell you’re in a good mood. And, as you know, that often translates into warmer receptions and more sales.
  • Access to stats means you can pinpoint and replicate successes.  Without knowing when your team’s best calls or meetings are, and who your respective team members’ best clients are for their unique personalities and other particulars, it’s difficult to achieve any degree of success consistently.  With that in mind, Zoho Motivator comes equipped with a variety of sales dashboards that show success rates by geographical region, by time, and by other factors that you can customize to best take advantage of your pool of talent.

zoho motivator

  • Competition encourages growth – and, so collaborates.  Letting your team members see each other’s successes through Zoho Motivator is a wonderful way to encourage competition.  But, it also fosters a collaborative spirit if your sales goals are team-oriented.  Having access to statistics means your team leaders know which of their team members are doing the best and which members need the most help.
  • Seeing statistics improves overall morale and makes your team work even harder.  Adding onto the previous note, giving your team access to their statistics as well as those of their peers can give them a sense of pride.  And, it can encourage them to work even harder to match their peers.

How does Zoho Motivator make you more money?

Increased sales aside, what exactly does the Zoho sales gamification app do to put more money in your pocket?

Every business has questions like, Why did this deal close faster than that deal?, or, How can we shorten our sales cycle even further for maximum output?  Motivator gives you the tools to answer those very questions.

zoho motivator

Sales Dashboards show all your KPIs on one screen

You can choose between a selection of KPIs like several calls, deals closed, meetings, and other indicators you choose on your own.  Having these numbers at your fingertips allows you to more accurately assess your team’s performance.  And, in turn, it lets you create strategies to improve sales numbers even more.

Furthermore, if you get bogged down by seeing too many numbers at once, you can customize your KPI dashboard to show only the numbers you want to see.  You can also hide the ones you don’t want on a different dashboard for later use.

zoho motivator

Your dashboards can not only display figures but analyze them for you

As is often harped on this website, saving time gives you more money in the long run.  And, when it comes to analyzing and reporting sales numbers, this certainly holds.  The Motivator app’s dashboards cut down the time you might spend crunching numbers and analyzing data by giving you real, meaningful stats.  For example:

  • Trend charts gather historical sales data, making it easy to pinpoint monthly anomalies.  In turn, you can set sales benchmarks using this data.
  • Individual breakdown charts.  Giving employees due feedback is a great way to let them know you value their work and that you’ve noticed their contributions.  And, of course, it gives them the tools they need to improve their work.
  • Pipeline velocity charts show how quickly deals move through your pipeline en route to closing by breaking down your sales cycle by stage and showing trends for each of those stages.  These sorts of calculations are specific to Zoho Motivator and can’t be done by scouring Zoho CRM or QuickBooks.  As with many Zoho features, this one can be customized to your liking as well.

zoho motivator

Encourage the sales behavior you want

Turn your own organization-level goals into sales goals by breaking them down into personalized chunks.  Zoho Motivator can help by creating a daily target phone call goal for your team, as well as many other customized, trackable goals.  You can assign these goals to individual salespeople, teams, or your entire organization.

On the back end, you can track the progress of your salespeople as necessary.  Zoho Motivator gives up-to-the-minute reports without disrupting anything.  This, in turn, gives you a clear picture of anything happening on the sales floor at any given time.

Zoho Motivator is perfect for sales contests!

Almost nothing beats the thrill of a high-stakes sales contest…  So, why not foster that kind of environment at your office and see how it puts a spring in everyone’s step?  You can use Zoho Motivator to create contests derived from your sales goals in just a few clicks.

Use contests as a way to build teams

When there’s something real to be gained, especially an actual prize, your salespeople will band together if you put them on teams.  You can use this as a way to strengthen your team members by placing them on teams with sales veterans.  When their success depends on the success of others, you can be sure they’ll jump in to help your less experienced team members.

Tie rewards to goals – and, let the whole team (or office) know it when they win

Use Motivator to let your teams know what they can win depending on their degrees of success.  The app will send an email to the winning team (or person) once they’ve achieved their goal.  If you project the Motivator app onto your office TV monitor, you can let the entire office know at once.

