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Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One Review

Published on: September 7, 2019Category: Zoho CRM Plus, Zoho OneLast Updated: October 21, 2024 Comments: 0

Zoho is at once an amazing and frustrating product. You probably have some idea of this, or maybe you’re still in the dark – but, the truth is out there. In this article we compare Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One.

**Zoho is incredible in the scope of what it can do and at the price you pay for it.**

There are very few, if any other platforms that provide so many different software apps, and so much useful functionality, for such a low price, comparatively. But, at the same time, Zoho’s various products – whose functionality often overlap – and software bundles with the very same issue, are often not explained in enough detail for potential customers to make informed buying decisions.

There is so much information about Zoho products available. How can none of it accurately tell you the difference between, for example, Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One? It’s enough to drive you up the wall.

When comparing CRM Plus vs Zoho One on the surface, the offerings seem similar enough: Bundles of Zoho apps for members of your company to use. But, one bundle includes many Zoho apps (Zoho One) and one includes comparatively fewer (CRM Plus). And, Zoho One is more expensive… Unless you get your whole company on the software, in which case it becomes much cheaper. Is this gaming the system? What gives?

Well, not quite. There’s actually a method to the madness that is the different pricing and different apps present in the Zoho One and Zoho CRM Plus bundles. In this post, we’ll address the two problems that seem to arise from having different bundles with seemingly (but not actually) illogical pricing models. Then, we’ll lay out some facts to help you determine which bundle is best for your business. Finally, we’ll give you a bit of history that led to the introduction of Zoho One at all.

One problem: Why does Zoho offer two different bundles?

The answer here is simple on its surface. Zoho One and Zoho CRM Plus exist to meet two different distinct software needs.

What is Zoho One?

Zoho One is Zoho’s all-inclusive bundle, boasting 40+ fully-featured apps, all Enterprise-level (Zoho’s top tier of features). You can purchase a license for any number of employees at your company for $105/user/month*. However, if all employees at your company use Zoho One, the price is only $45/user/month*. Obviously, that’s a substantial difference.

What is Zoho CRM Plus?

CRM Plus is the original Zoho bundle: Nine essential Zoho apps, all Enterprise-level, for $69/user/month*, regardless of how many employees use the apps. This gives companies a better overall cost than they would get from buying different Zoho apps a la carte. (Apps include Zoho CRM, Campaigns, Zoho Desk, SalesIQ, Social, Projects, Survey, Analytics, and Motivator.)

*Pricing updated June 2021

So, we can see these two bundles serve distinct purposes. We can deduce from the pricing info that CRM Plus is an intuitive choice for a company looking to save on licensing for many of the apps they would need anyway. But, they might not want to give all of their employees a license. This situation comes up frequently for manufacturers, who often have many employees who work in a warehouse or factory and never interact with computers at all. There’s no point in those employees having Zoho licenses they will never use.

Zoho One, on the other hand, is a great choice for a company that is either:

To save significantly on software licensing costs, consider purchasing licenses for all employees, regardless of their software usage.
Needs all of their employees to use Zoho One anyway, or
Stands to save a considerable amount of money by allowing some of their employees to use Zoho One rather than CRM Plus or a la carte apps.

The Devil’s in the Details

This is a lot to unpack, but…better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, right? Strap in and let’s examine the three Zoho One use cases posed above.

Use Case #1

Businesses stand to save a good deal on Zoho One even if not all of them use the software. This would happen in situations where a company with fifty employees had thirty of them in need of the software, and twenty with no need for Zoho One licenses at all. In this case, it makes more sense to eat the cost of ten additional licenses than only buy licenses for forty employees. This is because for only forty employees, the cost of the licenses increases by nearly a factor of three!

- - 30 users * $105/user/mo (Zoho One flexible user count) = $3,150/mo in licensing
  - 50 users * $45/user/mo (Zoho One for all employees) = $2,250/mo in licensing

Use Case #2

You can benefit from Zoho One for certain if you need all of your employees to use the software anyway. No matter how many you employ, the offer is $45/user/mo if you purchase a license for all your employees. Especially for smaller companies, this seems almost too good to be true – and, more on that below, shortly.

Use Case #3

For some companies who only need some of their employees to use business software, Zoho One may make more sense than CRM Plus simply because the $105/user/mo price provides more needed functionality than would be available with CRM Plus, or CRM Plus and a combination of a la carte Zoho apps.

- - 10 users of Zoho CRM Plus with Zoho Finance Plus and Zoho Webinar ($69/user/mo + $249/company/mo + $19/mo) = $958/mo
  - 10 users of Zoho One (flexible user count) ($105/user/mo) = $1050/mo

The savings may seem to favor a la carte options, but additional limitations and add-on costs should be considered. For example, webinar events are limited to 25 people, and there are extra fees for users, warehouses, orders, and labels, ranging from $9-10 each for the add-ons.

What are your next steps to implementing Zoho?

Remember, before deciding about Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One, it’s always best to get some Zoho CRM Plus consulting, or Zoho One-specific help. You can use that consulting time to set up the apps you need. Additionally, you can use it to get an expert’s recommendation on which bundle to pick, Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One, if either are a good idea for you.

After discussing various apps and scenarios where one may outperform the other, a lingering question remains.

Another problem: Why are Zoho losing their shirts by offering Zoho One at such a discount compared to CRM Plus?

[caption id="attachment_3832" align="alignright" width="400"]

Okay, not quite 80% off…but darn close.[/caption]

At first glance, this looks positively insane, and you’ll be certain you’re gaming the system by buying Zoho One. This is especially true if you run a smaller company. Imagine having so much functionality that every employee can enjoy for only $45/user/month!

But, it’s not a mistake. Zoho has a very, very good reason for doing this.

