Zoho CRM Review

Zoho CRM is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution that has over 150,000 customers. It offers key features for lead capture, contact and deal management, communication channels, workflow automation, and reporting. Overall, Zoho CRM works well for small businesses who are looking to scale and currently use other Zoho products.

What is Zoho CRM? 

Zoho CRM was founded in 2005 by cofounders Sridhar Vembu, Sreenivas Kanumuru, and Tony G. Thomas. It is one of the most popular CRMs available in the market today and has over 7,000 employees. Its headquarters are currently located in Chennai, India.

Zoho CRM Features

Zoho CRM offers a wide range of CRM features. This includes:

  • Lead capture through forms, social media, live chat, and email
  • Contact profiles, storage, and activity feed
  • Email marketing, social media, and phone as communication channels
  • Deal management tools like pipelines, task management, and lead scoring
  • Workflow automation tools like triggered events
  • Reporting
  • A mobile application
  • Integrations with major business software tools (Google Workspace, Zapier, Slack, Zoom, Shopify)

Zoho CRM shines in a few of these CRM feature categories. This includes lead capture forms, social media as a communication channel, pipelines for deal management, and triggered events.

Lead Capture Forms

zoho crm forms.

Forms are an easy way to capture a lead’s contact information because they input their information themselves. Zoho CRM offers an integration with Zoho Forms, where the information inputted in a Zoho Form can be inputted into Zoho CRM.

This integration is more seamless than similar integrations in other CRM platforms like Copper. This is because there is no need to use a third party application like Zapier.

Social Media

zoho crm social.

Social media is a crucial method in staying connected with existing and potential leads. With Zoho CRM, users can connect their Twitter and Facebook accounts. This lets them perform Twitter and Facebook actions including liking, commenting, retweeting, and direct messaging.

With this capability, users do not have to leave their CRM to perform social media actions. This saves a user time and allows them to quickly access information that would be relevant to generating a lead.

Pipelines

zoho crm pipelines.

Pipelines are used to visually track how a lead is progressing through a business’s deal flow. What is unique about Zoho CRM is that its pipeline tool is effective at managing over 50 simultaneous deals at once. 

This is because a user can create and customize different pipelines that best match their company’s sales funnels, include a “win probability” percentage at each stage, drag and drop deals between stages, and use a wide variety of different filters to view specific deals.

Triggered Events

zoho crm triggered events.

Zoho CRM offers triggered events as a workflow automation tool, which saves time and reduces the possibility of human error. Users can create automations for a wide range of CRM elements including those related to leads, contacts, deals, tasks, and social media.

For example, a user can update a field in a lead’s profile based on a lead’s email activity. With this capability, a user will not have to waste time updating a lead to have the most accurate information.

Zoho CRM Pricing

Standard$20 per user per month
Professional$35 per user per month
Enterprise$50 per user per month
Ultimate$65 per user per month

Zoho CRM Legal & Security

It’s crucial to keep CRM data secured and protected. Zoho CRM offers legal and security features that help ensure that a company’s—and their leads’—information is not a target of ransomware. The legal and security features Zoho CRM offers includes:

  • SSL Certificate
  • Role Based Views
  • Secure Storage
  • GDPR Compliances
  • HIPAA Compliance
  • Firewalls
  • Single Sign On

Zoho CRM Competitors

Zoho CRM exists in a competitive market space with dozens of CRMs suited for different user types. Overall, Zoho CRM ranks highly among its competitors and is one of the few solutions that offers advanced functionality at an affordable price. Its main competitors and the customer type each is best suited for include:

hubspot logo.

HubSpot

HubSpot is an advanced CRM solution that is best suited for larger companies with complex workflows. It is also recommended for those who prefer to use an all-in-one platform and need high quality digital marketing tools in their CRM.

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FreshworksCRM

FreshworksCRM is an intuitive, beginner CRM platform. It is best for SMBs who would benefit the most from a wide variety of communication and digital marketing tools.

copper logo.

Copper

Copper is a user-friendly CRM software solution that is best for small businesses with a less complex workflow. It is also recommended for those who currently use tools like Google Workspace. 

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Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a basic CRM solution that is recommended for individuals and SMBs. Those who primarily need a CRM for visual deal management should also consider Pipedrive.

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Vtiger

Vtiger is a basic, all-in-one CRM solution. It offers a wide range of communication channels.

Salesforce

salesforce logo.

Salesforce is an advanced and highly customizable CRM platform. It is best suited for large companies and enterprises who need a CRM that can adjust to their specialized workflow.

 


Interested in other CRMs for small businesses? Check out our Best CRM for Small Business article.

Amy Yang
Amy Yang
Amy Yang is a New York-based Content Writer for SoftwarePundit, Webopedia, and Small Business Computing. She is passionate about writing research-based content that will help small businesses succeed. When she's not writing about small business technology, she participates in passions such as dancing and cooking and spends time with her 8 year old cat.

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