Zoho MoTVator

Create custom channels consisting of dashboards filled with KPIs, individual team member statistics, and a leaderboard so teams can track their distance to their rewards.  Adding variety to your screens makes your Zoho Motivator channel look more like a company-wide TV program!

You can also use your TV screen to broadcast big announcements, like an additional prize for reaching a particular goal more quickly.  Or, you could congratulate a team member for reaching a goal more quickly than anticipated.

zoho motivator

Are you feeling (Zoho) Motivated?

Zoho Motivator is deceptively simple!  It simply takes numbers from your sales records and broadcasts them, compiling statistics that aren’t accessible simply from Zoho CRM.  But, the power it can bring to a sales team is practically boundless.  This is especially the case when your team just needs a little kick in the pants to be great.

We’d love to talk to you more about Zoho Motivator

Call us at (888) 207-4111 or use this form to contact us and we’ll answer any questions you have about the app, as well as any other Zoho CRM consulting or CRM training questions.  Happy selling!

Zoho Inventory Management

zoho inventory management

Zoho Inventory Management

Want to use Zoho to track inventory, monitor usage, place orders, and ship items from one window? With Zoho inventory management, now you can.

Zoho has recently released the Zoho Inventory app, which means you can conduct all your Zoho inventory management from inside Zoho – and, import all your data to your Zoho CRM and Zoho Books, so you don’t have any more of the double entry you might be used to.

How the Zoho Inventory Management App Works

zoho inventory management

Using Zoho Inventory is as simple as using any other Zoho app; once you integrate it with Zoho CRM, you’re ready to roll!  Zoho Inventory comes with these great features:

3rd-party store integrations for increased sales

One of Zoho Inventory’s key features is the ability to integrate to platforms like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and Shopify. Integrations allow direct tracking and data importing, eliminating the need for manual data entry and saving time.

Now you have every reason to expand to online storefronts if integration was your only hurdle.

One window to rule them all

If you’re used to keeping track of all your inventory, vendors, and related analytics in separate windows or programs, you know it’s a hassle. It doesn’t have to be like that for you, though.  With the Zoho inventory management app, you’ll be able to keep track of everything inventory-related: your key metrics, vendors, shipping statuses, and the orders themselves (both online and offline).

Track products’ journeys from start to finish

zoho inventory management

End-to-end tracking means you’ll know the status of any item you ship from the moment it leaves the stockroom shelf to the minute it arrives at your customer’s door.  Not only will you never lose track of anything again, but, the system can also remind you when your stock of particular items is running low, so you can order more of them.

Plug in your shipping engines

Zoho inventory management is more than just aggregating all your analytics and item statistics; you can even use it to inegrate to shipping modules powered by UPS, DHL, and FedEx, among others.  This ensures you have access to real-time shipping prices and facilitates the tracking of orders.

Integrate with Zoho CRM and Zoho Books (and other programs)

Again, any time you spend manually transferring data from one program to another – or even one Zoho app to another – is time that could be better spent doing anything else!  The Zoho inventory management app takes the extra work off your schedule by mapping and syncing customer data directly to Zoho CRM, and transferring financial data to Zoho Books.  The sync is bi-drectional, which means the system can also pull data from your CRM and your Books app into Zoho Inventory.

To boot, ZBrains customers have access to a host of integrations and custom Zoho ERP apps that can’t be found anywhere else.  These include the Zoho CRM QuickBooks integration, Zoho Executive Dashboards, Zoho Commission Calculator, CPQ Tool, and many others.

Zoho Inventory Management Pricing

You can view Zoho’s prices for Zoho Inventory below.  If you aren’t quite sure if you want to dive into Zoho Inventory, that’s okay, too; there’s a free trial version available.

zoho inventory management

Closing Thoughts…

Zoho Inventory looks like a great addition to the Zoho family.  Its purpose is simple and intuitive, but, it brings together a really good deal of helpful tools and statistics that would make the life of any storeroom manager (and his staff) quite a bit easier, and for a price that’s more than reasonable.

Still not sure what to do?

We can give you a tour of Zoho Inventory, answer any Zoho CRM consulting question, give you a CRM training session, or show you our Zoho support plans at your convenience; just call us at (888) 207-4111.