They’re playing what’s known as a long game. And, to put this game into context, we have to imagine what life was like before Zoho One.

The Good Old Days

Believe it or not, there was a time when Zoho One was but a twinkle in the eye of Zoho Corporation CEO Sridar Vembu. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case, Zoho Corporation noticed something quite significant in their sales.

They were losing the attention of smaller businesses.

A la carte apps and CRM Plus (the original bundle of apps offered by Zoho) were great for some companies. But, for others who needed a lot of functionality to help them off the ground, Zoho’s cost for entry was simply too high. Zoho likely lost a good number of clients to attrition during this time. Certainly many who simply could not stomach the price of CRM Plus, or even a handful of a la carte apps. Others probably liked what they were getting with the a la carte apps. But ultimately found themselves unable to scale, so they abandoned the platform.

In Zoho’s eyes, the small businesses segment was an untapped market. And, Zoho’s idea was not just to make a bigger, badder bundle that would accommodate the needs of companies who needed more functionality. No. They were going to offer everything they had, at a price even lower than the cost of their next-best bundle.

Consider this:

Zoho Corporation makes its living on recurring revenue from their software. They want businesses to use their software as long as possible by providing customers with value. And – this is a big one – according to NAICS, there are about 1.5 million businesses that have more than 10 employees in the USA.

This number, 1.5 million, is essentially who Zoho was marketing to in the USA with their CRM Plus software bundle. But, if you follow the link you’ll see that there are just as many businesses in just the 5-9 employee count category. As if that’s not crazy enough, look one row up and you’ll see there are seven times as many businesses listed as between 1-4 employees.

Again, what an enormous market.

Like Miracle-Gro for Small Biz

Zoho came up with this fantastic Zoho One package because they knew businesses needed some help just entering the world of Zoho. That way, they could realize immediate benefits of using the software. And also see what benefits they’d reap if they grew their companies!

Many small businesses remain one size forever because that’s what works for them. However, for companies that start small and grow with Zoho, those are customers Zoho never would have had access to previously.

It’s accepted that happy customers with talk with their like-minded friends who run businesses. Because of this, suddenly Zoho has potentially increased their reach by millions in the USA alone. Perhaps tens of millions worldwide!

By offering Zoho One, Zoho is betting you’ll start small with them. Then grow into something that may not have been possible without the software. Starting with Zoho and using it to grow makes it less likely you’ll use another platform in the future. If it works for you, why try anything else?

The Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One Review

Zoho CRM Plus and Zoho One may seem pretty confusing in how similar they are. But look beyond the names of the familiar apps, analyze the pricing a bit. Then consider Zoho’s history, and you’ll see the distinctions between the two packages are pretty clear.

The Road Ahead for Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho one

We don’t expect you to read this blog post and suddenly know how to decide between Zoho CRM Plus vs Zoho One. You’ll still have to prepare your own cost breakdowns according to what you need. And, if you don’t have time to put all that together, let alone examine your own business thoroughly to determine that exact need, this all may not have helped your stress levels.

[caption id="attachment_3837" align="alignright" width="401"]

ZBrains Expert Consultants help guide you to which Zoho apps are best for your business, and we’ve helped clients like you since 2012![/caption]

So, let’s turn that around! ZBrains has helped lots of businesspeople who were strapped for time. This includes determining which Zoho apps would work best for them, and which exact package would be best. Is it Zoho One? CRM Plus? Maybe neither of the two? It remains to be seen. But we can show you the way so you turn from would-be Zoho user to Zoho Hero.

Then, if you need help with Zoho implementation or Zoho training, you can rest assured you made the best software choice, so you’ll have the best chance of really growing your company with Zoho, as opposed to just getting by.

Contact us today for help determining which Zoho suite to use, or for anything else Zoho-related.

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Getting Buy-in When You’re Just Starting on Zoho

Published on: March 8, 2019Category: Zoho Cliq, Zoho CRM, Zoho DeskLast Updated: April 24, 2023 Comments: 0

Making the Most of Your Zoho Investment: Tips for Getting Buy-In from Your Team

On a time crunch? This is a 7-minute read about Zoho for beginners.

If there’s one thing we’ve said before but really can’t stress enough, it’s the importance of proper adoption when deploying Zoho apps for the first time. Don’t worry, I can already see your eyes glazing over with that barrage of buzzwords. Because I understand your pain, I’ll try to make this “Zoho for beginners” article as painless as possible while also being informative. The truth is there are several solid suggestions to ensure you have the strength of your whole team behind you when getting started on Zoho – and you can avoid spitting instructions at a bored or disgruntled room.

We may be salespeople here at ZBrains, but we aren’t psychologists, so there won’t be any Jedi mind tricks here, aside from those already built into Zoho’s software (they are the clever ones). Without further ado, let’s get started!

Zoho Cliq: Your Canary in the Coalmine

Before you buy a new car, you’ll probably want to test-drive it. When considering Zoho for beginners, you’ll definitely want to make sure everyone test-drives their apps, too. In this case, I want you to think of Zoho Cliq as a precursor to more involved Zoho apps like Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Inventory, Desk, Projects, and others. Cliq, as you may already know, is Zoho’s answer to Slack, a popular intra-office chat software.

Cliq is nice because it does basically the same thing as Slack, but it comes pre-integrated into Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, and Zoho People – the idea being that your staff who use primarily one app the whole day don’t have to log into another app just to chat with other folks in the office.

The other nice thing about Cliq is it’s really darn easy to use, at least for most people. You could add a safeguard against low adoption to your Zoho rollout by choosing to deploy Cliq for your whole team first, then letting the questions roll in. And, if there aren’t any stragglers, you can safely assume you can roll out more difficult and important apps like CRM with only the usual training-related questions. (And, fortunately for you, we provide Zoho training, so that’s even less on your plate.)

