Today’s CRM market is saturated with solutions, and you’re bound to be a little confused when deciding on your next software. Luckily, we’re here to lift the fog on two of the most popular solutions of 2019: it’s time to compare Zoho vs Salesforce.
Does your business need a CRM?
If your business wants to succeed in today’s competitive market, it’s imperative that you leverage all the data and information you have on your customers. You see, every time someone makes a purchase or engages with your brand, you can capture their information, and this data can be used to develop, deliver and target services and products directly tailored to your target audience. Are you questioning whether it’s actually essential for modern businesses? If that’s the case, you should have a look at how CRM is the secret behind Amazon’s success.
In other words – if your business is serious about competing in 2019, you will need a Customer Relationship Management software in place to analyse this information properly. But how can you choose the best CRM solution for your business? In this e-guide, our dedicated CRM experts will look at the main differences in Zoho vs Salesforce.
The Costs of CRM
Traditionally, CRM systems have been expensive software solutions. For a long time, the price tag meant that a CRM was something reserved for large conglomerates – and definitely not SMEs with limited budgets. However, the CRM marketplace has been revolutionised in the last decade, meaning that a wide range of CRMs – in all price classes and varieties – are now available. But what are the costs of Salesforce and Zoho?
Firstly, there is a clear price difference between our two CRM solutions. It’s not exactly a secret that Salesforce can be much more expensive than Zoho, which is a more recent CRM contender. As a result, Zoho is generally a wise choice for smaller businesses on a bit of a tighter budget. However, if you run a large organisation and can afford the high costs, you can greatly benefit from choosing Salesforce as your CRM provider.
While being far from as customisable as Salesforce, Zoho can still fulfil your basic needs and requirements. However, if you suspect that you might need a full development team to fully customise your Zoho CRM, you might just be better off paying the full price for Salesforce. With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the key CRM features and what our two CRM alternatives can offer you.
Opportunity Tracking
Opportunity tracking is a key feature in any CRM system. Zoho recently revamped their opportunity tracker, and they now have a new timeline where your sales team can instantly view a customer’s data and previous interactions with other employees. The feed is chronological. Zoho’s new opportunity tracking feature is considered to be just as good as the one you can find in Salesforce. You can easily track accounts and sales leads, and there is also the option of automating your workflow by closing sales with pre-estimated quoting tools. An efficient and valuable time saver, right there.
Salesforce allows you to do much of the same things: you can track your accounts, leads and opportunities in neat and relevant tabs. If you create a new lead, Salesforce will automatically generate a new task for you. These can, however, be customised later.
Reporting Tools
If you have a large team at hand, it will be both helpful and time-saving to aggregate your report forecasts into one single dashboard.
Zoho is equipped with great reporting tools: you can easily run reports and statistics on pipeline stage, sales forecasts and lead conversions. The reporting tools in Zoho are far from as extensive as those found in Salesforce, but they are undoubtedly much better than similar features found in a CRM software at the same price.
Does reporting tools play an important role in your business? If so, we recommend Salesforce Lightning Professional, a solution which can provide useful and unique features that are much better than those in Zoho. There are a wide variety of reports available in the Salesforce package, and they can all be customized by the simple click of a button.
Mobile Devices
Both Salesforce and Zoho offer excellent mobile applications. The two providers will let you easily review customer data while on the go, and they make it easy for you to collaborate with your team, chase down leads and analyse reports – all while being on your mobile.
Let’s start with Zoho. What can they offer in their mobile application?
- Geolocation
- Scheduling
- Calendar
- Newsfeed
- Access to the basic CRM system
Salesforce can offer you the same features, but they also allow you the option of dialling into a conference call directly from the app. That’s definitely a winning point for many CRM buyers. Additionally, they offer:
- Calendar
- Newsfeed
- Task manager
- Mobile Dashboard
- File Sharing
- Conference calls
How easy is it to install the software?
Setting up a new software isn’t exactly known to be anyone’s favourite pastime. Luckily, both Salesforce and Zoho are known to be quite easy and straightforward when it comes to setup and configuration. The Zoho CRM does indeed involve a wee bit of customization in order to get started, but the system is rather intuitive and they also sport a Get Started feature which easily guides you through various tasks, such as
- Adding users
- Customizing the feed
- Importing contacts
Salesforce is, just like Zoho, quite easy to set up. When you first sign into Salesforce as an administrator, you will find a list of tasks that need to be configured:
- Integration with other systems/apps
- Adding new users
- Importing contacts
- Setting up pipelines
Besides this, Salesforce will also greet you with a widget-filled home screen, all of which are giving you a real-time overview of what is going on in your organisation. You can easily customize it by dragging and dropping the widgets that are the most important to you. Beware that the reporting options and the level of customization in Salesforce Lightning Professional, are dramatically better than the capabilities of Zoho. But then again, you get what you pay for.
Customer Support
We all need a little help now and again, so a high quality customer service is vital. Salesforce undoubtedly offer some of the best service on the market. They have stellar training programs included in both their free, standard and premium solutions. This means that no matter the price tag on your Salesforce package, you will still be able to use all of your features. They also have telephone support available from Monday to Friday, on a 24-hours basis – but this is only available for paying customers. Salesforce also have a large and active forum where users can discuss questions, problems and solutions amongst themselves.
Zoho also offer telephone support, but their level of service tend to receive a much lower ranking compared to that of Salesforce. They also offer forums for their users, but these are smaller and less active than those of Salesforce.
So, is Zoho or Salesforce better?
Well, that honestly depends. You see, comparing these CRM brands are not as straightforward as you might initially think. There are different versions available of both brands, and these come with different prices, different features and different target audiences.
As an example, both brands sport a Professional Edition and an Enterprise Edition. However, our inhouse IT experts can reveal that the closest thing to Salesforce Professional Edition is in fact Zoho’s Enterprise Edition. It’s therefore vital that you are aware of your business needs before you make an actual decision.
Salesforce is a good and stable CRM software for large companies with few budgetary concerns. It will smooth out your operations, and they provide an absolutely stellar customer support and learning opportunities. In short, it’s a robust and flexible solution that can take your already growing business even further.
Zoho is less sophisticated and robust, but it still makes a fabulous choice for smaller businesses who are either implementing their first CRM system or upgrading from a free version. It’s a software you can grow with.
Are you interested in ERP software instead? Read our review of NetSuite vs SAP here.
The best software depends on what aspect of them you want to compare. However, both of them are solid CRM systems – they’re just right for different organisations, that’s all. Are you still wondering which CRM is the right for you? Get in contact with one of CRM experts via the contact page. And don’t forget – our service is completely free of charge. So what are you waiting for?