Zoho Inventory

zoho inventory

Zoho Inventory

Zoho Inventory is an addition to the Zoho CRM apps suite that allows a business to track inventory easily and migrate that data to its Zoho CRM.  With 3rd party store plugins and sales dashboards to boot, what more could you want?

zoho inventory screenshot

Introducing Zoho Inventory Management

Zoho Inventory Management is part of the Zoho suite of business tools, renowned for their user-friendly interfaces and robust functionality. This cloud-based inventory management software caters to businesses of all sizes, from startups to established enterprises.

The Importance of Inventory Management

Before delving into the details, it’s crucial to understand why effective inventory management matters for businesses of all sizes.

To start with, it helps in cost control. Mismanaged inventory can result in unnecessary expenses such as storage fees, write-offs, and obsolescence. By using the right inventory management system, you can optimize your stock levels, reducing carrying costs and increasing your overall profitability.

Furthermore, maintaining accurate stock levels ensures that you can fulfill customer orders promptly. There’s nothing more disappointing to customers than encountering out-of-stock products or facing delays in deliveries. With Zoho Inventory Management, you can maintain optimal stock levels, keeping your customers satisfied.

Moreover, inventory management software provides valuable data insights that facilitate data-driven decision-making. This allows you to track sales trends, identify slow-moving items, and adjust your purchasing and sales strategies accordingly.

The Real Power of Zoho Inventory

Zoho Finance’s inventory management add-on doesn’t just make tracking your sales and products easier; it does improve your business.  With the Zoho inventory management tracking add-on, you can:

  • Increase your sales while lowering overhead.  Zoho’s inventory management module integrates third-party sites like Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, and eBay. As a result, you can increase your brand’s visibility and capture data from all those sales.  Not having to enter extra data into your CRM means you can spend time doing things that can improve your business, like selling more of your products and services.
  • Manage all orders from one location.  With business the way it is today, speed is everything. You or your team can create, modify, and track the status of sales orders directly from inside the app and associate those orders with your products or services.  The app can manage both online and offline orders this way.

zoho inventory tracking

  • Manage inventory with end-to-end tracking.  With Zoho Inventory tracking, you’ll know where all your products are at all times – and, you’ll never lose track of anything again, giving you ultimate peace of mind.  The app also gives handy reminders to purchase inventory and shows exactly which products are running low, so there’s never any guesswork involved with your stock orders.
  • Migrate data to Zoho CRM and Zoho Books.  Inventory integrates seamlessly with both Zoho CRM and Zoho Books, which means you can map all the data associated with your products to their proper places in your customer database and your finance books.
  • Pick between multiple integrated shipping options.  Zoho’s inventory plugin works with a variety of product shipping engines like FedEx, UPS, and DHL, among others.  Therefore, when you have integrated shipping modules, you have access to the latest shipping costs. Additionally, you can track the status of in-transit inventory orders instantly.

Why not just use the inventory component of Zoho Books?

For Zoho newcomers, this question comes up a lot–and for good reason.  Why have a separate inventory app at all if Zoho Books already handles it?  The simple answer is Zoho Books’s inventory module doesn’t quite have the capabilities of Zoho Inventory. The Books’s inventory module would work just fine if you run an e-commerce business selling uncomplicated items that do not need to be modified in any way.  However, if you require bundling, PO- or SO-splitting, light warehouse management, or anything similar, Zoho Inventory is a better bet.

In some cases, you may require custom add-ons to Zoho Finance to fit your ERP needs.  If so, we recommend FieldTech. It’s built by ZBrains on Zoho Creator to accommodate these more advanced needs.

Key Features of Zoho Inventory Management

Multi-Channel Sales: Enables you to manage sales across multiple channels, including e-commerce platforms, brick-and-mortar stores, and online marketplaces. This centralized approach guarantees real-time visibility into all your sales channels.