Zoho Desk: like a Miniature CRM

Ready for yet another driving analogy? Good, I’m not either. But, the fact is there’s another way to prepare for something as complex as Zoho CRM. Rolling out Zoho Cliq first is great at letting you know who your “problem children” might be, but it’s not the same as sticking them into the fire, so to speak, and watching them try to survive. And, I don’t want you to think about doing that. Instead, consider deploying a slightly more complex app, something that has a lot of the same features as the CRM without being the CRM itself. That app is Zoho Desk.

Desk has ways to sort through customers, prioritize emails in the form of tickets, and progress tickets through a series of possible actions with Blueprint, a feature that was first introduced in Zoho CRM. From an administrative standpoint, it even includes workflow automation, so your CRM admin-to-be can get their feet wet with that, too. That way, they can be better prepared for working with it more heavily in the CRM.

Even if Zoho Desk isn’t quite as easy as Cliq for year team to get their collective head around, it’s what our Chief Solutions Architect James Converse calls a “soft landing” point. Essentially, if you’re gonna crash-land, make it on a nice comfy mattress instead of the hard asphalt. That’s the essence of Zoho for beginners, and ensures you get some early buy-in.

All Done Testing? Time to Implement in Earnest

If you’ve already gone through these motions and it looks like your staff is ready to roll with you on Zoho, then that’s great! Staff buy-in is one of the most important pieces of a successful Zoho deployment, especially if it involves using more than one Zoho app.

When it comes to Zoho implementation, you have the option to do it yourself or hire a consultant to help you. There are advantages and pitfalls to both ways of doing it, so we’ll analyze those here:

Ensuring Zoho Adoption When You Implement Yourself

We usually tell people the most important part of any Zoho implementation isn’t the deployment of their specific custom fields, modules, and screens. Nor is it the programming of workflow automation and blueprint (when necessary), or the writing of custom functions to ensure their system adheres to very specific business logic. It’s not any of that. Actually, it’s a lot more basic.

It’s the training.

Training in this case is almost like buy-in, and sometimes the two are interchangeable! Some of your staff will give you their buy-in from being trained, and others will need to buy into an idea before opening themselves to the idea of learning a new system – but, it all looks the same in the end.

In any case, properly training your staff ensures everyone uses your system the way it was meant to be used. You’ll probably need to train administrators at your business and have those admins train your other staff members. Maybe you’re the only admin – and, that’s fine too. But, you’ll need to confirm that each person using a specific app knows exactly what to do in that app and when to do it.

For example: in Zoho CRM, you might want to impart to a salesperson how to enter leads into your database, how and when to convert them to contacts, accounts, and deals, and how to use the Activities module and tasks to structure their day. And that’s just a small portion!

Obviously, administering a Zoho for beginners training yourself is a big deal. It isn’t for everyone, especially if you’re already trying to run a business. You just don’t have time!

Ensuring Adoption When Using a Zoho Consultant

Fortunately, you don’t have to work terribly hard to ensure proper Zoho adoption if you hire a Zoho consultant to help with system deployment. That’s our job! We’ve done Zoho implementations many, many times, and while no business is exactly the same as the next, basic training on Zoho CRM and other apps tend to be pretty regimented. We almost always give training sessions in advance of the actual app deployments. And, we allot some time at the end of our training sessions for a Q&A session. The answers to those questions usually get everyone’s noggins joggin’, and this makes the following Zoho consulting sessions to configure custom fields and screens that much more fruitful.

Now, you’re probably wondering how we find out about your business enough to recommend a Zoho plan that includes training on it, right?

The Truth About Our Zoho Consulting

It’s true that (nearly) everyone needs proper Zoho training, but after the training sessions our consulting sessions become much more tailored towards your business. Zoho can be both a blessing and a curse in that it gives you multiple ways to do almost anything in business. The question is always:

“What’s the best way to do all these things in the context of my own business?”

We figure out exactly which way to go with you by sitting down for a consulting session called a Business Process Analysis. In a BPA, we spend time with you and your team in order to get our heads around your whole business – then we make our formal recommendations to you, kind of like a doctor. Only, this isn’t just a five-minute wham-bam appointment. And, there’s no smelly waiting room either.

You may be starting to see just how much goes into deploying Zoho. It’s not something we take lightly, and you shouldn’t either. We’re here to help you every step of the way, from planning, to training, to deployment – and beyond.

To Recap

We covered a fair bit in this article, so to recap, we:

Suggested implementing Zoho Cliq or Zoho Desk as a way to prepare your staff for a more complete “Zoho for beginners” deployment
Demonstrated training as a way to get ultimate staff buy-in
Discussed the value of a business consulting session to get a plan in place to ensure you do everything the right way.

This isn’t a call to carry all these out yourself, of course. In the grand scheme of things, you may be working with much more than Zoho CRM, Cliq, and Desk. (There’s Zoho Books for your finances…and 40+ other apps in the whole Zoho One suite.) And, as Zoho consultants, we’d probably do it in a reverse order (point 3, then 2, then 1). But, that may not be your style, so if you don’t want to engage with a Zoho consultant like us, you could really do any of these to help ensure buy-in from your staff. Regardless, as mentioned before, hopefully these points on Zoho for beginners get the old noggin joggin’.

Let us know if you need any help with Zoho by contacting us right here.

Zoho Marketing Hub: The Alternative to HubSpot & Salesforce

Published on: February 26, 2019Category: Zoho Campaigns, Zoho CRM, Zoho MarketingHub, Zoho SocialLast Updated: July 5, 2023 Comments: 1

Unless you have some fantastic luck, you could say the beginning of every good sale starts with good marketing. Zoho Corporation, what with their regular schedule of updates, is well aware of this fact. In fact, they have been putting together a very exciting new platform – Zoho Marketing Automation. It hat aims to capitalize on this notion and give users more marketing power and control – and in that way increase sales and put more money back in their customers’ pockets.

