Zoho CRM vs ACT! by Sage Archives - Zoho CRM Consultants | Zoho CRM Integrations & Solutions

Zoho CRM vs. ACT CRM: Which is the Best Choice for Your Business?

Published on: September 30, 2015Category: Zoho Campaigns, Zoho CRMLast Updated: May 16, 2023 Comments: 0

ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM Review

Is picking ACT? such sage advice?

This isn’t a typical CRM comparison in that if you find yourself comparison ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM, you’re probably deciding whether to keep ACT or move to Zoho CRM. If we were to make an analogy, this would be like pitting a heavyweight against a lightweight in the boxing arena – but, as you well know, it’s not always a throwaway match. Heavyweights, while powerful and visible, can be a little slow in the ring; and, lightweights, while not quite as potent at times, can be extremely agile and nimble.

If the comparison isn’t immediately apparent, the older ACT is the bulkier heavyweight, while cloud-based Zoho CRM is the lighter fighter. So, who wins this particular mismatched battle? Read on for the skinny on Zoho, as well as a ACT CRM review…

Round One: The Price

This battle won’t actually be quite as mismatched as I’ve led you to believe. Zoho CRM Professional Edition (PE) is very similar in price to ACT! Expert:

It costs $420 to board a single user on Zoho CRM PE for one year.
It costs $540 to board a single user on Act! CRM Expert for one year.

Not too much of a difference there at all, so this match is a tie!

The real differences are in the features of each product, though.

Round Two: Tracking the Sales

At the onset, both Zoho and ACT appear evenly matched, both providing a typical number of modules like Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, Sales forecasts, and the ability to import data from old CRMs. The real difference is in what Zoho provides in addition, though, that Sage does not:

Competitor tracking
Sales quotas
Feeds

The first two are self-explanatory, but, feeds is a feature that turns your CRM into a social network of sorts, allowing members to track or follow certain activities or records in the CRM, adding comments as they see fit. This style of communication is advantageous because it’s in a format most modern tech-minded (or generally younger) workers are used to, and, comments can be traced back to specific events or records easily, making it a much easier communication solution than starting an email thread (or multiple threads).

That said, the winner of this round is Zoho.

Round Three: Integrating the Social Aspect

Having an online presence – especially in social media – is one of the most important things a business can do nowadays. Sage clearly recognizes this and equips ACT! Pro with all sorts of social media integration options: Facebook and LinkedIn, built-in tabs for both of those networks, and ways to monitor mentions of your company on those social media platforms. Zoho CRM PE, which only sports integrations to Twitter and Facebook, seems a bit behind in this aspect. For that reason, Sage wins the social media integration round.

Round Four: Automating your Marketing

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get your CRM to help you with your marketing? Indeed, you can. Many CRMs are equipped with marketing automation tools – but, as we’re finding out, not all of these tools are distributed equally. Zoho CRM comes with a variety of standard marketing automation tools: Available email templates, mass emailing ability, an email campaign manager (Zoho Campaigns), and, the ability to transfer web leads directly into your Zoho CRM. Sage, on the other hand, provides mass emailing and campaign tracking ability – and web-to-lead conversion, but at an increased price. Overall, Zoho wins this round, as it simply provides the user more marketing options, and at an ostensibly reduced price.

ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM BONUS ROUND: Inventory Management

For a bonus round (even a self-described one), this one is certainly no contest. In short, if you need a CRM with inventory management capability and you’ve narrowed your search down to ACT Expert and Zoho CRM PE, you should choose Zoho CRM PE.

Zoho CRM PE allows users to track and modify Sales Quotes, Sales Orders, Products, Price Books, Invoices, Vendors, and Purchase Orders – and, it comes with integrated order procurement and fulfillment capabilities.

ACT! Expert packs none of these features.

And, the winner of ACT CRM vs Zoho CRM is…

For the rounds we took into account, the clear winner seems to be Zoho CRM Professional Edition over ACT! Expert. However, it’s worth noting that you may want to do additional homework before making a final decision on a CRM. Paired with its lightweight quality, Zoho is unequivocally the cheaper option, but, that fact and this analysis don’t account for factors like customer support, Zoho consulting, or UI, which are quite subjective. In any case, we hope this has provided you the information you need to ultimately choose the CRM that best fits your unique business.

One more thing about ACT vs Zoho

A final thing to consider when comparing ACT and Zoho is that aside from Zoho’s dedicated apps for managing inventory, projects, and your books (Zoho Books, to be exact), Zoho offers even more functionality at only a fraction of the price of a single app, in some cases. This offering is called Zoho One, and it’s a collection of over 40 different Zoho applications, available for only $45/user/mo, or $37/user/mo when paid annually*. The only requirement to use Zoho One is that all of your W-2 employees use the suite. Obviously, this isn’t a good choice for all companies – but, it tends to help very many. *Pricing updated June 2021

Still not sure which direction to go in? We’ve helped many companies in your situation before. Contact us to get started, or keep reading for more helpful information.