  • Inventory Tracking: Keep tabs on your inventory levels effortlessly with Zoho Inventory Management. You can set up low-stock alerts, track serial numbers, and even manage batch tracking for items with expiry dates.
  • Order Management: Streamline your order processing with Zoho’s order management features. You can create, edit, and manage orders from a single dashboard, simplifying the fulfillment of customer requests.
  • Supplier Management: Maintain control over your supplier relationships with Zoho Inventory Management. You can manage purchase orders, track supplier performance, and negotiate better terms for your business.
  • Integration Capabilities: Zoho Inventory Management seamlessly integrates with other Zoho applications and popular third-party tools. This ensures that you can connect your inventory management system with your accounting, CRM, and shipping solutions, creating a cohesive and efficient business ecosystem.
  • Inventory Reports: Generate detailed reports on your inventory performance, sales trends, and financials. These insights help you make informed decisions and optimize your inventory management strategies.

The Benefits of Zoho Inventory

Now that we’ve explored some of its features, let’s delve into the benefits that Zoho Inventory Management can bring to your business.

First and foremost, Zoho Inventory Management automates many time-consuming tasks, such as order processing and inventory tracking, thereby freeing up your team to focus on more strategic aspects of your business.

Moreover, automation ensures the accuracy of your inventory records, reducing the risk of costly mistakes that may arise from manual data entry errors.

Additionally, whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, Zoho Inventory Management can scale with your business. You can easily add or remove users, expand your product catalog, and integrate additional features as your needs evolve.

Furthermore, by optimizing your inventory levels and reducing carrying costs, Zoho Inventory Management can lead to significant cost savings over time. It also helps you avoid costly stockouts and overstock situations.

Lastly, when you can fulfill orders promptly and accurately, your customers are more likely to be satisfied and become repeat buyers.

Zoho Inventory Management offers a powerful solution for businesses seeking to streamline their operations, cut costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. With its user-friendly interface, robust features, and scalability, it proves to be a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes. Don’t let inventory management challenges hinder your business’s growth. Embrace the power of Zoho Inventory Management and take control of your inventory today. Your bottom line will thank you.

Why choose ZBrains as your Zoho partner?

zoho inventory support

In the world of Zoho, there are many different Zoho CRM consulting firms and Zoho partners you can potentially work with.

Why choose us for your CRM consulting and Zoho add-on needs?

1) Experience

Most importantly, we have many years of experience working with Zoho and all of its apps and add-ons, including the Zoho One suite.  That means that with ZBrains you’re always getting the most up-to-date information and Zoho training practices when you work with us.

2) Other Integrations

Next, we bring other Zoho integrations to the table, including:

    • QuickBooks (for more detailed accounting),
    • and our own custom Executive Dashboards (for measuring overall company health and other important metrics).
    • Also, our engineers build custom integrations to programs of your choice. Your Zoho experience is completely customized. And it takes your business to a place no one else can take it.

3) Advanced Solutions

Finally, if you need something a little more robust than Zoho Inventory does on its own, look no further.  We’ve developed custom Zoho ERP software especially to accommodate those more advanced needs.  For instance, it integrates with the Zoho Finance suite, but can also plug into the CRM or even stand on its own.

You can have all the speed you get from integrating Zoho Inventory with your CRM and the power of integration. This solution means it’s applied to other parts of your business as well!

The possibilities are limitless!


Want to see how to use the Zoho Inventory? Start today!

Now’s as good a time as any to jump in and connect Inventory to Books.  Throw CRM into the mix too, and watch as your efficiency grows by leaps and bounds.  To get started, just contact us and we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.

Insightly vs Zoho CRM

Insightly vs Zoho CRM

insightly vs zoho crm

insightly vs zoho crm

Will insight trump customization in this battle?

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

insightly vs zoho crm

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.

insightly vs zoho crm

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

insightly vs zoho crm

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.

insightly vs zoho crm

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

insightly vs zoho crm

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

insightly vs zoho crm

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

insightly vs zoho crm

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!

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The Alternative to Method CRM: Get Started with Zoho CRM Today

Alternative to Method CRM for QuickBooks

alternative to method crm

QuickBooks is a wonderful, easy-to-use accounting system that’s perfect for many small and medium-sized businesses.  As such, it makes sense for businesses to want to integrate their QuickBooks systems into other aspects of their businesses as much as possible in order to save time and reduce overhead for menial tasks like data entry.  There are a few integration options for QuickBooks – most notably Method CRM – but, Method CRM’s dearth of features makes many business owners look for an alternative to Method CRM for a QuickBooks Desktop integration.