This addition to the Zoho marketing stack is designed to encompass every marketing tool they’ve built. They’ve combined those tools with elements of Zoho Analytics, added a very attractive, and updated UI smacked onto it… The tool’s name: Zoho Marketing Automation.

Obviously, the implications of Zoho releasing such a tool in the context of its present suite of apps are far-reaching.

In today’s post, we’ll go through the new features Zoho Marketing Hub Automation brings to the table, how the app can affect (and improve) use of Zoho CRM, and what the app’s existence means for other related Zoho apps.

Solving a common problem: Lack of a Marketing Hub

Many of our customers already come to us looking for help connecting the various software components of their business. The marketing “stack,” or suite of individual apps, is an important part of this. Though with the sheer number of tools available to help, each with somewhat overlapping functionalities, your confusion over where to start and which ones to use would be forgiven.

And, Zoho has a reason for presenting all the tools to you in this way. As businesses and commerce itself both trend toward being more digitized, it becomes more and more important to have all the digital tools necessary to market effectively to potential and current customers. Previously, Zoho offered different apps to fulfill different marketing duties. This includes Zoho Campaigns for email marketing and Zoho Social for social media posts and monitoring. However, even with integration between these apps, it isn’t the same as having everything controlled by a single app. Zoho putting all these different tools together under one umbrella is their ultimate answer to the question, “How do I manage the entire marketing funnel effectively, from A to Z and beyond?”

Here are some key features of Zoho Marketing Automation:

Lead Generation: The platform provides tools to capture leads from multiple sources, including websites, landing pages, and social media. By using customizable forms and automated workflows, businesses can effectively capture and manage leads.
Lead Nurturing: Zoho Marketing Automation helps businesses nurture leads by delivering personalized content based on their interests and behavior. It allows for targeted email campaigns, drip marketing, and lead scoring to identify the most promising leads.
Email Marketing: The platform offers a robust email marketing solution, allowing businesses to create and send personalized email campaigns. It provides email templates, A/B testing, and automation capabilities to enhance campaign effectiveness.
Campaign Management: Zoho Marketing Automation enables businesses to plan, execute, and track marketing campaigns across various channels. It provides tools for campaign scheduling, budget management, and performance tracking, helping businesses optimize their marketing efforts.
CRM Integration: Zoho Marketing Automation seamlessly integrates with Zoho CRM, allowing for the synchronization of customer data. This integration helps businesses gain a holistic view of their customers and enables personalized marketing campaigns based on customer insights.
Analytics and Reporting: The platform offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, providing businesses with valuable insights into campaign performance, lead conversion, and customer behavior. This data helps optimize marketing strategies and improve ROI.
Social Media Marketing: Zoho Marketing Automation supports social media marketing by allowing businesses to schedule and publish posts on popular social media platforms. It also provides social media monitoring and analytics to track engagement and measure the impact of social media campaigns.

With Zoho Marketing Automation, businesses can automate repetitive marketing tasks, engage customers more effectively, and drive better results. By utilizing its comprehensive features, businesses can nurture leads, increase conversion rates, and build stronger customer relationships.

What does Zoho Marketing Automation bring to the table, then?

Marketing Automation covers all of a customer’s journey, not just some of it.

And, there are a lot of features to note here, so strap yourself in…

Lead tracking.

As with both Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Marketing Automation provides web forms with which to funnel your prospects, leads, and contacts into different marketing “buckets,” each bucket with its objective and type of content. These web forms can be placed on your website, but they can also be integrated directly with services like GoToWebinar and EventBrite for a more unified experience. As far as features go, this is parred for the course from Zoho, but this next one is downright exciting…

Web behavior tracking.

Once you’ve obtained a lead’s information via a web form, you can use Marketing Automation’s Web Assistant feature to tell you exactly where that person went on your website, how long they were there, and where else on your website they clicked. This borrows a bit from services like Google Analytics. But, combined with information your lead already submitted, it allows you to identify their path to becoming a customer. And, for everyone who didn’t submit information to you, Zoho Marketing Automation still gives an aggregate page popularity map, page click-through likelihood tracker, and many other useful reports.

Custom email campaigns based on interest.

You can use behavioral data gathered by Marketing Automation to send very targeted email campaigns based on the products or services your leads are most interested in. Once they receive this info, you can give them lead scores based on how they interact with your content: did they skim or really read it? Did they click a link and stay on the page for long? You can then choose to send leads who score the highest to your sales team automatically. This will ensure the team doesn’t waste time reaching out to anyone unqualified.

Tailor the customer journey by persona.

You can also use Zoho Marketing Automation’s data to modify your website itself so leads convert more quickly and easily in general. Modify your customer journeys not only by product or service interest but by their very persona. This is one of those things that will make your potential (or current) customers more satisfied with your content and your company on the whole, though they may not know exactly why. One of the few instances where mind games are okay to play!

Continue engaging your customers long after they’ve bought from you.

When you look at a list of customers, you’re looking at a list of people who already trust you. If you have services or products that pair well with those that your customers have already consumed from you, you can use Zoho Marketing Automation’s data to make decisions about sending more email campaigns, custom surveys, and other promotions to help you sell more and sell easily.

Plan future campaigns based on your exact ROI.

Arguably the most important stat to a marketer is Zoho Marketing Automation’s Marketing Planner. It calculates the ROI of individual marketing channels and the respective campaigns within each channel. This enables you to focus more of your effort on campaigns that deliver and kill off the ones that don’t produce.

