Zoho CRM is a customer relationship management software designed with the purpose of helping businesses to manage and analyze their customer interactions. A user-friendly interface and extensive range of features have made Zoho CRM a popular choice, especially among businesses that are new to the CRM world and want to build their capabilities.
The tool is a cloud-based CRM system that offers many features and a variety of affordable price points to meet a variety of needs. In this review, we will explore who Zoho CRM is a good fit for and where it excels to help determine if it is the best CRM software for you.
Check out our roundup of the Best CRM for Small Business
What is Zoho CRM?
Zoho offers a cloud software suite for businesses, with a unified platform that provides everything from webinar software to contracting tools. Zoho CRM is the company’s tool for helping salespeople to reach prospects and engage with them, as well as manage all internal tracking and metrics in one place.
Zoho CRM is a 360 degree customer relationship lifecycle management CM solution that has many advanced capabilities, as well as the ability to integrate with both Zoho and third-party products.
Who is Zoho CRM best for?
Zoho is particularly popular with small and medium businesses, though they can work with enterprises of all sizes. Newcomers to the world of sales and prospecting, who are implementing their first CRM, are often fans of Zoho as it is easy to set up and manage. New businesses often choose Zoho CRM for this reason.
Because Zoho CRM offers a free plan, businesses just starting out can benefit from the tool’s client and contact management without a large investment. At the same time, they can pay for more advanced plans with more features.
Integrations with inventory management systems also make Zoho CRM a great choice for retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar. However, any service-driven industry can use the tool.
Zoho CRM pros
- Offers free plans and affordable paid plans
- All plans include automation
- Integrations available with multiple platforms
- Integrations with other Zoho products
- Easy to use interface
- Offers a mobile app
- 30 to 45 day money-back guarantee
- Artificial intelligence backed analytics available
Zoho CRM cons
- Some features, like AI, are only available on top payment tiers
- Limited options for custom fields
- Free plans do not include integrations
- Customer support can be difficult to reach
Zoho CRM features
The exact features available in Zoho CRM are dependent upon the plan that a company chooses, but it has solid baseline features even at the free CRM plan. Other features that can be opted into make the experience more seamless and effective for teams.
Sales automation
While Zoho CRM works well as a basic CRM to track contacts and leads, the sales automation tool can help to generate leads via web forms on a website, social media, or email, and then automatically puts contacts into the CRM. Each lead is also scored and tagged with the appropriate follow-up actions.
Workflow rules are also available using simple “if this, then that” logic. On higher tier plans, macros can be created to trigger tasks on large batches of data, and can be executed in a sequence.
Reporting and analytics
Analytics are a key to any successful CRM, and all Zoho CRM plans have access to a set of pre-built reports that analyze deals, stages, and contacts. The majority of paid plans allow for custom reports to be built. Zoho analytics are most advanced when it comes to filtering, which allows extensive drill down within each module.
Additionally, there are many choices for visualization of data in a variety of forms. At the highest paid tiers, AI-powered tools can also produce reporting dashboards on sales trends and areas of improvement.
Mobile app
Since so many sales team members work outside of the office, Zoho CRM has put a lot of effort into making sure the mobile app is effective. RouteIQ is a feature that creates the best route to visit prospects during these trips. The app also has an offline mode, in case there is a los sof signal.
Within the mobile app, users can record voice notes, scan business cards, and reference customer data. The interface is simple to use and intuitive and available for both iOS and Android devices.
Zoho CRM pricing
Zoho CRM works on a tiered pricing system, with one free plan and four paid plans available.
Free plan
The free plan allows for three users to perform basic tasks like track contacts, leads, accounts, and deals. They can also log events, calls, and notes and create workflow automation. The sales and marketing automation is limited, and there is no option for customized reporting or other customization.
Users on the free plan can set up basic account management of leads and deals, documents, and communication. It does not include the “Social” tab for Facebook and Twitter, and there is no calendar integration.
Standard and professional plans
For $14 per user, per month, companies can set up an unlimited number of users in the tool with the Standard plan. Additional features include sales forecasting, lead management and scoring rules, and multiple sales pipelines, as well as up to 100 custom reports. It is also possible to perform data analysis of KPIs and automate marketing campaigns.
At $23 per user, per month, the Professional plan removes many limits on integration. At this level, Google Ads and inventory management can be integrated into the tool. This is particularly popular for retailers. The Professional plan also adds in mass email marketing scheduling and customer support features, including assignment rules for tickets.
Enterprise and ultimate plans
The top-tier plans for Zoho CRM are Enterprise ($40 per user, per month) and Ultimate ($52 per user, per month) offer advanced features like artificial intelligence to predict lead conversation and sale trends. Many process management features are also available for approval and review processes.
Further benefits include automated segmentation, split testing, and other analytics that may be beneficial to larger organizations.
Zoho CRM customer support
Zoho offers the expected range of options to support their customers, including an extensive online help center that is easy to navigateand provides many tutorials. There is also the ability to submit a request online. While they do offer live chat and phone lines for customer support, many customers report it is difficult to speak with a live person.
FAQs
Overall, Zoho CRM has favorable ratings, usually above 4 stars out of 5. Capterra shows a 4.3 star rating, and TrustPilot’s average is 4 stars.
Zoho offers five tiers for plans, including a limited plan that has no cost. Depending on the level of features a company chooses, the price ranges from $14 to $50 per user, per month.
One big differentiator for Zoho CRM is the fact that they offer a free plan with most of the necessary features. It also has a heavy focus on enabling sales teams, with mobile apps and many sales automation features. Zia, the AI-powered tool available at top tiers for Zoho CRM, is also a huge asset for the tool.
Zoho CRM is a simple tool that can help any company build a CRM easily, or maintain an existing sales process. The tool excels at sales automation, custom reporting, and integrations.