The solution to this problem seems to be to implement Zoho CRM instead, as an alternative to Method CRM.

Well, why not go with Method CRM?

alternative to method crm

It’s a good question to ask.  Method Integrations is one of Intuit’s partners, which means the two companies share revenue on Method CRM licenses purchased.  Intuit also provides an integration to Method CRM that is seamless and completely free of charge.  Given that Method CRM’s price per user is only $5 more than Zoho CRM’s per month, it seems like Method CRM users are getting a great deal with the addition of that free integration.  (See the full breakdown in the Method CRM vs Zoho CRM Review.)

But, appearances can be deceiving. This is why you may need to look into an alternative to Method CRM.

What do you get with Method CRM over Zoho CRM?

alternative to method crm

Aside from the aforementioned QuickBooks syncing mechanism, Method CRM users can automatically track all interactions with customers, including calls, services performed, and appointments.  These are fairly standard sales tracking features; Zoho CRM provides all these as well.  Method CRM also uses “unlimited contacts per account” as a selling point – and, while Zoho limits its number of custom fields to 300, it’s doubtful that most companies would exhaust that number of custom fields in their entire CRM, let alone in contact names.

Method CRM integrates with Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, giving its users a variety of email clients to use in conjunction with their CRM service, and also boasts an integration to SmartVault.  Zoho CRM, in turn, also integrates with all these services except SmartVault – but, integrates with DropBox instead, a comparable secure data storage solution.

In short, with Zoho CRM as an alternative to Method CRM, you can get essentially the same services you’d get from Method CRM.

What does Zoho CRM provide that Method CRM doesn’t?

alternative to method crm

The chief difference between Zoho CRM and Method CRM is Method CRM is primarily a traditional customer outreach tool with a few extra bells and whistles, while Zoho CRM provides a great deal of extra functionality.  In essence, this extra functionality – in the form of marketing and social networking tools – is what makes Zoho CRM just as expensive as Method CRM despite its lack of an out-of-the-box integration with QuickBooks.

Why do you need Marketing and Social Networking tools?

Obviously, being able to reach out to your customers and keep track of all your past interactions and sales is absolutely key – in fact, it’s the chief reason you’re using a CRM instead of a spreadsheet.

But, that’s certainly not all there is to a CRM, and unfortunately this is where Method CRM seems to fall short, and the chief reason why you’ll want to consider an alternative to Method CRM when you plug in to QuickBooks.

Why use Social Networking?

Social networking tools connect your CRM directly to platforms; Zoho CRM can connect directly to Facebook and Twitter via built in tabs (and, through Zoho Social, a social post-blasting mechanism, you can connect to LinkedIn and Google+ as well) and monitor social mentions for you, ensuring you stay on top of what your customers (or prospective customers) are saying about you.  This takes you from simply engaging people inside your CRM to engaging them outside your CRM in the social networking world at large – a much bigger universe than your CRM entails by itself.

How about Marketing?

Marketing tools allow for emailing clients and prospects alike directly from your CRM (or from a Zoho add-on called Zoho Campaigns).  This sort of functionality allows you to keep in touch with current clients with special announcements and newsletters, and also allows you to engage prospective clients with fresh content in the form of mass emails or timed auto-responders.  These functions mean increased business for you in the form of:

  • Current customers who can potentially take advantage of special or seasonal promotions you offer, who would have had no way of knowing about those offers without a marketing engine
  • Prospective customers who read your newly generated content and are compelled to do business with you whereas before, when they viewed your site for the first time, they were only curious about you and your services.

Both marketing and social media engines are powerful tools offered by Zoho CRM that simply do not exist inside Method CRM.

But, can you customize Zoho CRM like Method CRM?

alternative to method crm

One great feature about Method CRM is its easy drag-and-drop customization feature for default and custom fields alike.  Bear in mind, however, that you have the same ability to customize your modules with the fields of your choice with Zoho CRM when you consider an alternative to Method CRM – right down to the drag-and-drop.

Are you ready for your business to grow?