These features of Zoho Marketing Automation are sure to improve the lives of the marketers who plug it into their campaigns. And, this is not just by informing them of what’s working and what isn’t, but by telling them exactly how profitable they are to the company. From then onward, it’s incumbent upon the sales department to take all this great information from Marketing Automation and run with it.

So, how does that look, exactly?

Zoho Marketing Hub Automation feeds Zoho CRM. Then, the CRM beefs up your sales potential

If utilized correctly, introducing Marketing Automation to your suite of apps has the power to turn a fledgling sales department into a breakout team. For an already powerful team, it could make you into a group of downright all-stars. And, while it’s true that Marketing Automation integrates with CRM. It can sync a good deal of information directly into the hands of your sales team; it’s not the raw data that concerns them the most.

Of course, there’s value in knowing things like:

The amount of time a lead has spent on your website
The number of pages they looked at, and their exact click path
Which email campaigns they acted upon and which ones they ignored

But, it’s even better to combine this data with the power of Zoho CRM – and some workflow automation programming – to inform your sales team:

Exactly how to open the lead based on how long they spent on your website
Just what products or services to pitch based on the exact combination of pages viewed
How likely that person is to become a customer based on their email campaign interaction. And, when they might say yes based on behavior of others in that persona category
Which warm leads to go after, and exactly when to go after them

Of course, a well-seasoned salesperson can glean a lot of this information by looking at the raw data from Marketing Automation. But, any salesperson worth their salt knows time is money. So, why spend time figuring out yourself what Zoho CRM’s calculations and workflow rules can figure out for you in a snap? You could even integrate blueprint into the mix and place hotter prospects into different stages in the Leads or Deals module, and save even more time. The sky’s the limit when it comes to translating the data from Zoho Marketing Hub Automation into actionable CRM data for your team. (And, if you’re confused about what exactly to do, our team of Zoho consultants can help you with that and anything else.)

Transform Your Marketing with Zoho’s Automation Powerhouse

An All-in-One Marketing Automation Platform
Zoho’s Marketing Automation is an all-in-one platform designed to cater to businesses of all sizes. From startups to enterprises, it offers a wide range of tools to manage every aspect of your marketing campaigns seamlessly. From lead generation to customer retention, the platform covers it all, ensuring you have everything you need under one roof.

Powerful Lead Generation Capabilities
Generating leads is the lifeblood of any successful marketing strategy. With Zoho’s Marketing Automation, you’ll gain access to powerful lead generation tools, enabling you to capture, nurture, and convert leads effortlessly. By leveraging advanced lead scoring and tracking features, you can prioritize leads that are most likely to convert, optimizing your sales efforts for maximum efficiency.

Personalized Customer Journeys
Understanding and catering to your customers’ unique preferences is vital for building strong, lasting relationships. Zoho’s Marketing Automation allows you to create personalized customer journeys, sending targeted messages and offers based on individual interactions and behavior. By delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time, you can significantly enhance customer engagement and conversion rates.

Seamless Integration with Zoho Suite
As part of the Zoho Suite of applications, Zoho’s Marketing Automation seamlessly integrates with other Zoho products. This integration empowers you to combine marketing automation with CRM, sales, and other business tools, ensuring smooth data flow and enhancing overall efficiency. You can easily sync lead information, track customer interactions, and automate sales processes, providing a unified experience for your teams.

Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns
Expand your reach and engage customers across multiple channels with Zoho’s Marketing Automation. Whether it’s email marketing, social media, SMS, or web notifications, the platform enables you to design, launch, and track multi-channel campaigns from a single interface. This versatility allows you to connect with your audience wherever they are, maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.

Advanced Analytics and Reporting
To make data-driven decisions, you need comprehensive insights into your marketing performance. Zoho’s Marketing Automation offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, providing detailed metrics on campaign success, customer behavior, and lead conversion rates. Armed with these valuable insights, you can fine-tune your marketing strategies and drive continuous improvements.

So, does this mean I can throw away Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Social?

It’s not a bad question. Earlier, we mentioned Zoho Marketing Hub Automation combines many aspects of Zoho Campaigns with Zoho Social. And, essentially, it adds a lot of intelligence to those apps. But, does that mean you should just stop using Zoho Campaigns or Social?

My answer: If you’re afraid Zoho is just going to turn off your apps or delete your old campaigns, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Zoho’s usual MO when it comes to building apps that improve upon existing ones is to either allow users the option to use either app (or both apps) in question. (A good example of this situation is in Zoho Books vs Zoho Invoice.) Or, they may even choose to merge Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Social, and Zoho Marketing Hub Automation formally into one app.

But, I would guess the latter move would be very complicated and labor-intensive. Not to mention, having only Marketing Automation as an option might even be overkill for some companies. We wouldn’t want Zoho to turn into Salesforce…obviously!

Another value add: look for Marketing Automation in Zoho One

Zoho Corporation has added Marketing Automation to the Zoho One platform. This just further cements Zoho as one of the best values out there, in my humble (and admittedly biased) opinion. Leveraging the power of Marketing Automation and CRM, you have the opportunity to feed data already coming from your website through both apps and present your sales team with new action items. Nothing could be better for a sales department.

In Summary

In 2020, getting through 1000+ words might be a little too much to handle. So, I’m happy to provide a short synopsis of this article.

Marketing Automation is Zoho’s answer to the big marketing automation competitors like HubSpot, et al. And it packs the features to go along with its name. Apart from tracking click paths and seeing how to best convert web traffic, you can also send email campaigns and launch social posts right from the app. This means you could theoretically replace Zoho Campaigns and Social with Marketing Automation. With Zoho Marketing Hub Automation, you’ll get just what you put into it. So, as long as you connect it to your website and allow the relevant data to flow in, the resulting reports should be pretty easy to understand. And, if they aren’t, you can always contact us and we’ll sit down and help you.

