Zoho CRM: Pros, Cons and Alternatives

Do you know one of the easy methods to increase your business growth is through a CRM platform? To say in short, CRM means customer relationship management. Now, you know that good customer relationship are essential for any business. And to have a good customer relationship is to be better than your competitor in every way.

Zoho CRM is undoubtedly one of the best in the world of CRM platforms. You might have put it in your shopping cart right now. Zoho CRM helps in ticket management related to customer service. It also has a powerful dashboard that automates and answers customers in real-time instantly.

But are you going to adopt an app through the official testimony? No, right? Like any other software, Zoho CRM has its pros and cons. It will help if you go through each of the merits and demerits before deciding on your business. There may be a few use cases where you might not want Zoho CRM and look for its best alternatives. Don't worry; we got you in that too.

Continue reading to learn more about Zoho CRM – pros, cons, and alternatives.

What is Zoho CRM?

It is an omnichannel cloud-based customer relationship management software. It aids multinational companies in taking charge of their company operations to establish enduring relationships with their clients. 

The web-based platform is adaptable to various shapes and sizes of industries. More than 40 Zoho products can integrate with Zoho CRM. It can expand with more than 300 third-party software extensions, including ones for G Suite, Office 365, Salesforce, and other well-known programs.

Zia is an AI-powered sales assistant for Zoho CRM. It assists sales teams and individual representatives in identifying abnormalities in the sales process before they happen. Also, it recommends the optimum time to contact a prospect and analyzes their buying history. Zia may offer each sales professional specific CRM information, smart notifications, task reminders, and recommendations to help with sales.

With Zoho's omnichannel CRM, businesses can cultivate customer interactions anytime, anywhere. Businesses may engage and communicate with their customers via phone, live chat, email, and social media to improve the customer experience. Users may receive automated notifications for each new contact or consumer engagement.

Zoho CRM Pricing Plans

The following plans are available for Zoho CRM pricing:

1. Free Trial
2. Free Plan: 0
3. Standard Plan: $12/user/month
4. Professional Plan: $20/user/month
5. Enterprise Plan: $35/user/month

Zoho CRM Pros

The key advantages of Zoho CRM are its wide range of features, support for mobile devices, and scalability. When you deploy Zoho CRM, you may anticipate the following:

1. With Zoho CRM, you can turn leads into open accounts with just one click. 
2. It automates and customizes procedures to match your operations, making it easier to complete everyday duties. 
3. Prospects are imported into Zoho CRM from a wide range of other databases, such as those from your trade exhibitions, seminars, mail contacts, or chance visitors. 
4. The best leads are paired with your top salespeople after being carefully chosen and nurtured by Zoho CRM to ensure they will convert.
5. It has an excellent opportunity tracking function that you can use to track client behavior across all stages of your sales process. 
6. To optimize your connection with them, you can have continual and dependable access to their history records, prior deals, and other profile facts.
7. You may locate and seize the most influential leads with the help of Zoho CRM, and once you've looked through their information, you can revise your message plan.
8. Additionally, Zoho CRM can connect to Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to invite contacts or share their remarks to gather leads.
9. Thanks to the product's Mobile Edition, data records are available on mobile devices, including iOS and Android operating systems.
10. Integrate all aspects of customer and prospect communication.
11. Workflow Tools for managing projects, social media, customer support, email marketing, inventories, and other topics.
12. Track webinar participant interaction.
13. Additional modules to meet business needs.
14. Workflows, custom fields, and contact management beyond the fundamentals.
15. Particularly simple to detect communications
16. Know your position concerning leads, transactions, and clients.
17. Synchronizes with several external systems and Zoho products to provide a linked workflow.
18. APIs are available for building bespoke application integrations.
19. An easy method to use Blueprint to construct unique processes and approvals
20. powerful automation and process management.
21. Self-service portals increase the CRM's potency.
22. You may scale Zoho pricing plans/levels based on your needs.
23. A straightforward and inexpensive all-in-one solution is Zoho One.
24. Zoho's products are constantly becoming better.
25. Extraordinary dedication to the functioning and design of the product.
26. Zoho replies to criticism. Products from Zoho incorporate wise advice.