Truth be told, social media tools and marketing strategies might not be everyone’s cup of tea.  If you don’t plan to grow your business (e.g., you’re planning to close your business, or your business model is such that growing your client base simply isn’t possible for other reasons) and still want a QuickBooks integration, you may want to look elsewhere.

However, if you do want to engage your customers and prospects in a meaningful way and take advantage of a Zoho CRM QuickBooks integration as an alternative to Method CRM, Zoho CRM is the right choice for you.

The rest of the Zoho family are no slouches, either

In addition to Zoho CRM, using Zoho gives you access to even more software, potentially.  Depending on your use case and the size of your company, it can be even less expensive to get an entire suite of Zoho apps (like Zoho One) than it is to get just the CRM by itself.  The Zoho One suite includes the CRM, of course, but it also sports the aforementioned Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Motivator (a sales motivator tool for competitive sales teams), Zoho Desk (for managing support cases)…and even Zoho Books, an alternative to QuickBooks.  If you ever get to that stage, that is.

Get Started with Zoho CRM as an alternative to Method CRM

Schedule a call with ZBrains by contacting us!  Use the button near the upper right part of this page, or just give us a call at (888) 207-4111.

Zoho Campaigns

Effortlessly Connect with Your Audience using Zoho Campaigns

Leave the Zoho email campaign tutorial to us!zoho campaigns

Our team of Zoho Certified Consultants now offers fully integrated Zoho Campaigns management and development, including expert execution and affordable pricing options for a successful email marketing strategy.

zoho campaigns image 1

Social campaigns are often the first point of contact with potential customers. What is your strategy for educating them on your product and getting them in the funnel? Allowing ZBrains to show you how to manage Zoho Campaigns is the answer to these questions. Having developed, implemented, and managed thousands of social campaigns, our Zoho experts can take your social media channel development to the next level.

While not exhaustive, here is a brief Zoho Campaigns tutorial.  This will go over the purpose of the app; the differences between Campaigns and other, similar Zoho apps; as well as Zoho Campaigns pricing.

What are Zoho Campaigns good for?

You can use Zoho Campaigns for a variety of email marketing efforts, including:

  • Mass emailing – particular lists of clients using lists straight from your Zoho CRM – perfect for company newsletters, promotions, or other important bulk mail memos.  Zoho Campaign templates are particularly useful for this.  Just select any of the library of prefabricated email templates, or create your own in just a few minutes.
  • Creating autoresponders (Zoho drip campaigns) – perfect for a marketing campaign designed to increase engagement steadily and move prospects down your funnel.
  • A/B testing – for when you aren’t sure how a particular marketing effort will perform when put against another.  With Zoho Campaigns A/B testing, you can do just that and see who the true victor is.  Then, you can tailor your next marketing strategies around the result of the more successful campaign.
  • Tracking open and click-through rates, which lets you know exactly how effective your campaigns are – no guesswork!
  • Workflow automation – want to get some Zoho Campaigns automation, so you don’t have to transfer info between Campaigns and CRM?  This is a standard feature, included specifically so certain email actions will update contact records directly inside Zoho CRM.
  • Social campaigns for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+, letting you automatically post to different social networks – even personal pages – automatically with just a click.  As with email campaigns, the system provides detailed analytics to let you know how your marketing strategy is working at all times.

zoho campaigns email marketing

We understand the pain points of a growing business–the need for more resources, and time, and always feeling understaffed. To boot, Zoho Campaigns can be confusing, tedious, and time-consuming – but, they can be automated AND effective if set up strategically. ZBrains can help create and manage social and email marketing campaigns to educate your customers about new products, company updates, and promotions. Create a big presence with smart email campaign automation to better your current relationships and create more business opportunities. Leave the Zoho email campaign tutorial to us! That way, you can focus on running your business without compromising your marketing efforts.

Should you use Zoho Campaigns or Zoho Social?

There is some overlap between Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Social in the social media campaigns aspect.  If you’re looking for pure social media marketing, Zoho Social is a fine app.  However, if you’re at all interested in email marketing, it is very possible to run social media campaigns directly through Campaigns.  Let us know if you have any questions about the feature overlaps between these two apps.