As always, we’ll keep you informed of any Marketing Automation, CRM, or other developments in Zoho. If you have any questions about anything here, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact us today for more information.

Effortlessly Manage and Track Time with Zoho Desk Time Tracking

Published on: September 24, 2018Category: Zoho CRM, Zoho DeskLast Updated: August 16, 2023 Comments: 0

What exactly is Zoho Desk Timer?

When working on tasks or tickets in Zoho Desk, a web-based help desk software, think of the Zoho Desk Timer as your personal stopwatch or timer.

1. Tracking Time Automatically:

Consider having a timekeeper who starts the timer when you open a ticket in Zoho Desk and stops it when you finish an activity, such as writing a reply or posting a comment. It keeps track of the time spent on each task without requiring you to start or stop the timer manually.

2. Manual Time Recording:

Consider having complete control over the timing, much like an actual stopwatch. Manual time tracking requires you to start and stop the timer while you work on tickets or tasks in Zoho Desk. It allows you to track time based on your preferences and pause/resume when necessary.

3. Efficiency and simplicity:

The Zoho Desk Timer tries to make time tracking easier. It has a simple interface that allows you to effortlessly start, pause, resume, or reset the timer. It makes it easier to track your productivity by correctly quantifying the time spent on each ticket or job.

4. Billing Time Tracking:

Zoho Desk Timer, like a professional service provider that charges by the hour, allows you to add billable time entries to tickets. You can establish predetermined fees to make it easier to calculate and bill clients based on time spent.

Understanding these sub-components allows you to grasp how the Zoho Desk Timer functions as a time management tool, whether it’s automatically tracking time as you execute actions or allowing you to manually control and record your work hours. It streamlines the process and keeps you organized, whether you’re tracking time for personal productivity or billing.

Track Time Automatically or Manually with the Zoho Desk Timer

A recent upgrade to Zoho Desk has made this web-based help desk software even more valuable. Zoho Desk Time Tracking is the newest feature, allowing you to track time spent on tickets and add billable time entries based on predefined costs. The ease and efficiency of this new component is instantly identifiable — it’s such a no-brainer that you may wonder how Zoho Desk ever existed without it! We’ve spelled out the details of this streamlined process below:

The timer is a stopwatch on the top of the page that tracks the amount of time spent working on a ticket or task. Press pause and start to pause and resume the timer as needed. When you click pause, the accumulated time is held for you. You can restart the timer to pick up where you left off, or you can apply the accumulated time to your timesheet. There is also a refresh button to reset the timer, allowing you to start the timer over.

Timer displays accumulated time in the HH:MM:SS format, starting at the one-second mark
Timers can be run on multiple tickets simultaneously

Zoho Desk Time Tracking for Tasks

Simplicity is the name of the game, which is why tracking time for tasks is very similar to tickets. The chief difference? An administrator could restrict you from running the timer on multiple tasks at once. When this happens, a pop-up on the upper right area of the screen prompts you to submit the time spent on the current task before beginning the timer on the new one.

Clicking “Yes” in the above box will submit the timer for the accumulated time for the current task and start the timer on the new task.

How to Track Active Timers

Although you could run the timer on multiple tickets and tasks, it’s useless if you don’t remember to stop and submit their time. When you have lots of work on your plate, paying extra attention to a timer is the last thing you want to do. That’s why Zoho Desk includes My Active Timers, a view that lists all of your active timers in the department. (Because let’s face it, multitasking is no longer just a mark of efficiency, it’s a way of life.)

To view your active timers:

1. Log into Zoho Desk
2. Check the Pending Activities icon

3. A new window slides open on the right hand side of the screen

4. Click the My Active Timers icon at the top of the window.

Your active timers along and their accumulated time are listed here. You can pause, stop or reset the timer corresponding to a ticket or a task from here.

Automatic Time Tracking for Tickets

In automatic tracking, the timer starts every time a ticket is opened in your browser and stops when an action is completed. The actions to be tracked are set up at the department level by your administrator. For example, sending a reply, drafting a response, leaving a comment, etc. If no action is completed the timer does not record an entry. Also, while you can pause, resume, and reset time on an automatic timer, you cannot stop or submit your time since it gets added once you complete an action on a ticket.

*The timer is visible only if your administrator has enabled your ability to view the timer under settings. Otherwise your time will be submitted in the background.*

Reviewing Time in Zoho Desk

If you started the timer one hour ago, but at some point you took a 15 minute break, you must discard this time before submitting it. That’s why Zoho Desk allows you to review and edit your time spent on a ticket. A pop-up window appears with the choice to submit or ignore the spent time. You have 10 seconds to review the time before it gets auto-submitted.

For example in the image above, you have 10 seconds from when the window appears to submit the accumulated time. Failure to do so will automatically submit the displayed time. However, if you need more than 10 seconds for review, click on the tracked time to remove the countdown and remain on the window.

*This review window is visible only if your administrator has enabled your ability to edit your time spent on tickets.*

**You cannot review or edit the time spent in manual Zoho Desk time tracking mode.**

The Significance of Time Tracking

Time management is fundamental to achieving business success in the modern world. Whether you’re a burgeoning startup or a well-established enterprise, understanding how time is allocated to tasks, projects, and customer interactions is imperative. Time tracking furnishes insightful data that informs decision-making, resource allocation, and process enhancement. With Zoho Desk Time Tracking, real-time visibility is at your fingertips, enabling the identification of bottlenecks and optimization of workflows.

Streamlined Task Management

Zoho Desk Time Tracking integrates seamlessly with your existing task management system, offering a holistic view of tasks, their statuses, and time allocation. This integration obviates the need for manual data entry, minimizing errors and saving valuable time. Whether tasks are assigned to your team, or you’re working on individual projects, Zoho Desk’s intuitive interface simplifies time logging against specific tasks. This ensures an accurate record of time distribution across diverse activities.