Zoho CRM Cons

1. Tutorials need to be enhanced.
2. During the installation, questions may arise for which you should consult a Zoho adviser.
3. Integrating is not always constant and might be difficult.
4. Some of the offerings don't have Zoho CRM's degree of polish.
5. Internet access is necessary.
6. Instead of charging 5–10 members per group, subscription costs per individual.
7. In Zoho One, there are several features you'll desire.
8. Although support has significantly improved, who you get online is still a factor.
9. Documentation and instructional films might occasionally be excessively technical and unclear.
10. To determine which Zoho modules would satisfy your demands, you must grasp them well.
11. When the date arrives, events (appointments) are immediately recorded as closed.
12. Call scheduling is complicated.
13. More choices for reminders, such as ones for a week, two weeks, etc.
14. Want to view more on a page, but the fonts are too large.
15. Expecting calendar views and accounting features
16. Landing pages do not form pages.
17. Document tracking is lacking for bids and presentations.
18. Inside sales automation tools are required.
19. No monitoring of individual emails (open and close vs. mass campaign).
20. Completely manual input; no form-filing intelligent tools.
21. Top-tier prices would outclass a lesser enterprise.
22. The live chat feature lags.
23. Functionality for mass email or scheduling is required.
24. The smartphone app is deficient.

Zoho CRM Alternatives

HubSpot CRM

The intuitive HubSpot CRM software is ideal for companies of all sizes and types. Everything about the platform is simple, from setting up the platform at the office and customizing it to fit current procedures to managing all prospects and closing sales. HubSpot CRM provides unmatched connectors to guarantee that a person's marketing and sales activities are coordinated at all times, which is especially noteworthy when considering the platform's free use choice. For companies that want to further bolster their marketing and sales efforts, paid programs are also offered.

The software is primarily intended to assist businesses in completing sales more quickly and spending less time organizing data about their prospects and clients. Its automated features make it possible to monitor sales activity across numerous platforms. 

All customer interactions are cleanly arranged using a timeline style. It makes it simple to comprehend your most recent communication with them and where they are in the pipeline without having to wade through convoluted email chains. 

BotPenguin 

BotPenguin offers a CRM that can handle all of your lead management needs. By using behavior-based monitoring and scoring, organizations can better manage their pipelines, participate in conversations with context, and find the highest quality prospects. Users of BotPenguin enjoyed a 360-degree picture of their sales funnel, including all won and failed offers as well as the most basic customer data. 

Additionally, based on numerous criteria, leads may be automatically given to the most qualified sales reps. Users may immediately start discussions thanks to the platform's capability for direct calls, saving time on contact information migration. Setting up notifications to remember all tasks and appointments is also possible.

Freshsales 

Freshsales offers total transparency into the sales funnel stages of various clients at any time. Users may also modify stages and offer offers using a drag-and-drop interface. Its mobile apps allow users to access customer data anytime and anywhere. With the help of numerous filtering tools, you can quickly get actionable insights from your reports. You can enter this data into various understandable visual graphs, charts, or tables. 

vCita

vCita is a CRM for service providers with a marketing-focused approach. The seller claims that the solution aids service providers in guiding customers through each sales cycle phase, including the initial point of contact, closure, upselling, and follow-up. A compact CRM, vCita has the following features: - Control clients, payments, and appointments. - Use a mobile app to access information and contact clients while on the go. You can also invite customers to access information or take action on a custom client portal.

Salesforce

Salesforce Essentials is a powerful customer relationship management platform that unites diverse activities, including lead management, marketing, and sales, on a single platform. 

It centralizes all client data. 

It is a cloud-based solution that ensures all teams can quickly access essential information and equip themselves with comprehensive knowledge about each contact. It gives them access to their actions in a thorough chronology and chats history.

When combined with Salesforce Einstein AI and automated machine learning, Salesforce Essentials enables organizations and agents to decide their next course of action swiftly. The platform delivers essential data at their fingertips. Forecasting, tracking top achievers, and crystal-clear data insights are just a few of the AI's functions.

Because it fills up the sales funnel without forcing sales representatives to track client actions manually, Salesforce Essentials makes daily operations for teams hassle-free. A chatter stream for simple communication allows users to interact efficiently. 

Oracle Cloud ERP

A whole group of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications on the Oracle Cloud is called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). This solution includes Oracle Risk Management and Oracle Expense Management. Additional applications include financials, Revenue Management, Accounting Hub, PPM, and Procurement. Modern best practices and industry standards are integrated into the one cloud platform. Many businesses rely on ERP software, and Oracle attempts to provide a contemporary, linked strategy with well-liked connectors. 

Conclusion

Zoho CRM is a top-notch cloud CRMs business tool for customer service. It helps attract customers to your business and builds a strong customer relationship. That's how you get loyal customers and popularize your brand through customers. Small and large businesses use Zoho CRM to track their daily activities and engage clients. But Zoho CRM also has some cons like high customization requirements and limited usability of features. Although some may adopt and adapt the CRM with its pros and cons while others look for alternatives. If you want a Zoho CRM alternative, you can try the abovementioned alternatives and choose the one that meets your needs.