What about Marketing Automation?

zoho campaigns training

The Zoho marketing stack is designed to encompass every marketing tool they’ve built. Zoho Marketing Automation combines those tools with elements of Zoho Analytics, added a very attractive, and updated the UI. This is Zoho’s answer to HubSpot, Adobe, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

While there is still some overlap with Campaigns, Marketing Automation focuses on the entire marketing funnel. First, begin with when people arrive on your website.  It also contains email, customer journey automation, and social media marketing elements.

Zoho Campaigns Pricing

Are you ready to take your email marketing strategy to the next level with Zoho Campaigns? Before diving into the world of this robust email marketing platform, let’s explore the intricacies of Zoho Campaigns pricing. We believe in transparency, so you can make an informed decision about which pricing model suits your business needs best.

Zoho Campaign pricing differs from that of most other Zoho apps in that it’s based on the number of contacts in your system, or emails you send – and not the number of users of the app.  Note too Zoho calls these contacts subscribers, as in subscribers to your mailing list, to be perfectly above the board.

As in most Zoho apps, Zoho offers a free plan for Campaigns, which accommodates sending up to 12,000 emails per month, and up to 2000 subscribers.  Its features, however, are limited, leaving out a variety of tracking abilities, sending attachments, polls, as well as any email workflow automation.  It is also the only version of Campaigns with a user number restriction (only 5).

Zoho Campaigns pricing* methods are as follows:

  1. Email-based pricing
    • 500 emails (250 Contacts) per month: $3.00/mo
    • 1000 emails (500 Contacts) per month: $5.00/mo
    • …and so on.  You can find a price calculator here.
  2. Subscriber-based pricing.
    • 500 subscribers: $4.50/mo
    • 1000 subscribers: $9.00/mo
    • 5000: $39/mo
    • 10,000: $60.75/mo
    • 50,000: $172.50/mo
    • …and so on.
  3. Email Credit-based pricing
    • 250 credits: $7/mo
    • 500 credits: $14/mo
    • 1000 credits: $25/mo
    • 10,000 credits: $173/mo
    • 50,000 credits: $450/mo
    • …and so on.

*Pricing updated June 2021

A note about email credit-based Zoho Campaigns pricing:

Buying email credits in advance rather than simply paying as you go with the email-based pricing is a more expensive option, as the credits you buy this way can roll over into the next month.  Using email credit-based pricing is good for situations when:

  • you aren’t sure how many emails you’ll be sending in a month
  • you want to stock up on credits for times when you know you’ll have a very heavy marketing month, followed by a period of very light marketing

On the other hand, email-based pricing is good when:

  • your monthly email count is fairly consistent
  • you don’t have heavy or light marketing months; it’s all pretty steady so there’s no need to change plans

Why Choose Zoho Campaigns for Your Email Marketing?

Now that you’re well-versed in the pricing options, let’s revisit why Zoho Campaigns is the go-to choice for your email marketing efforts:

  1. Zoho Campaigns is an all-in-one solution that simplifies the entire process of creating, sending, and tracking email campaigns, streamlining your workflow for maximum efficiency.
  2. With its intuitive email editor, crafting stunning email campaigns becomes effortless. Regardless of your design experience, you can create visually appealing emails that resonate with your audience.
  3. Zoho Campaigns offers advanced personalization and segmentation tools, enabling you to tailor your emails to individual preferences and needs. This boosts engagement and customer satisfaction.
  4. You can save time with automation and autoresponders, which cover everything from welcome emails to drip campaigns and cart abandonment reminders.
  5. Comprehensive email tracking and analytics tools allow you to measure the success of your campaigns by providing insights into open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and subscriber behavior.

What do you get through ZBrains?

We understand you have a large variety of options when it comes to picking out a Zoho consultant to help you with Campaigns, CRM, Zoho Desk, or any other apps in the Zoho One platform – and, with that in mind, we’ve gone to great lengths to put ourselves a cut above the rest.

As a Zoho Premium Partner, we offer not only a Zoho Campaigns tutorial and deployment but the very same for Zoho CRM itself and Zoho Creator.  That way, your company has the option of creating its programs and apps through Zoho.  We also offer custom integrations to programs like QuickBooksSage Intacct, Google Apps, and many others.