Boosting Productivity

A productive workforce is the bedrock of any successful business. Zoho Desk Time Tracking empowers your team to remain focused and efficient through real-time tracking and insights. As team members log their time, supervisors can monitor progress, identify roadblocks, and provide timely assistance. Furthermore, Zoho Desk’s reporting and analytics capabilities offer actionable individual and team performance insights. This data-driven approach allows you to celebrate accomplishments, address challenges, and implement strategies for enhanced productivity.

Effortless Customer Support

Exemplary customer support necessitates swift responses and efficient issue resolution. Zoho Desk Time Tracking revolutionizes this aspect. With its integrated time tracking features, your customer support agents can log the time spent on each customer interaction – from responding to inquiries to resolving intricate problems. This data aids in measuring the efficiency of your support team and also assists in setting realistic customer expectations. Analyzing time spent on different types of tickets allows you to optimize support processes, ensuring every customer receives stellar assistance.

Precise Billing and Invoicing

Precise time tracking is non-negotiable for businesses billing clients based on worked hours. Zoho Desk Time Tracking simplifies the billing process by providing accurate records of billable hours. This reduces disputes and enhances transparency with clients. Integrating time-tracking data with your invoicing system expedites invoice generation with precision. This streamlined approach saves time and cultivates a professional and trustworthy image of your business in the eyes of clients.

Flexibility in Remote Work

The modern work landscape is evolving, with remote work becoming increasingly prevalent. Zoho Desk Time Tracking accommodates this shift by offering remote access to the platform. Whether your team works from the office, home, or anywhere worldwide, they can effortlessly log their time and remain connected. This flexibility supports a remote workforce and ensures accurate time tracking, irrespective of geographical location.

Informed Decision Making

Informed decisions serve as the cornerstone of successful business operations. Zoho Desk Time Tracking equips you with the data needed for strategic choices. The platform’s reporting features offer insights into time allocation trends, team performance, and project timelines. By analyzing this data, you can make informed decisions regarding resource allocation, project prioritization, and process refinement. With Zoho Desk’s analytics, you can continually enhance your strategies for superior outcomes.

Conclusion

Effective time management is a critical asset in achieving business excellence. Zoho Desk Time Tracking presents a comprehensive solution for effortlessly managing and tracking time, enabling you to optimize productivity, enhance customer support, and make informed decisions. As businesses strive to maintain competitiveness and provide exceptional services, Zoho Desk’s time-tracking features emerge as a dependable ally on this journey. Embrace the capabilities of Zoho Desk Time Tracking and propel your business toward enhanced efficiency and success.

A Look Back At 2017 : Zoho is Growing!

Published on: January 5, 2018Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho CRMLast Updated: July 1, 2024 Comments: 0

Zoho’s Rapid Growth in 2017: New Features and Updates

2017 is suddenly behind us – and, for some, the year probably seems like it’s

flown by. Interestingly, it’s said that the more new life experiences you accumulate, the slower time seems to go by – and, if that’s true at all, Zoho Corporation must have had the slowest-feeling year of all, as they revamped a significant portion of their offerings. But, this is about the only area Zoho did anything slowly. With 50 new features, 100 marketplace extensions, and 4 product updates every week, Zoho is definitely growing! Here is a recap of some of Zoho’s new features and updates from 2017!

The Newest Additions

Zoho One – The biggest and most exciting development from is Zoho One. This revolutionary all-in-one business suite packs a punch with 35+ applications, including Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, Zoho Campaigns, Creator, and more! Account administrators have one secure account for applications and overall control, giving them the ability to access all programs from just one account.

Zia – Zoho’s AI-powered sales assistant that helps you make the most of your CRM account. She learns the ins and outs of your business by studying the strings of activities performed every day by you and your team. Zia then interprets performance and anticipates the needs of your business, providing solutions to you on-the-fly, detecting anomalies in your activities, and making suggestions to automate workflow!

Zoho Sprints – This agile project management solution encourages and enables teams to focus their energy on building the best products possible. Your team can take a look at the big picture with an easy-to-read dashboard. Track your team with the scrum board, and log time with the Timesheet function. Advanced reporting will give you actionable insights into your team’s progress and predict any roadblocks or bottlenecks in your process. In short, Zoho Sprints enables your team to get ahead and be prepared for the next development sprint.

Zoho Cliq – Easily communicate and collaborate with your colleagues with Zoho Cliq. Zoho’s new chat app eliminates the standby time of waiting on email responses from your team and allows you to exchange ideas more fluidly. Multi-panel chat, unlimited file sharing, and audio and video functionality keep your conversations at the forefront of your mind and easily accessible. Not to mention, it integrates, it’s secure, and it’s mobile!

Updates to Your Favorite Applications

New Zoho Campaigns UI – Zoho Campaigns got a facelift this year with a sleek new interface design. Along with the new look, you can get even more from Zoho Campaigns now with a customizable dashboard, image editing capabilities, additional automation, and more advanced reporting. Take your email campaigns to the next level!

Zoho Social now Adapted for Digital Agencies – Zoho Social also got a great update that makes it much easier for digital agencies to manage their clients’ social media platforms. With this new version of Social, agencies can manage all their client accounts from one platform. It also allows for agency branding and logos, with increased collaboration abilities to keep your team and your clients in the loop.

Zoho Notebook Improvements – Notebook began as a simple note-taking app on mobile but has now adapted to become even smarter, and now works as a desktop application as well. Added Mac and iOS 11 Support expands the devices from which you can use Notebook. With new intelligent formatting, Smart Cards, and document scanning, you can simplify and ease your note-taking process even further.