Connect with Us

Zoho CRM vs. ACT!

Published on: January 26, 2015Category: Zoho CRM, Zoho OneLast Updated: March 30, 2023 Comments: 0

versus…

Clash of the Titans: Zoho CRM vs ACT!

Zoho CRM vs ACT: Do you need a full CRM or a simpler Contact Manager?

One of the first issues that small businesses run into when they start to grow is the problem of dealing with the increased data flow. This is especially apparent when dealing with multiple business apps and departments. One of the most damaging information overloads revolves around your customers.

Business gather customer information in many ways, and use it for product development, social media, sales, billing, and customer service. Making this kind of information available to the right people at all times can be challenging in our very diverse software environments. Your first order of business is to decide if you need a true Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suite or a simple Contact Manager program. Do you need Zoho CRM or ACT! by Sage? Let’s see how Zoho CRM vs ACT stack up…

Zoho’s CRM

Zoho CRM is a robust CRM module that can integrate with other platforms; it can also automate workflow. It provides full collaboration ability between multiple departments like accounting, sales, marketing, and customer service to ensure everyone has correct information. As a cloud service, you can access Zoho from anywhere with an internet connection. This gives Zoho users much more flexibility than they would have while tied to their desktop computer.

Zoho even has email marketing functionality to keep you in contact with your leads automatically. Zoho also provides unparalleled security features, including industry-leading data encryption, field-level security, and security profiles. Zoho’s Google Apps integration also enables even better productivity and access to information for integration and automation. ACT does not have the security parameters of Zoho. For that reason, we don’t recommend it for organizations with more than five users.

Zoho CRM may be a better fit if you need the following:

Sales – billing and invoicing, mobile access, remote tracking, territory management, workflow rules and management.
Marketing – email marketing, mailing list management, catalog integration of items.
Help Desk – FAQ, forums, knowledge base, online self-serve, recorded demos.
Customer Service – customer service integration and tracking, customization of user interface.
Model and License – SaaS with monthly billing options – 3 user Free Edition – Professional & Enterprise Editions, the number of users that you can add is based on the user licenses purchased.
Security – data encryption, field-level security, create roles and groups, and set up multiple administrative security profiles.
Analytics – Executive dashboards, dashboard customization, forecasting and reporting.
Extra Apps and Add-Ons – Google Apps, Zoho Apps, Microsoft Outlook integration, QuickBooks desktop integration, Zoho Books for light finance, and many other apps.

ACT! by Sage CRM

If you run a small business and need constant access to your customer data, ACT’s contact management attributes can save you money while keeping your team up-to-date. With internal memo templates and easy ways to communicate with all sorts of contacts, it makes things much quicker in general. Managers or administrators can pull reports on performance indicators and forecasts by their salespeople. This, in turn, gives them a better idea of the health of the company in genersal.

ACT also provides another feature not available in most other contact management software; the ability to help manage customer tickets or technical support cases with specific tracking options. This keeps all issues up-to-date and ensures better customer service with accurate tracking. ACT also integrates with Sage products and provides online access but is not as versatile as Zoho. It is also not well suited for mobile device use as is Zoho.

ACT! contact management may be a better fit if you need the following:

Sales – no billing and invoicing – otherwise no obvious differentiation – same available features as Zoho as mentioned above.
Marketing – referral tracking where Zoho does not.
Support – has email and phone capabilities and request forms that Zoho does not.
Model and User License – on premise (not SaaS) with monthly billing option – Windows and MS SQL based database (no for Zoho) – limited to 10 users.
Extra Apps – QuickBooks and Sage 100 integration available.

Why move to Zoho in the cloud? There are two big reasons

Especially as the 21st century moves along, businesses that once used on-premise CRM solutions like Sage ACT find themselves looking for alternatives. The reasons for this, aside from those aforementioned, are the long-term scalability of a cloud-based solution, as well as security. The fact that Sage ACT is installed on-premise accounts for both of these reasons. Relying on a business’s own server to host a CRM and account for changes in users and login locations can (sometimes) render a system unstable. As well, cloud-based systems are inherently more secure than their on-premise brethren. They do this by providing an off-site entry point, which means business owners aren’t liable for data breaches, if they occur.

Zoho gives a big advantage with Zoho One

In the past couple of years, Zoho has significantly widened their advantage over other CRM apps by providing not only a family of integrated business apps, but offering all of them (over 40 in total) in one software suite called Zoho One. Zoho One, like all Zoho apps, is cloud-based, and features many integrations with the CRM. By using Zoho One, you could theoretically run your entire business – as opposed to just your CRM – from Zoho. This would give your staff and other users a more unified experience.

Ready for some more?

There are many more specific comparisons that can be made between Zoho CRM vs ACT, and these depend on your specific needs as a company, including CRM consulting, CRM training, or support plans. Contact us today and we’ll help you decide which of the two is right for your company.

Tag : Zoho CRM vs ACT! by Sage