In short, with ZBrains, you get not only premium CRM consulting but customized plugins that aren’t available anywhere else, which gives you an advantage you simply can’t get anywhere else.

Get started with Zoho Campaigns today

Especially today, keeping your business customer-centric is key.  And, there’s no better way to do that than through good marketing efforts, beginning with email and social.  See how an infusion of good marketing can help your business thrive!

Use this link to schedule a Zoho Campaigns tutorial.  Alternatively, let us know what your whole business looks like and we’ll tell you the best way to make Zoho Campaigns work for you.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Sales Coaching Training with ZBrains in Zoho

sales coaching

Is this a typical sales meeting for you?

Change that with dedicated sales coaching.

Some of us are naturally charismatic – great with people, charming, maybe a little irreverent –  natural leaders, able to get others to hop onto their bandwagon.  Selling is no problem for them.  But they’re not the ones who benefit from sales coaching.

Some folks wish they could sell, but really don’t know how. Others attract decent business, but strive to rocket their skills into the stratosphere. They want to make the transition from middle-of-the-road competitor to top-of-class.

It isn’t impossible.  Zoho tools, alined with your sales coaching is the way to go.

Power Sales with Zoho


Why Does Zoho from ZBrains Compliment  Your Sales Coaching?

sales coaching

The essential parts of being a good seller – communicating confidence and value, speaking concisely, being personable and conveying your personality – won’t just help you sell; they also carry over into your non-business life, making it easier to build trust with other people and making it more natural for others to follow you. Natural sales people can:

  • Develop and convey confidence in person or over the telephone
  • Lead people in your organization in a way they can appreciate and even like
  • Manage stress effectively

Put the focus on developing your team, and let ZBrains help with the tools you need to cultivate successful sales professionals. Focus on the big picture – your goals – instead of scattering yourself unreasonably in many different areas.

Sales Coaching on Zoho Tools

While you may want to focus on theory, as above, you may also want to focus on specific practices you can apply to your business to increase sales efficiency.  For this, we offer techniques for:

  • Engage customers in a chat room for remote meeting and selling using Zoho SalesIQ
  • Send timely emails from CRM to engage your customers when they need it most
  • Cold-call prospects or garner additional business from current clients with Zoho phone integration
  • Make the best impression for in-person meetings with accurate proposals and solid customer data

Align Your Sales & Zoho With ZBrains


Understand Your Clients Better

Complement your sales team’s skills with an understanding of what goes through the mind of your clients. With Zoho apps, your team will be prepared to address customer fears about doing business, even subconscious ones. You’ll have more time to focus on customers, and spend less making your systems work.  This will earn you respect that few ever do, and put you in a prime position to earn more business!

Lessons You Can Apply to Zoho CRM

We can show you ways to apply what you may already be doing – or are working to improve –  to operating your Zoho CRM and its suite of apps.  Zoho comes with an array of tools that can help with sales, not the least of which is the pipeline itself.  Couple that with SalesIQ, Zoho’s customer engagement portal, and you’ll have ways to engage your customers in new, refreshing ways. The bonus? It’s a wonderful way to motivate your entire sales team while bolstered with your newfound knowledge.  Training packages are available here.

Get Started With Sales Coaching for Zoho Today

Your potential customers are waiting for someone with your business and message to engage them – they just haven’t heard it yet.  Use this link to contact us about specialized sales training, or, just give us a call at (888) 207-4111 to schedule a sales coaching session.

Start with a Business Process Analysis

Method CRM vs Zoho CRM Review

method crm vs zoho crm reviewmethod crm vs zoho crm review

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)

method crm vs zoho crm review

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

method crm vs zoho crm review

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?

method crm vs zoho crm review

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…

method crm vs zoho crm review

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?

method crm vs zoho crm review

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

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

Bonus Round: What else do you get with Zoho?

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

SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

Just how sweet is Sugar?

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

SugarCRM vs Zoho Round One: The Costs*

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

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

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

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?

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

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?

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

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?

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

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?

sugarcrm vs zoho crm review

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.

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