CRM Improvements

Marketplace Extensions – In 2017, Zoho expanded its marketplace to allow Zoho CRM to integrate with some of the biggest technology partners out there! With more than 80 new extensions available, you can optimize the potential of your CRM further than ever before. These new extensions will not only help you make the most of your CRM but can also help your business run more efficiently and avoid juggling multiple systems.

New Integrations and Platforms – Zoho CRM has further increased its capabilities with new integrations and platforms! The Finance Plus integration allows your sales reps to easily track the details of their deal expenses in the CRM. The Telephony Platform integration allows you to bring all of your phone conversations, including call recording, into the CRM. The SalesSignals platform helps consolidate all of your notifications, such social media, email, and third-party apps, into an organized timeline. These are just 3 of the new integrations that were released this year!

CRM Improvements – Amidst all the improvements to the other Zoho apps, Zoho has also polished up the CRM itself. Updated workflow rules make automation easier and advanced filters which update in real-time help you keep track of your leads. Speaking of leads, you can now add leads directly from social media, and use new lead scoring rules to ensure you focus on the right leads in your funnel. And, don’t forget the new Sticky Notes to help you stay on top of it all!

We know that was a lot to take in, and Zoho is improving faster each day, seemingly. Now, you can catch up with the big boys, improve your business, and slow things down a bit yourself – only figuratively, though. Check out Zoho’s 2017 recap for more updates and improvements!

Interested in learning more about Zoho, or have a question? Reach out to our team today! We are Zoho Certified Consultants here to help with all your Zoho needs. Give our team a call at (888) 207-4111, or click the button below and we will reach out to you!

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Zoho desk keeps you connected with customers

All You Need to Know About Zoho Desk: The Ultimate Customer Support Solution

Published on: November 17, 2017Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho Desk, Zoho FeaturesLast Updated: April 10, 2023 Comments: 0

As any good service company knows, happy customers make life so much easier and make your business run much more smoothly. Your success relies on keeping customers happy. And it can be a daunting task if you’re faced with handfuls of customer help requests daily, or if you don’t have a way of properly funneling those requests to the right people in your company.

And then, even if you can assign requests well enough, how can you make sure the same problems don’t come up again? How will you know which agents are best at handling issues so you can be sure to utilize them more often?

Zoho Desk is your solution.

Zoho Desk is that all-encompassing solution for your business in need of a ticketing system. Desk is context-aware and designed so your service teams never miss a beat.

Here are 6 ways Zoho Desk helps you cover every level of customer service.

1. Keep your customers covered.

First and foremost, Zoho Desk keeps allows your customers to contact you easily through various methods, such as:

- - phone, live chat, email, and social media!
  - You can also create custom web forms for your customers to quickly submit tickets which they can track.
  - The option to create a searchable Knowledge Base so that your customer can find answers to common questions without having to contact support is also available. The knowledge base is customizable to fit your brand (or brands).
  - Desk also allows you to build a community forum, in which your customers can have discussions with your team or even with each other in order to solve problems, making it possible for some problems to simply solve themselves, using none of your valuable resources.

2. Improve the productivity of your agents.

As an agent, having all possible details is vital when responding to your tickets and being able to provide a quick solution. Zoho Desk provides you with the customer ticket but also gives customer details within your ticket so you know who you are talking to. Want to know if they have reached out before? No problem! Zoho Desk allows you to see past tickets and interactions on the contact details page. If a customer has submitted a ticket for a common question, Desk will auto-suggest solutions from your knowledge base.

3. Save time managing your team with automation.

As a manager, your day can be hectic, so Zoho Desk is made to help you save time. Desk can help ensure that customer service is running smoothly with automation and reporting.

Wasting too much time assigning tickets or tracking your team’s metrics? With Desk you can automate tickets assignments with criteria that you can specify, automatically escalate tickets based on rules you set, and automate workflow processes, all saving you tons of time. Both your customers and your agents will receive notifications when a ticket is updated, increasing your team’s productivity.

4. Key metrics and reports to optimize customer service.

With an easy-to-read dashboard, you can track customer happiness and your team’s key metrics in one window. You can see individual reports and monitor agents’ performance, response time, and even current availability. Or, you can view your team’s overall performance to monitor bandwidth, identify bottlenecks, and find patterns. All of these things will help you to optimize and organize your customer service.

5. Collaborate across departments.

When it comes to customer support, no one person will have all of the answers. Sometimes an agent will be stumped by a question, or not have access to the answer, and will have to reach out to another department for a solution to a problem.

Let’s say a customer asks about the status of a certain product, but you need to reach out to the shipping department for an answer. In Zoho Desk, you can simply tag or @ a colleague from the shipping department and they will be notified! With Desk you don’t need to be worried about unknowingly working on the same ticket as another agent. It will notify you who is working on the ticket in real time, whether it is another agent or the customer. Work efficiently across departments without ever colliding.

6. The option to go mobile with Zoho Desk app!

The Zoho Desk mobile app allows agents to receive instant notifications about the tickets they’re following. this includes details about accounts and contacts. Conversation responses and internal comments are available here, too.

The app automatically organizes Desk tickets, prioritizing the urgency for you. CRM customer information is available within, as well, so agents can quickly reference those contact details and past interaction details. Another level of functionality available from Zoho Desk!

Zoho Desk Consulting is available from ZBrains

Aside from its standalone functionality, Zoho Desk packs a number of different integrations to really take your customer service to the next level, and with paid plans starting at $20* per user per month for the Standard Edition, it’s a hard deal to pass up! (*prices updated June 2021)

Interested in learning more? Reach out to a member of the ZBrains team today! Give us a call at (888)207-4111 or click the button below to connect with our consultants!

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